Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Rich MacDonald lists home for $8M
Estate sits on 2.4 acres in MacDonald Highlands
Rich MacDonald, the developer of MacDonald Highlands, has put his 2.4-acre, gated compound on the market.
Named The MacDonald Estate in the MLS listing, the one-story, 10,000-square-foot home sits on a bluff above the fairways at DragonRidge Country Club. The home is listed for $8 million through Kristen Routh-Silberman, a Realtor with Synergy/Sotheby’s International Realty.
It’s the second home built by Rich MacDonald and his wife, Claire, in MacDonald Highlands, and they’ve lived in it for 10 years. The homesite was a runner-up for the DragonRidge clubhouse, but didn’t have enough flat space for parking, MacDonald said.
The couple‘s previous home on MacDonald Ranch Drive measured more than 7,000 square feet, but the MacDonalds wanted something bigger at just over 10,000 square feet when they built it.
“It was designed to entertain and have a lot of functions and parties,” Rich MacDonald said. “It’s not a family house but one designed for adults that like to entertain. It’s probably going to be bought by an empty nester like us. It’s going to be someone who likes to entertain and someone who is very social, more than likely.”
The MacDonalds have made some changes to the house over the years to make it even a better place to entertain. They filled in the infinity-edge pool and created a concrete patio that MacDonald said “is big enough for 300 of your closest friends. You can have 400 to 500 people around here without batting an eye.”
The pool was placed at a lower
elevation on the property and has a patio and pool house as well, MacDonald said.
“It’s a comfortable place to sit out there and have cold beverages on a hot day and jump in and out of the pool and literally shoot pool in the pool house,” MacDonald said. “It’s kind of fun.”
The exterior includes a built-in kitchen with bar seating, fire features, built-in lounge and outdoor fireplace. MacDonald said he loves the architecture of the home, which is considered to be contemporary. He called it a cross between what you see in the Orient and Frank Lloyd Wright.
“We have a series of flying buttresses, which is a continuation of walls that cut through the house. These go outside onto the deck and there’s causeways underneath to cover it. It gives it an interesting feel, and it’s mostly all stone,” he said.
The master bedroom features a separate office, a spa bath with two closets, double vanities, a jetted tub, walk-in shower, gym space and a kitchenette. There’s also a separate office in the home and separate guest quarters with a kitchen.
With only three bedrooms, the rooms in the house are huge, MacDonald said. There’s a maid’s area with kitchenette and guest bedroom
that he said is “almost too comfortable. People don’t want to leave when they stay here.”
The great room is the biggest room in the house and has doors that slide open to the outside. It has a stone fireplace, sunken wet bar with lighted onyx counters.
The dining room has two glass sides and seats about a dozen people, he said. There’s a wine cellar as well.
The kitchen is outfitted with Wolf double ovens and a six-burner range with pot-filler, two warming drawers, double dishwashers and Subzero refrigerator and freezer. There are granite countertops, counter bar and custom backsplash. An adjacent prep kitchen adds additional storage and includes an oven and a dishwasher that leads to the formal dining room.
What MacDonald said he also likes about the design of the home is how much room there is on the outside. Some people like to cover much of their lot, but MacDonald said there’s “elbow room between you and your neighbors, but this house has a lot of room between it and the neighbors. And more so than most because it’s surrounded
by the golf course in the back.”
The home has a private gate and a lengthy driveway flanked by palm trees and a waterfall.