Look Inside JonBenét Ramsey’s Colorado Murder Home, Now Listed for $7M

The Colorado home where 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was found murdered in 1996 is back on the market for the sixth time, this time with an extensive remodel in hopes that potential buyers can look past the property’s gruesome past.

On Dec. 26, 1996, Ramsey, an outgoing child who won several prominent beauty pageants including Little Miss Colorado, was found dead in the basement of her Boulder family home. She was the daughter of John and Patsy Ramsey, and had one brother, Burke, 7. JonBenét had been bound and strangled. The case still remains unsolved.

The home, located at 749 15th St. in Boulder, is listed by Realtors Jeffery Erickson and Ryan McIntosh of LIV Sotheby’s International Real Estate for $6.95 million. The 1927 Tudor has 7,571 square feet with five bedrooms, five full-bathrooms, and three half-bathrooms.

From the listing

Stately and modernized 1920’s Tudor estate in an epic Boulder location, on three lots, stunning curb appeal with amazing Flatiron views. 7240 sq. ft. of elegant living areas, impressive rooms with east, south & west exposure filling the home with natural light.

Luxurious gourmet kitchen, catering kitchen, mature landscaping, expansive brick patio, gorgeous gardens, towering trees, gated for privacy. Within walking distance to CU and Chautauqua Park – outstanding hiking & world class concerts.

Relax in the 1141 sq. ft. top floor penthouse primary suite with two full baths, fireplace, intricate millwork, incredible Flatiron & City views. Second floor features 4 bedrooms, two en-suite and one w/ private deck, game room with large terrace and full bath. Spacious lower level w/ stone accents, media room, wet bar, wine cellar, fireplace and half bath.

Surrounded by luxury homes, a beautiful stroll to Pearl Street shops, restaurants, CU & easy access to Denver. An impressive Boulder estate with timeless appeal in an unbeatable location.”

A Tour of the Home

The impressive Tudor was built in 1927 and has undergone several expansions through the years, including a large third-floor expansion by the Ramsey family. Today, the 7,571-square-foot home has three stories plus a finished basement. The home sits on a quarter-acre, made of three lots, in the affluent Boulder neighborhood of University Hill. UC-Boulder is in walking distance.

The home sits on a particularly verdant block of 15th Street with some of the larger homes on the block sheltered from streetview by trees and mature landscaping.

The yard is enclosed with a brick and wrought-iron gated fence — an addition made after the Ramseys sold the home. In years following the sale, the home was well-hidden behind dense shrubbery and overgrown trees, Google street views show. The landscaping has been trimmed back to reveal the steep roofline with a classic Tudor curvature at the bottom, layered open gables, and a red brick facade.

Inside the foyer and living room, which has extensive crown molding and what look to be original chandelier fixtures, you’ll find an updated interior and traditional-transitional design elements. The living room is large enough to accommodate a main living area plus smaller vignette seating. These additional living areas offer natural light and views of the maturely landscaped quarter-acre property through the banks of leaded glass windows.

Located off the large living room, there’s a solarium, a breakfast room that’s being used as an intimate seating area, and a formal dining room with interior French doors.

The dining room connects to the kitchen with black antiqued cabinets that contrast against the tan brick backsplash with pot filler and professional-grade stainless steel appliances. A center island features a vegetable washing sink station and bar seating. A second sink centers the granite countertop with cafe-style plantation shutters. 

The second floor features four bedrooms, including one — JonBenét’s former room — that has private balcony access. This floor also features a game room with a large terrace and a full bathroom.

As the listing points out, the brick and stucco home has a spacious 1,141-square-foot “penthouse primary suite” that encompasses the entire top floor. A pair of four-pane picture windows flank a fireplace. It features his and hers bathrooms and a large closet with boutique-style clothing displays, built-in shelves, and soft natural light from a pair of small windows.

Where JonBenét Ramsey Was Found

The Boulder home, of course, is a so-called stigmatized property — the scene of a violent crime that captured America’s attention, which may make it more difficult to sell.

JonBenét Ramsey, the precocious child beauty queen, was violently murdered between Christmas night and the morning after Christmas and left in the unfinished basement of her family home.

Her body was discovered when Boulder Police responded to Patsy’s 9-1-1 call that her daughter had been kidnapped. Patsy found an unusually lengthy 3-page ransom note at the bottom of a spiral staircase and believed an intruder took JonBenét Ramsey from the home. The open spiral staircase descends from the second floor near JonBenét‘s bedroom to the first floor in the rear of the home, a floor plan shows. The property listing does not show the infamous spiral staircase in its slideshow, but is visible on the listing’s Virtual Tour video.

Patsy and family representatives were talking to police and detectives in the main floor living room when John discovered his daughter’s body in a rarely used room of the basement used for storage and recreation. There was a broken window in the basement, which Boulder Police investigated whether an intruder could have entered the home from this set of basement windows.

While many of the home’s hallmarks — the spiral staircase, the checkered floors, and the basement windows that crime buffs would recognize from crime photos — remain the same, the home has also been updated.

When the Ramseys owned the home, the basement that contained the boiler room, laundry room, and open storage space was largely unfinished. Now, the basement features stone arched columns, wood ceiling beams, a fireplace, a small wine cellar with built-in wine storage, a half-bath, and a bar.

The Ramseys moved out of the home immediately after the murder, and sold it to an investor group for $650,000, who pledged to resell it and donate profits to the JonBenét Ramsey Children’s Foundation.

Several Colorado news outlets have reported that the windowless portion of the basement by the boiler room where JonBenét’s body was found has been walled off and is no longer accessible.

Seller’s Disclosure

It’s general practice that an “unnatural death” be mentioned on the Seller’s Disclosure forms, but is not a requirement in Colorado. In fact, Colorado adopted a statute that excuses sellers of residential real estate and their brokers from having to disclose certain facts that may psychologically stigmatize real property. Examples include whether the home was the site of a murder, suicide, or felony, and interestingly, “an occupant of real property is or was suspected to be infected with HIV, or diagnosed with AIDS or any other disease determined by medical science to be highly unlikely to be transmitted through the occupancy of a dwelling.”

In June 2001, the Boulder home’s address was changed from 755 15th Street to 749 15th Street, hoping to shed the home’s macabre past. But it did not deter a continuous stream of onlookers and sight-seers who would stop and sometimes take pictures in front of the house’s gated exterior.

New Ownership

Finally in 2004, Carol Schuller Milner — daughter of televangelist Robert Schuler — and her husband Timothy bought the murder home for $1.05 million. Reportedly tired of the morbid tourism traffic shuffling past their home, they returned to California a few years later, Boulder’s alternative weekly Westword reported.

The Milners tried listing the home in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2013 before listing the home this week, this time with a Colorado office of Sotheby’s International Realty. Since it was listed on Wednesday, it’s received 11,000 views on Zillow. By the weekend, it had received 80,000 views.

But in 2006, Carol Milner said she believed the right owner will be able to look past the home’s history.

“There’s no doubt that some people will be put off by the home’s history,” Milner told the Wall Street Journal. “I really believe that, like we did, the people who ultimately buy this home will simply appreciate the property and not worry too much about all the headlines.”

Jeffery Erickson and Ryan McIntosh have listed 749 15th Street in Boulder for $6.95 million.