aerial photo(top): Jay Janner for Austin American-Statesman
other photos: Robert Reck for Architectural Digest
Thursday, 11 April 2013
LOCATION: Austin, TX
PRICE: Unknown
SIZE: (total of) 9,439 square feet with 9.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Word on the Lonestar State's celebrity real estate gossip highway is that publicly disgraced cyclist and tireless cancer advocate Lance Armstrong has done sold his central Austin, TX estate for an (as yet) undisclosed amount of money to local oil and gas rights executive Al Koehler. The ever-so-sassy and chicly bespectacled Dallas-based property gossip Candy Evans reported earlier today on Candy's Dirt that the house was listed for around $10 million and the Austin American-Statesman revealed Mister Koehler took a $3.1 million mortgage out on the estate that the Travis County Tax Man set value at $3.9 million in 2012.
Property records show Mister Armstrong picked up the two-parcel property near Camp Mabry in 2004 in two separate transactions, both for an undisclosed amount of money. By our rudimentary and possibly inaccurate calculations the double gated mini-estate encompasses 1.7 landscaped acres and includes a 7,806 square foot Spanish Colonial main residence with an unknown number of bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms and airy living spaces sprinkled with works by top-flight artists such as Andres Serrano, Antonio Más and Danny Lyon.
Mister Armstrong had the recent vintage abode photographed for the July 2008 issue of Architectural Digest and in one of the lush images seven of Mister Armstrong's Tour de France jerseys are seen hung in the upstairs media/game room. We don't know if he was even allowed to keep them but Your Mama imagines Mister Armstrong won't be so keen to hang those things on the walls of his next house—or any house—as a constant reminder of his reputation ruining conduct and professional shame.
Additional living quarters in a detached structure total 1,633 square feet and include another two bathrooms according to the Travis County Tax Man. The extensively landscaped grounds encompass a couple of motor courts, garaging for at least five cars, broad lawns and lots of meticulously clipped trees and hedges. A open air poolside cabana has a fireplace and a lovely view down a path lined with slender Italian cypress trees.
Avid celebrity real estate watchers may recall that back in 2008 Mister Armstrong received a mountain of bad press because of the vast amounts of water consumption. In June 2008, according to various reports, Mister Armstrong used more than twice the amount of water used by an average Austin household for an entire year. His water bill that month was reported to be just over $1,612.
According to the Architectural Digest article, in addition to his Austin estate the tarred and feathered former superstar owns (or owned) homes in New York, Spain, the Bahamas and Dripping Springs, TX, about 45 minutes outside Austin. At about the time he was being publicly pilloried for his rapacious water usage in Austin Mister Armstrong hoisted Mirasol Ranch—his 450-ish acre river-front spread in scenically scrubby Dripping Springs—on the market with an asking price was $12,000,000. By the spring of 2011 the price tag had tumbled to $8,500,000 and the impressive spread with its 7-plus miles of biking and running trails was later taken off the (open) market. Although we're not 100% sure a careful read through property records suggest Mister Armstrong sold his ranch property in August 2011 for an undisclosed amount of money to a corporate entity easily linked to the CEO of a Carrollton, TX property management software concern.
In addition to all the above mentioned residences, property records indicate Mister Armstrong continues to own a 5,683 square foot residence with five bedrooms and six bathrooms in the celebrity playground of Aspen that he scooped up in October 2008 for $9,175,000.
