Alexa and Matt Armanino have had the perfect entertaining house.

It’s a short walk from Cherry Creek and its restaurant scene — a big family area blended with the kitchen and with indoor-outdoor living spaces, rooftop deck with firepit and mountain view, and a 1,500-bottle wine cellar reminding of a wine business they once owned in the Napa Valley.

They bought the house in The Estates on Cedar Avenue mid-pandemic, when a custom builder turned it over, still incomplete.

“It didn’t have cabinets yet, no plumbing, no landscape, and we were able to customize it,” said Alexa.

In addition to the wine cellar, they added a bar and a gym in the walkout basement, put a retreat off the master bedroom on the upper level, a wood burning pizza oven and a scullery off the kitchen, and arranged bedrooms and baths to work for two labradoodles and two near-grown sons. 

Sellers right-sizing

Now the two kids really are headed out for their own places, and the Cedar home is looking a tad big to them.

“We thought we needed the space but now we don’t,” she said.

That has the couple right-sizing into a home in Denver, hoping to retain the same privacy that they’ve appreciated in the Cedar enclave, during moments when they weren’t entertaining.

With the home coming on the market now at $7.3 million, Sotheby’s International broker Deviree Vallejo and her agent-partner Liz Richards will show it by appointment. The location, Vallejo said, comes with two market-defying assets — easy proximity to Cherry Creek North, and being set in an enclave (just eight homes) behind a gate.  

Gated enclave

“In central Denver there are not a lot of gated enclaves,” Vallejo said. “These days, the security is high on the needs list, especially for those who travel a lot.”

Like her sellers, Vallejo said the very contemporary architecture is an attraction, too.

“They were all done at the same time, but they did a really nice job on providing individuality and personality, while retaining a sense of cohesion and purpose,” she said.

Marketwise, Vallejo notes something that numbers of other agents specializing in the lofty end of the market are saying now — that despite the broader flatness of sales, the interest rates that are depressing national sales are less a factor for buyers at this price.

Centrality of Cherry Creek

“It will be a cash transaction, this buyer will be savvy, and they know that things will come back up,” Vallejo said. “People who are asset-heavy are not as susceptible to rates and the volatility.”

What is different now, she adds, is a higher likelihood that this home will appeal to someone local, rather than out of town.

“I track that very closely,” Vallejo said. “This year it has been more localized: buyers from Wash Park upsizing, or suburban buyers wanting to downsize closer in.”

Alexa Armanino said she expects their next home to have much of the seclusion they’ve enjoyed in the Cedar enclave, but that she’ll miss the centrality.

“Oh my gosh, with Cherry Creek you don’t have to go anywhere,” she said.