In
my previous profile of William Koch
here I mentioned that in 2007 he began to purchase land in Beaver Creek
Colorado. Koch purchase land near the Ragged Mountains. Now Koch is actually
going to turn it into his own private wild west town complete with a saloon,
jail, church, firehouse, livery, train station and his own 21,000 square foot
house (a wing had to be removed so the house would not be “obtrusive”) as
detailed in the Denver Post here.
Koch already owns four properties in
Castle Creek Valley which include a 17,000 square foot home that he has turned
into a house. This house along with three other properties were purchased for
$51 million in 2007. Apparently, 1/3rd of the mansion will be
underground and be blocked by a hillside. I can only imagine the approval
process Koch had to go through to get this approved. Koch is also trying to
swap land in order to get more privacy. The trade would be the government would
get properties near Blue Mesa and in addition to this a Dinosaur National Park
while Koch would get a public swatch that would cut through his ranch. The house will be situated on top of a hill so
I guess Koch can oversee his creation. Forbes apparently now estimates William
Koch’s net worth to be close to $4 billion (I guess I didn’t get the memo on
the updated figure). William is the Koch
brother who enjoys collecting everything (art, memorabilia, houses, etc). He plans on moving his Western Art to this new
Western town. Koch’s wife claims that he
should be on hoarders since he does buy a lot of art work, wine, and use to
have some boats. In 2011, Koch paid $2.3 million for a photo of Billy the
Kid. Koch’s city however will not be
open to the public. If people buy something they should be able to decide how
it is used. Although, this Wild West town would be pretty cool. What is even
more interesting is that people seem to want to decide how to spend William
Koch’s money yet have not done the work needed to earn that money to make the
decisions he can make.
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