- It is so pretty.
We should be on the mountain right now.
- Yeah.
I think it would be awesome to like start a homestead.
- Yeah.
- Growing our own food and have chickens.
We get eggs and have a cow for milk.
- Just for milk though.
I can't.
- We could butcher something.
- Oh, sounds awful.
- The boys could do it.
- No.
What do you think?
10, 15?
- We need at least 10 acres to have enough space
to have the freedom to do whatever we want.
- The Rocky Mountains might just be
America's most distinctive natural feature.
And it's hard to argue against them
also being the most breathtaking.
The Rockies run right through Western Colorado.
Here people have a special appreciation
for the panoramic views
they're privileged to enjoy every day.
And this is where you'll find the little town of Silt.
It's an unassuming gateway to all the big outdoor fun
Colorado has to offer.
Bordered by thousands of acres of land,
you can live among the elk, deer, foxes,
and the black bears.
Just keep your distance from the bears.
Now, drive an hour east,
and you're in an off-road biking paradise at Bocco mountain,
which features 18 miles of trails
to challenge even the most extreme among us.
Or if water is your thing,
you've got the Eagle River Recreation Area nearby
where you can go whitewater rafting
or tie a fly to your hook and try to catch some dinner.
The great outdoors are at your fingertips here,
which is why housing prices have risen by 16%
in the last year alone.
But that isn't discouraging home buyers Dan and Susie
who think this area is the perfect place
to find a dream home for their large family.
(bright music)
- Is this gonna feel country?
Are we gonna be far enough out
that it's gonna feel like it's country?
- I'm Susie.
- I'm Dan,
and we are looking for our dream home in Western Colorado
where we can live with our 12 children.
- [Brody] Well, we're definitely getting up here.
- Yeah.
- The views are super pretty.
- For us, the goal of our dream property
is to have our family stay close to us.
We want our family
to be able to like live on the land with us.
- A homestead that will stand the test of time
that, you know, grandchildren and their children
and children, like a legacy.
We want to pass on a pretty amazing legacy to our kids.
- Don't really see any houses.
- Nope.
And that's always a plus.
- [Dan] One benefit of this though,
is it means that nobody cares what you do up here.
- Yes, exactly.
That's always a good sign to me.
- One of the things that we're really looking for
in the land is to be able to ride our dirt bikes,
shoot on our gun range.
- Yeah, get as crazy as we can.
- We're a crazy family,
and we really like to have a lot of fun together.
- Yeah.
- [Dan] Plus this dream is really not just our dream,
but it's our family's dream.
- Right, and we want it to work for everybody.
- Travis Cox is our real estate agent,
and he helped us sell our last house,
and he's going to help us find our dream home.
- Welcome here.
- Travis.
This place looks sweet.
- [Travis] It's a big one.
- [Susie] So do you walk up the steps to the kitchen?
- You have to walk up the steps
to get to the main living area.
- [Susie] Kind of a drag
when you've got a thousand grocery bags.
- Yeah, but you've got a bunch of kids that can carry them.
We have a joke with the Kelloggs that they are a nuisance.
Wherever they move, they are a nuisance,
and they don't mind saying that.
So we're looking for properties
that pretty much don't have any rules
outside of what the county says they can and can't do.
- [Susie] Oh, wow, this is pretty.
- [Dan] Oh, wow.
- [Travis] So 3,700 square feet.
- [Susie] How many bedrooms?
- Four bedrooms, three baths.
- How many acres?
- Eight acres.
- We want at least a 3,500 square foot house.
We need at least four bedrooms with 9 of our 12 kids.
- We want all of it under a million.
- Our initial price point was the 850,
what we sold our old house for.
But we're realizing as we've been doing the search
that we have to push that a little bit higher.
So we've set our budget at 1 million to find our dream home.
And we're hoping we can find all of those things
for under a million.
(slow music)
- I like the floors.
They're really pretty.
Nicely done.
Is this gas?
- This is a pellet stove.
You've got these pallets in here and it has a fan
and a motor and it drops them down in there.
This can burn really hot.
- So then they use this for heating.
