For the average millionaire, a hot tub, a swimming pool, a tennis court – all of these are fairly common. But if you want to stand out in the Aspen crowd, maybe what you need is a polo field for your 5th home.
Jeffery Hildebrand is worth around $5,000,000,000. I say around, because he is the owner of Hilcorp, arguably the largest privately held oil company in America. With oil prices bouncing around like a jai lai pelota, who knows what he is actually worth at any given moment. But according to Forbes, it was $5.5 billion last year, and $4.5 billion now. So, whatever.
Although he’s Texan, born and bred (he received his BA and MS in Geology and Petroleum Sciences at UT/Austin, and gave generously to Rick Perry), he owns two homes just east of downtown Aspen, a ranch along Snowmass Creek, and the Windstar property. That “Windstar” property is significant; it is the 1000 acre homestead of the late John Denver, another Texas boy who made good and shared the wealth with Aspen.
Hildebrand apparently has a thing for horses. He gave $$$$ to found the Hildebrand Equine Complex at Texas A&M. Named for his father, a veterinarian, it is primarily an athletic facility for the Aggie’s women’s equestrian team, 11 time national champions. And, oh yeah, the cross country runners are allowed to use it as well.
Another one of his equine interests is polo. He’s apparently deep into the sport. His Valiente/Tonkawa team competes around the world. (He’s the one on the right holding the trophy). Imagine what is needed for a polo team: beyond simply the specially bred horses, their care and feeding, the facilities necessary for that, there is also the question of transporting them to competition, the size and care of a field on which to compete, and facilities to house the visiting horse/rider teams.
Apparently, Hildebrand aspires to not just own his own polo horse(s). He also needs to have a complex on which to train and compete. Where to find such a facility in the cramped quarters of the Roaring Fork?
When John Denver hit it big in the 70s, he was already a fixture in Aspen. I remember him playing at the Tower bar in Snowmass in the late 60s. He was rooted here, and made it his home, first in Starwood above McClain Flats, and later, creating the Windstar Foundation, with 1000 acres a bit downvalley along Snowmass Creek. Denver bought the ranch property so the Foundation could create “a place up in the mountains where people would come to develop a critical consciousness in regard to the earth.” For the next twenty years, until his ultra-light airplane crash, he made good on that vision. He hosted events aimed at educating young people about environmental issues. He partnered with the Rocky Mountain Institute, also in Old Snowmass, where Amory Louvins has labored for decades to marry economic growth with a reduced human footprint on the earth.
But after his death, the Foundation board was unable to sustain that program, especially when the value of the land crashed after the real estate boom of the mid ‘00s. Part of the death spiral started when Windstar’s neighbors, classic Aspen NIMBY millionaires, objected to expansion plans for the foundation on the property. Chastened, the board did not fight, fearing the battle would eat too deeply into their funds. The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) became the truly operative arm of the organization, but even they needed to downsize.
A couple of years ago, the Foundation had become a shell, and sought a way out, disbanding and dispersing assets to other more active groups. They sold off the land, which did allow the RMI to continue its work. They cut up the property into a 30 acre parcel which could be built on, and a 957 piece which was intended to remain undeveloped.
Hildebrand ended up with at least 300 acres of it. On an upper mesa above the already existing ranch home, earth movers started grading 45 acres of this grassland to a precisely level pitch, moving four times the volume of earth required to extend Aspen airport’s one runway 1,000 feet. Enough for a polo field (equal in size to 9 football fields), an associated half field for practice, and surrounding drainage and run off space (for the horses). All of this was not really visible from the road below, but was in plain sight from Watson Divide, the gravel route many residents use to get home from town.
When locals (through their local caucus) queried the county, all appeared to be in order. The land was zoned agricultural, and was allowed to be improved to aid in irrigation and drainage. Nothing was said about the ultimate purpose of the perfectly flat area; the contractor didn’t say, and the county didn’t ask. But a little wrinkle developed: what kind of seed was going in after the grading was complete? County regulations limit seed to an approved grass mix, or crop planting, such as alfalfa. Most folks, knowing Hildebrand’s proclivities, assumed the whole business was about polo. Some digging turned up a few polo experts who allowed as how Kentucky Bluegrass or similar fescue – both banned grasses in Pitkin County – would be the only species capable of standing up to the gouging polo horse would apply to the turf. And no permit for a variance to use such grasses had been requested. However, the county did allow as how, if polo were the purpose, why, then, that would be a permitted use – horses are, after all, animals which would normally be found on agricultural property.
And there the battle ended. Whatever Hildebrand planted, he never made public. And the complainers stopped complaining. One of them even went on to become a county commissioner. Another case of billionaires spreading so much money around, it’s hard to object to the dust they kick up as they do it.