Wheat Ridge – Progress between developers and historical preservationists appears to mean the Olinger mansion will be saved, but details must be worked out.
On Monday night, the Wheat Ridge City Council voted unanimously to deny landmark status for the 1914 home and its entire 4.5-acre site at West 29th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard.
Although the vote was negative, council members support conditions for development of the property, including keeping the mansion in its current location and condition, moving or reconstructing a 300- foot-long pergola that stretches along Wadsworth to another spot on the property, giving a 114-year- old farmhouse and barn on the site to an organization that would move it, and requiring that any new buildings on the site use the architectural design of the mansion.
“We don’t all get everything we want, but everybody gets something out of this deal,” Councilman Dean Gokey said.
The development plan will be finalized in the next few months before being submitted to the city Planning Commission and the council, which will hold public hearings.
The Wheat Ridge Historical Society sought the landmark designation, which developers ASM Casa LLC and DHE Wadsworth LLC opposed as too restrictive on plans for a restaurant and office space.
“If I had known this would have blown up into a controversy, I never would have done it,” said Andy Miller of ASM Casa.
Miller, who proposed the council- supported conditions if the society dropped its landmark designation request, said the plan “is not perfect, but I think it’s pretty good.”
Society member Janelle Shaver said a compromise the city staff thought was reached was “missing a lot of things.”
The society is concerned about the failure to separate the property into two parcels – the north end for development and the south end for preservation of the mansion and its surroundings. In addition, Shaver said, there are no guarantees to adhere to preservation standards, no plan to save the sunken gardens or trees, and no mansion landmark status.
The Olinger mansion was built by George and Margaret Olinger, who founded Crown Hill Cemetery.
Staff writer Ann Schrader can be reached at 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com.
