The Logans since have collected independently, buying from artists they have met. "If artists see you spend the time to go their studios, look at their work and engage them in dialogue," says Kent, "then they’re going to feel better about saying to a dealer, ‘This should go to so-and-so’s collection.’ I have the opportunity to create a collection that really is a snapshot of a society through time."

Many of the Logans’ acquisitions lean toward art that is provocative and stimulates reaction and contemplation. "We’ve never been afraid of edginess," says Kent. "Damien Hirst is about death, therefore life, and so is Katharina Fritsch. If you don’t want to look at death as part of life, then it does come out dark, but let’s face it: Contemporary art is art on the edge and always has been."

"When the Impressionists painted, somebody said that pregnant women should not look at these works because they might cause them to miscarry," Vicki says. "Everything was contemporary once, everything was edgy once."

The Logans have always been ahead of the market. In 2000 in Berlin, they bought a work by Franz Ackermann, known as the art world’s urban nomad, and one by the stylish and cool Thomas Scheibitz when no one knew their work. They bought the sometimes cryptic work of the contemporary German painter Neo Rauch, who recently had a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. "We bought Rauch when one cost $20,000. Now it’s worth more than $500,000," says Kent. There were, of course, the ones that got away, like a 12-foot-square Hirst spot painting that was available for $40,000, which Kent turned down because he already owned a Hirst of that size. Today that same painting would cost more than $1 million. Earlier in their collecting career, the Logans saw a Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe for $1 million. "I balked and didn’t buy it," says Kent. "Today it would probably go for $15 million to $20 million. I wish we could have bought 10 more Warhols. The prices in the mid to late ’90s were a fraction of what they are today."

After Kent retired in the late ’90s, the Logans relocated from San Francisco to Vail, Colorado, where they had married atop a mountain in 1985, and built the contemporary house to showcase some of their art. "We built an 11-foot-diagonal front door to make sure I could get a Damien Hirst spot painting through," says Vicki. They also bought a neighboring lot to build a 7,500-square foot private gallery with 124-foot ceilings. Presently there are more than 100 artworks in the house and 150 in the gallery.

"The art is central to our lives," says Vicki, "and one of our challenges is to interact with it so it’s not just a rectangle on the wall that you walk by every day. We change what’s in the gallery, but we don’t change what’s in the house very often. As collectors, our challenge is to continue hanging things, and part of hanging them is whether they wear well with your mind."

Whether the many unconventional works wear well with the public remains to be seen. "In 100 years, what will be remembered about this time is the art, literature and music," says Kent. "Successful businessmen and athletes will largely have been forgotten. It really is culture that defines a society."

"We were just in Pittsburgh and everybody remembers Carnegie, but more for Carnegie Hall than the fact that he was a steel magnate," Vicki adds.