By E.B. Solomont
In Aspen, Colo., media mogul Byron Allen has paid $91.3 million for a Red Mountain estate in one of the priciest-ever deals for the tony ski area, property records show.
The seller is an entity tied to Andrew Lessman, who purchased the property for $10.5 million in 2007, property records show. Lessman, who founded the vitamin company that became ProCaps Laboratories, built the contemporary-style house around 2012.
The home wasn't on the market. It measures roughly 13,400 square feet with 10 bedrooms, property records show.
Allen didn't respond to requests for comment. He is the founder of Allen Media Group, which owns the Weather Channel and more than 30 network affiliate broadcast channels. In May, it acquired the digital-media company BuzzFeed for $120 million.
Allen has homes in Malibu, Calif., and New York City. In 2024, he sold a contemporary mansion in Aspen for $ 60 million -- more than double the $27 million he paid four years prior.
In another recent big-ticket deal for Aspen, a Red Mountain estate owned by the late arts patron Melva Bucksbaum has sold for $37 million, records show. The buyer is an entity tied to Gabriel Gilinski, a son of Colombian banking billionaire Jaime Gilinski Bacal, according to records. Bucksbaum's family didn't respond to requests for comment, and Gilinski declined to comment.
Bucksbaum, who died in 2015, was the widow of Martin Bucksbaum, co-founder of mall giant General Growth Properties. The roughly 9,170-square-foot home is set on 1.65 acres; it was first listed for $23.5 million in 2019. It came back on the market for $54.9 million in 2025 and was most recently asking $39.6 million, according to Zillow.
The current Aspen record was set in 2024, when former casino mogul Steve Wynn and financier Thomas Peterffy jointly purchased a mansion overlooking downtown for $108 million.
As of April, the number of home sales in Aspen was down 30% from April 2025, according to data collected by real-estate broker Tim Estin, who tracks the market. The median price for a single-family home was $15 million during the first quarter of the year, down about 18% year over year, according to the Estin Report.
The Aspen market for homes between $10 million to $30 million has been somewhat quiet, although the upper end of the market remains active, said Riley Warwick of Douglas Elliman, who wasn't involved in either deal.
Last year, billionaire industrialist Bill Koch listed his lodge property, about 10 miles from downtown Aspen, for $ 125 million. After he cut the price to $99 million, it is slated to be sold at auction in July.
Mandy Welgos of Aspen Snowmass Sotheby's International Realty brokered Allen's recent purchase. She didn't respond to requests for comment. Lex Tarumianz, also of Sotheby's, had the listing for Bucksbaum's home, while Wendalin Whitman of Whitman Fine Properties represented Gilinski.
Write to E.B. Solomont at eb.solomont@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 01, 2026 20:20 ET (00:20 GMT)
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