Sweet And Salty: Estate With Posh Ice Cream Parlor And A Jail Hits Market

Robert Levine, who founded Cabletron and was one of the tech giants to emerge in the 1990s, just listed his custom Colorado mansion for $44.2 million.

The 50,000-square-foot mega mansion, which Levine built after retiring from tech in 1997, was designed with the tech mogul’s unique style in mind, according to the New York Post. Levine had a habit of wearing ostrich-skin boots and once used an armored tank to chase away a pizza delivery worker. Along with eight bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, the estate boasts an ice cream parlor, guest suites modeled after the Wild West and a suite that looks like a jail.

The house itself is a stylish mansion full of glass and stone. A 200-foot steel bridge overlooking the Rocky Mountains’ Sawatch mountain range leads out of the property and into the forest. While Vail has some of the highest land prices in the country, Levine’s property is as spacious as they come, boasting 250 acres of land bordering a national forest that includes a trout pond, a playground and trails for hiking in the summer and snowmobiling in the winter.

Robert Levine, who founded Cabletron and was one of the tech giants to emerge in the 1990s, just listed his custom Colorado mansion for $44.2 million.

The 50,000-square-foot mega-mansion, which Levine built after retiring from tech in 1997, was built in fitting with the tech giant’s unique tastes.

Along with eight bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, the estate has an ice cream parlor, guest suites modeled after the Wild West as well as one guest suite made to look like a pretend prison.

The house itself is a stylish mansion full of glass and stone. A 200-foot steel bridge leads out of the property and into the forest overlooking the forest and Rocky Mountains’ Sawatch mountain range.

While Vail has some of the highest land prices in the country, Levine’s property is as spacious as they came — 250 acres of land border a national forest and come with a trout pond, a playground as well as ample trails for hiking in the summer and snowmobiling in the winter.

Along with the house itself, Levine created a 28,000-square-foot “amenities lodge” with a five-story rock climbing wall, an indoor shooting range, a teppanyaki dining area, a gym and massage spa, an Olympic-sized pool and a hot tub.

Right before his retirement in 1997, Levine bought the land the current estate sits on for $3.32 million and spent the next four years building it out to be so amenity-rich as to almost resemble an amusement park.

Barbara Scrivens and Maria Nobrega of LIV Sotheby’s International Realty are now the real estate agents trying to find a buyer to take over the sprawling estate.

In 1983, Levine founded Cabletron alongside Craig Brenson — the company was an early manufacturer of ethernet and other networking equipment necessary to make the internet.

Levine would then emerge as one of the early tech moguls of the 1990s — Forbes Magazine estimated his worth to be at around $625 million in 2001.

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
9. 
10. 

One of the rooms is a retro-style ice cream parlor with marble countertops and sleek cone and topping holders on the table. A part of outside grounds have been recreated to look like a Wild West town, complete with a shooting range, a model sheriff’s office and even a jail cell as one of the rooms. Along with the house itself, Levine created a 28,000-square-foot “amenities lodge” with a five-story rock climbing wall, an indoor shooting range, a teppanyaki dining area, a gym and massage spa, an Olympic-sized pool and a hot tub.

Right before his retirement in 1997, Levine bought the land the estate sits on for $3.32 million and spent the next four years building it out with amenities. Barbara Scrivens and Maria Nobrega of LIV Sotheby’s International Realty are the listing agents for the estate.

Alongside Craig Brenson, Levine founded Cabletron in 1983. The company was an early manufacturer of ethernet and other networking equipment necessary to make the internet. Levine would then emerge as one of the early tech moguls of the 1990s — Forbes Magazine estimated his worth to be at around $625 million in 2001. More recently, Levine was in the news in 2019 after Bank of America Merrill Lynch agreed to pay him $40 million as a settlement in response to his allegations that one of its brokers “churned” him by making poor investment recommendations to receive commissions.

Email Veronika Bondarenko