ENGLEWOOD, Colo. - When you walk in the door of the Cherry Hills Village that was, for a time, the home of then-Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer, you're struck by the most dramatic view in the house
The picture-perfect living room, its massive white stone fireplace that stretches 25 feet to the ceiling, the grand piano set before a circle of windows, through which you see the crystal blue swimming pool surrounded by a ring of cypress trees.
Plummer, who now lives in a much smaller home in Idaho, was struck by it too on a recent trip to Denver when he saw his home for the first time after its exhaustive remodel.
"That's not my house," he said. "It's the same structure, but it's a completely different house. It doesn't look or feel a thing like what it was when I was living there."
Of course, for Plummer, who retired from the NFL in 2006 after ending an 11-year career following his fourth season with the Broncos, the problem is that this cavernous mansion still is his house, whether he remembers it or not.
"We put it on the market two years ago and after a while it just became obvious that it wasn't going to sell," said Lisa Lopez, the realtor whose overseen the home's transition from a sprawling Tudor-style mansion symbolic of 1980s excess -- it had only two bedrooms but abundant cocktail space, replete with pastel walls and ornate golden chandeliers -- to a seven-bedroom modern home with more modern, practical amenities.
"You should have seen it before we started. It was straight out of [the TV show] 'Dynasty'," Lopez said. "It was a great place for hosting parties. Now it's a home."
Plummer, who said he liked the home's retro decor when he lived there, especially the gold-plated swan figurines that spat water into his pastel blue, marble-enclosed bathtub, partnered, at Lopez's urging, with a company called Selling Solutions to redesign and remodel the home so it would be more marketable in today's environment.
"We're looking at maximizing the space in a house, making it more livable, more functional," said Terri Gallmeier with Selling Solutions. "People want to come in and see function in a house, and this house didn't have good function."
The biggest change came in the space just off the living room, where Gallmeier decided to move the kitchen further back into the house and install a living space in its place.
"There just wasn't the warmth and congruity that you want for the family to really live in this space," she said.
Now, a long kitchen island unites the cooking area with the sitting space where it's now easy to imagine children reading on the plush sofa, or watching the giant flat-screen television that hangs above a new fireplace, while adults linger in the connected kitchen preparing lunch or dinner.
But the home hasn't just become more functional. It's become more sustainable as well, with the addition of energy-saving appliances and new fixtures and furnishings that incorporate recycled materials.
"That's one of the challenges we had from [Plummer]: how do you create a multi-million-dollar remodel and still be kind to the environment?" Lopez said. "And it's not just us using cabinets made from salvaged wood. But we took all the cabinets and bricks out of here from the old house, we made sure they were being reused and recycled as well."
Bricks and cabinets were sold or donated to Habitat for Humanity. And the stuff left over went on eBay, including those gold-plated swans.
"I saw them and just thought, wow, someone is going to like these," said Kellie Mills, whose company, Greencycling Homes, salvages a range of items from homes undergoing remodeling or renovation projects and sells them so they can be re-used by other contractors and homeowners. "It's such a shame to see beautiful cabinets and floors and bath hardware just end up thrown away, so I try to salvage whatever I can."
Plummer is glad the pieces of his old home won't be sitting in a landfill.
"It's just a really large house, and it's going to use a lot of energy," he said. "But being able to re-use a lot of that stuff made me feel better about having a house like that."
There's still no guarantee that the money invested in the remodel will pay dividends for Plummer, or Selling Solutions, which put up most of the cash, once the home is sold (it's listed now at $3.8 million, down just last month from the previous asking price of $4.6 million). But, Plummer thinks the home is now more sellable.
"I think in what we've done with this home, we've been pretty good stewards of our community and of the larger environment," he said.
.
The picture-perfect living room, its massive white stone fireplace that stretches 25 feet to the ceiling, the grand piano set before a circle of windows, through which you see the crystal blue swimming pool surrounded by a ring of cypress trees.
Plummer, who now lives in a much smaller home in Idaho, was struck by it too on a recent trip to Denver when he saw his home for the first time after its exhaustive remodel.
"That's not my house," he said. "It's the same structure, but it's a completely different house. It doesn't look or feel a thing like what it was when I was living there."
Of course, for Plummer, who retired from the NFL in 2006 after ending an 11-year career following his fourth season with the Broncos, the problem is that this cavernous mansion still is his house, whether he remembers it or not.
"We put it on the market two years ago and after a while it just became obvious that it wasn't going to sell," said Lisa Lopez, the realtor whose overseen the home's transition from a sprawling Tudor-style mansion symbolic of 1980s excess -- it had only two bedrooms but abundant cocktail space, replete with pastel walls and ornate golden chandeliers -- to a seven-bedroom modern home with more modern, practical amenities.
"You should have seen it before we started. It was straight out of [the TV show] 'Dynasty'," Lopez said. "It was a great place for hosting parties. Now it's a home."
Plummer, who said he liked the home's retro decor when he lived there, especially the gold-plated swan figurines that spat water into his pastel blue, marble-enclosed bathtub, partnered, at Lopez's urging, with a company called Selling Solutions to redesign and remodel the home so it would be more marketable in today's environment.
"We're looking at maximizing the space in a house, making it more livable, more functional," said Terri Gallmeier with Selling Solutions. "People want to come in and see function in a house, and this house didn't have good function."
The biggest change came in the space just off the living room, where Gallmeier decided to move the kitchen further back into the house and install a living space in its place.
"There just wasn't the warmth and congruity that you want for the family to really live in this space," she said.
Now, a long kitchen island unites the cooking area with the sitting space where it's now easy to imagine children reading on the plush sofa, or watching the giant flat-screen television that hangs above a new fireplace, while adults linger in the connected kitchen preparing lunch or dinner.
But the home hasn't just become more functional. It's become more sustainable as well, with the addition of energy-saving appliances and new fixtures and furnishings that incorporate recycled materials.
"That's one of the challenges we had from [Plummer]: how do you create a multi-million-dollar remodel and still be kind to the environment?" Lopez said. "And it's not just us using cabinets made from salvaged wood. But we took all the cabinets and bricks out of here from the old house, we made sure they were being reused and recycled as well."
Bricks and cabinets were sold or donated to Habitat for Humanity. And the stuff left over went on eBay, including those gold-plated swans.
"I saw them and just thought, wow, someone is going to like these," said Kellie Mills, whose company, Greencycling Homes, salvages a range of items from homes undergoing remodeling or renovation projects and sells them so they can be re-used by other contractors and homeowners. "It's such a shame to see beautiful cabinets and floors and bath hardware just end up thrown away, so I try to salvage whatever I can."
Plummer is glad the pieces of his old home won't be sitting in a landfill.
"It's just a really large house, and it's going to use a lot of energy," he said. "But being able to re-use a lot of that stuff made me feel better about having a house like that."
There's still no guarantee that the money invested in the remodel will pay dividends for Plummer, or Selling Solutions, which put up most of the cash, once the home is sold (it's listed now at $3.8 million, down just last month from the previous asking price of $4.6 million). But, Plummer thinks the home is now more sellable.
"I think in what we've done with this home, we've been pretty good stewards of our community and of the larger environment," he said.
.
