The classic image of urban life in America is that of groups of neighbors lingering on steps in front of row houses or brownstones – their stoop.
These traditional city home styles have long been considered hallmarks of New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore. But Denver? Indeed, the push to create community where there was none means row-house- and brownstone-inspired architecture is making its way into several new developments along the Front Range.
“People want to buy in association with urbanity,” says Joe Colistra, an architecture professor at the University of Colorado-Denver and a principal partner with in situ Design. His firm worked with Curtis Park residents to conceive the new Merchants Row Brownstones at 26th and Champa streets.
“Between the resurgence of downtowns and gas prices,” Colistra says, “everyone wants to be downtown now.”
And to many people, living “downtown” means seeking out a row house or brownstone, regardless of whether it’s a year old or 200 years old.
America’s oldest row homes were inspired by London townhouses and can be duplicated in myriad ways. But experts say a true brownstone is found only in New York City, because the term originally described a specific stone quarried in New Jersey. But that won’t stop developers from harking back to those walkable city streets packed with upright, single-family dwellings as a way of marketing the hundreds of new housing developments going up in and around Denver.
“Brownstone has become more of a marketing term,” Colistra says. “But row homes are perfect for some of the empty lots we have downtown, particularly in historic districts.”
Texas A&M cultural geography professor Jonathan Smith says the classic row house, or the “two-over-two,” is easy to spot because its floor plan traditionally consisted of two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs with a stairwell running up one side of the house. They first sprouted up in the Middle Atlantic region, then traveled with the Ohio River and on to such cities as St. Louis and Louisville, Ky.
Smith pegs the revival of the row house to the late 1970s and early 1980s, when governments wanted to encourage urban living and needed housing options other than single-family homes or apartment buildings. “For these houses to really work, they need to be right up on the sidewalk, so the street has a sense of enclosure,” Smith says.
Because row houses and brownstones relate so closely to the sidewalk and street, they connote a place for walking and being outside as much as inside. That concept is reaching out from the current urban core to the many “mixed-use” neighborhoods outside of downtown Denver.
For instance, fitness experts lauded Stapleton earlier this year for being a community that encourages walking. And right there, the Denver Brownstones at Central Park are going up, a luxury condominium development boasting multiple bedrooms, private elevators and terraces, three-car garages and French doors.
“Stapleton wanted a brownstone look. Our idea was to do a modern take on that,” says Scott Sudik with Godden Sudik Architects, the firm charged with designing the Denver Brownstones along with Amirob & Associates. Godden Sudik also engineered a popular brownstone offering at the New Urbanism-
inspired RidgeGate development in Lone Tree.
His partner, Paul Brady, says classic brownstones informed these new homes so that they have a “heavy feel” with precast concrete and stone accents that, when used alongside brick, are “reminiscent of New York and Park Avenue.”
Other developers are incorporating brownstones or row houses to underscore the idea that people who live there can easily walk to work, school and recreation. Like the new Steam Plant Row Homes at Lowry, which will be three-story townhomes with commercial space on the ground floor.
“This is a really convenient option for people who want to live and work in the same area and also own their workspace,” says Hilarie Portell with the Lowry Redevelopment Authority. “It’s all about a neighborhood that’s kind of funky and walkable and an interesting place to live.”
The Steam Plant Row Homes also are going in near Lowry’s bona fide historic buildings.
“I started with a mental image of a traditional lifestyle but not necessarily traditional architecture,” builder Jim Hartman says, adding that his team was inspired, in part, by buildings in neighborhoods like Boston’s Back Bay.
Lowry was always meant to be that kind of live-work community. Hartman concedes that it took a while for the concept to really take hold.
“Beforehand, there wasn’t enough density, synergy or energy,” he says. “But what we’ve been doing in the Town Center neighborhood is creating a more modern European mix, so now we can create this mixed-use thing all in one building.”
Staff writer Elana Ashanti Jefferson can be reached at 303-954-1957 or ejefferson @denverpost.com.
