With Tax Day gone and Earth Day hubbub winding down soon, real estate and open-house junkies may find themselves in a late-April lull.
Enter the preservationists.
Historic Denver and Historic Boulder are ramping up spring house tours April 26-27 that will satisfy discriminating looky-loos and highlight the distinct character of each city.
The 35th annual Historic Denver House Tour focuses on a variety of building styles within the exclusive Country Club neighborhood. Meanwhile, Historic Boulder’s 2008 Landmarks of the Future tour takes a decidedly modern approach. It’s been dubbed “Architects at Home” because each property on the Boulder tour features just that.
“Boulder has earned a reputation for being a very progressive community,” says Leonard Segel, an architect with DTJ Design. He serves on the Historic Boulder committee responsible for selecting the houses on the tour. Taken as a whole, these six homes spotlight humble floor plans and forward- thinking design within the confines of traditional and historic blocks.
“For architects, their homes are almost like an experimental lab,” Segel says. “These homes reflect that attitude. . . . There are innovative ideas in energy design and land planning, and the use of old materials in different combinations, colors and space arrangements.”
Segel’s own home is in the tour. He’s also fond of a prefabricated house that he says is, “right out of the pages of Dwell.”
Fellow tour planning committee member and Boulder architect, Kristen Lewis, appreciates the reined-in scale of the selected houses.
“There’s been a lot of rabble-rousing about too-big houses,” she says, adding that all of these properties are within biking distance of one another. “What’s special about these is how they all connect to the yard and are respectful of the neighborhood even though they’re all very contemporary.”
Contemporary will be but one of the looks on show in Denver’s historic Country Club neighborhood on the same weekend during Historic Denver’s walking tour. Country Club was conceived around the turn of the 20th century by entrepreneur John J. Riethmann to be a golfer’s retreat and residential enclave away from downtown dust, crowds and busyness.
Architects William and Arthur Fisher were responsible for laying out the neighborhood’s lush garden medians and Spanish entry gates. Initially, Country Club was so exclusive that liquor sales and commercial real estate were restricted there. Many of those early building restrictions are still in place today, thanks to a vital neighborhood association.
The homes on the Historic Denver tour have undergone extensive renovations but retain the community character.
“We get a lot of calls from people who have an aversion to living in an historic house because they think they can’t have all the modern amenities,” says Kerri Atter, Historic Denver’s director of programs. “But you can update your house in a historic district. Country Club has done a great job with that.”
Historic Denver wanted its Country Club tour to happen during the spring because that area — one of the few in Denver to boast tree canopies — begins to bloom and truly reflect the bucolic vision of its founders.
“The architecture of every house is different and unique, but it does still have that oasis feel,” Atter says of Country Club. “It’s a beautiful neighborhood to walk around and observe the architecture.”
Elana Ashanti Jefferson: 303-954-1957 or ejefferson@denverpost.com
