SALT LAKE CITY — Race-car driver and money manager Hal Prewitt bought Mitt Romney's ski house at Deer Valley Resort for "a little less" than the asking price of $5.25 million, his agent said Tuesday.
"It's beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous, very tastefully and artfully decorated," Prewitt, 54, of Miami Beach, said Tuesday from the 9,500-square-foot house. "He wanted to sell and I wanted to buy, so it wasn't difficult to come to an agreement."
Romney also has a tentative buyer for his suburban Boston house, his spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said Tuesday. The 6,400-square-foot Colonial on 2.5 acres in Belmont is expected to fetch about $3 million.
The Romneys plan to keep a $10 million summer home on the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro, N.H. and a $12 million beachfront compound in La Jolla, Calif.
The sale of the Utah and Boston homes has been described by political analysts as a way for Romney to prepare for another presidential race without having to explain why he owns excess real estate — the issue that brought ridicule on rival Republican candidate John McCain last fall.
Fehrnstrom has said Romney and his wife, who raised five sons in Boston, are simply "downsizing and simplifying."
Prewitt said he was happy to buy the Utah house from Romney on March 27. He moved in the next day, ending an eight-year search for a perfect vacation home near a Rocky Mountain ski resort.
"I love it. It's fantastic," he said. "We'll use it as a launching pad for winter recreation."
He described negotiations with Romney as cordial and said Romney knew exactly how much real estate was worth in the Park City area.
His real-estate agent, Carlyle Morris, said nothing mattered more to Prewitt than a place with views, privacy and a prime location.
"We showed him a lot of other places, but if he could see a rooftop (of another house), he didn't like it," Morris said.
The Romney house, on a dead-end street, fit the bill. It was on market for about two months.
Prewitt on Tuesday was busy updating the home electronics for high-definition television and wireless Internet. He'll be able to manipulate video and audio controls using an iPhone, he said.
