Feature in the Denver Post

Builder Dennis King will show you something Saturday, Jan. 18, that you’re not going to find anywhere else within 45 minutes of Denver: a good-looking three-bedroom ranch with a full-wide three-car garage sized high for a crew-cab truck on 2 acres — about 17 times bigger than sites most builders are showing now.

The price is $550,000 — the same as for a typical new ranch on a tiny site after some finish choices are tacked on and well below what finished ranches are going for in premium Denver areas close in.

At Pelican Lake Ranch, 15 miles east of I-25’s Longmont/Firestone exit, buyers can still find situations like that: some homes ready soon and sites from as low as the $80,000s where you could create a customized version.

“If I put this house in Castle Rock, it would be $150,000 more,” says King, whose company, King Family Homes, is based in Kersey.

 There are a lot of people out there looking to get out of the city onto some land; it’s a trend right now,” King said, showing me the special features you’ll see on that home, including 9-foot ceilings, a family room with an indoor-outdoor fireplace facing the patio, engineered laminate plank floors, a master suite with his-and-her walk-in closets and a shoe closet, a full basement for future expansion, and a nice kitchen where he’s hidden a walk-in pantry. 

 The very smallest homesite at Pelican Lake Ranch is 1½ acres, notes sales/marketing director Tina Wernsman, who will show you that ranch home Saturday, Jan. 18. All homes are accompanied by a range of master-planned amenities that you’d see in a mega-community with homes on tract-sized sites, including a community pool club, a park, tennis courts, riding arena, round pin, 8 miles of horse riding trails, plus a stocked fishing lake.

Pelican Lake Ranch residents pay less for those features than you’re probably paying in HOA fees at large-scale communities closer in. Pelican Lake’s HOA fee currently runs only $300 per year. And all homes are on a community water system and receive district water, gas, electric and paved streets.

Dennis King says he sees plenty of demand from buyers who need more elbow room, anxious to put new-home features together with a lower density surrounding, while still getting the amenities that new communities provide.

On your first trip up to Pelican Lake Ranch, take I-25 to Colorado 66 (the second Longmont exit) and head east. If your job is centered in Denver, on later trips you might shorten the route by heading up I-76 to the Hudson exit.

• What: Pelican Lake Ranch, custom/semi-custom community with 1- to 3-plus-acre sites; tour a ranch ready to deliver now; new homesites open; pool, clubhouse, tennis, equestrian trails, lake; low HOA.
• Where: 16502 Beebe Draw Farms Pkwy, Platteville; take I-25 north to Exit 243, Colorado 66, east 8 miles to U.S. 85, north 1 mile to County 32, east 6 mi to County 39; north 1.5 mile to entryway at Beebe Pkwy.
• Price: From mid-$400s, lots from $85,000, move now $550,000
• When: Open Saturday, Jan. 18, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m.
• Phone: 970-590-1419
• More Info: PelicanLakeRanch.com