Manitou cuts deal to buy troublesome house on the hill

A 19-year battle over the house on the hill in Manitou Springs is over.

Tom McGee’s house on Iron Mountain, a prominent spot on the horizon in the scenic foothills town, angered many when he built it in 1991. It helped spur the creation of open-space taxes and has been the source of years of litigation.

Now, if Manitou Springs officials can come up with $1.1 million – and Mayor Marc Snyder said they are confident they will – the city has a deal to buy the house and the mountain for open space and end a saga going on since the George H. W. Bush Administration.

“This is really kind of the signature piece of open space for us,” Snyder said Wednesday. “It really is the property that kind of spurred us on to our open space program out here. That house that was built on Iron Mountain really led the community to say, ‘We’ve got to do something about this.’”

The house, he said, will be demolished and trails built on the 99 acres the city plans to buy on the 7,131-foot mountain.

McGee bought the land in 1989, but the city balked at extending utilities so he could sell it for houses. So he built the now-infamous home on the summit.

Snyder said the city and McGee had a tentative agreement 10 years ago to buy it for $1.2 million but McGee backed out. In 2006, McGee told The Gazette he would sell it for $1.5 million.

It was this weekend, on the eve of a trial over his efforts to build to build a driveway, that they reached an agreement. Manitou convened emergency city council meetings Sunday and Tuesday voted 6-0 to approve the purchase of the land. It was signed Wednesday afternoon by both parties.

According to Snyder, the deal requires the city to pay $350,000 for 17 acres by Sept. 30, $300,000 for 40 acres by Dec. 15 and $450,000 for the final 42 acres by July 15, 2012. If the city can’t make the payments, the deal is canceled and McGee gets road access to home sites, Snyder said.

He is confident the city can find a third party to buy the land and lease it to the city, which would funnel much of its $100,000 annual open space tax revenue to the property. Officials will also apply to Great Outdoors Colorado, which uses lottery funds for open space projects, for funding.

Will the house come down?

“I can give you an unqualified ‘yes’ on that. It will be a real boon to our community, a real source of pride,” he said.

McGee could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

Still unsettled is the legal saga over McGee’s neighbor, Stephen Beisel, who wants to develop 70 acres, has blocked trail access across his land and was also a party to the lawsuit. Trial is set for next month.

“We’re not headed to a settlement. There’s no chance for a settlement,” said Beisel, whose battle with the city dates to 1996 and includes a violent confrontation with Snyder, then a city councilman. “We have a very long history and there’s no settlement with me.”