- Yeah.
- [Susie] So this is the dining room.
- Well, I definitely don't think
this table's big enough for us all.
And I don't even think you could fit a bigger table in.
- We brought Brody and Kenny with us
because their input is really important.
- Well, how big is your dining table?
- Well, it seats 14.
- Yeah.
- 14.
(bright music)
- Shower.
- Holy smokes.
- [Kenny] Wow.
- [Brody] Come look at this.
- Just look at this. - Come on,
hang out in the pantry with us.
- We need a pantry like this.
- [Travis] Okay.
- [Susie] Nice big kitchen.
We could cook a lot of good meals in here.
- Double ovens.
That's nice.
- [Susie] That's awesome for us and when you have company.
- Definitely do that.
- Good Christmas dinner.
I think I noticed Dan before he noticed me.
We were at Virginia Tech at college
and he pulled up on a motorcycle
and I was just like, hubba hubba.
You know, turned to my best friend.
I was like, "Who's that guy?"
And she's like, "I don't know."
Confident me walked up to him,
and I was like, "Hey, what's up?"
And we started talking.
And then a couple hours later we knocked on their door
'cause it had been raining and stuff.
And we were like, "Hey, you wanna play football?"
And they were probably like, "What?
"Yeah, I guess."
And it turned into this huge like wrestling match
in the mud and stuff and it was awesome.
And from then on like totally inseparable.
- A girl that mud wrestles.
I was hooked.
- [Travis] Look at that range, Susie.
- Oh my gosh.
This is like serious restaurant grade.
It'd be so nice.
So nice.
After graduation, we moved up to Northern Virginia
back to where I was from.
We got married and had kids super young.
And Dan was worried.
He hated D.C.
Thought he was gonna get shot.
You know, the country boy sitting in this big city.
Every day he'd ask, "Can we move?
"Can we move?
"Can we move?"
We've lived the city life for long enough.
And it's time now to chill and be who we are.
- We took off for Colorado then with five kids in tow
and never looked back.
- Yeah.
- [Travis] Okay, so this is the master bedroom.
- [Susie] Woo, this is nice.
- Wow, this is really big. - Oh, is that a wood stove?
- [Travis] That is a gas stove.
- I's nice.
This is huge.
And the views out of all these windows,
you guys, look at these views.
- I think the first year we were married, I made like $9,000
and I've worked like nine different jobs.
This is an awesome master bedroom.
I've worked my way up to getting better and better jobs.
And then I've worked my up to getting my software business.
- [Travis] Well, why don't you guys go down
and take a look at the basement.
- It's nice and open.
You don't feel restricted. - I like carpet on the stairs.
- Oh, wow, look at this bar.
You could fit eight people around this easy.
It's a good homeschooling bar.
- [Travis] Yeah, you could use it for that.
- So we've been homeschooling our kids for a while,
but as they've gotten older,
I've started to teach them coding.
- It's something that Dan's always wanted
to have a family business.
And to see that come to fruition now is kind of cool.
Oh, this is a nice bright bedroom.
- [Dan] Yeah.
It's really not very big though.
- We need multiple kids in a room.
And so I don't think you could fit two bunk beds,
which is what we really need.
(bright music)
- Well, Susie, what do you think of this property?
It's got four bedrooms, really nice basement.
And the upstairs, the main family room area
kind of seems a little small.
Doesn't feel like we could gather our whole family there.
- [Susie] And the dining area.
It's not conducive to 14 plus people.
The master bedroom is enormous.
Kitchen's beautiful.
- Got a really big shop.
Need the shop for the kids to do all their builds
and the cars and motorcycles and stuff.
Price is a little bit high.
It's a little out of our budget.
We got all that equity from our last house.
We gotta make sure we're investing it
into the perfect house.
- Our dream home. - Gotta find our dream home.
- Right.
- Do you think we'd be able to ride dirt bikes here?
The land looks like it's a lot on the side of the mountain.
And like I'm not sure
if you'd be able to shoot guns here either.
We got a couple more properties to look at.
- Oh, yeah.
I've got some good ones for you.