Harold “Buzz” Bolas, who died Aug. 6 at age 91, was the developer behind Happy Homes, the “home with a hearth” subdivisions that fleshed out Denver’s growing suburbs from the late 1950s to 1970.
Each Happy Homes ranch house featured a fireplace, a tidy brick exterior, two or three bathrooms and bedrooms, and a one- or two-car garage. They sold for between $7,900 and $13,900.
Bolas grew up in California. As a youth, he won four Golden Gloves boxing titles and earned his lifelong nickname, Buzz, after a spectator compared his arms to a buzz saw.
He graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he met his first wife, Shirley Moore. With a master’s degree in psychology, he initially worked with adult and juvenile prison inmates.
Bolas moved his family to Colorado in 1955. After his leg was broken during an attack by the inmates of a juvenile boys correctional facility, he changed professions and became a developer.
Bolas possessed a keen prescience for housing trends and worked on some of the state’s first planned developments. Customers snapped up his 1965 project, Kimberly Square, a townhome development with Williamsburg styling.
His next projects – The Villas, opposite the then-new Villa Italia mall, and Cimarron Hills in Colorado Springs – also were townhomes but with 12 inches between each unit, instead of a shared wall. The developments won affordable-housing awards.
To relax, Bolas played golf, a pastime he tackled with ferocious dedication.
He began competing in golf tournaments when he was still a teenager and won several junior-division awards.
As an adult, he played so well that he won the 1964 Colorado Open tournament, stunning the golf pros and securing his reputation as one of the state’s top amateur golfers.
“Once I asked my dad why he never turned pro, and he said, ‘There was no money in golf back then,”‘ daughter Kimberly Krakel recalled.
Bolas retired from his building career in the early 1970s and continued golfing throughout his life. In 1985, just before going into open-heart surgery, Bolas told the surgeon to stitch him up tight. He planned on playing in the upcoming Broadmoor golf tournament in Colorado Springs.
The doctor thought Bolas was kidding. Six weeks later, Bolas won his division.
Survivors include six daughters, Shirl Ann Lindenberg of Boulder, Sandra Grabowski of Centennial, Kathleen Turner of Cheverly, Md., Candace Schoonover of Sacramento, Calif., Kimberly Krakel of Castle Rock and Marla Nill of Strasburg; 16 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren.
He was divorced from his first wife. His second wife, Jean, preceded him in death.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
