PUEBLO — No matter how much he huffed and puffed, the Big Bad Wolf could never blow this house down.
The one-of-a-kind structure is made entirely of brick — so strong that it’s housed four generations of the same family.
From the pathway to the red oak front door to the driveway large enough to fit a trailer, a truck and two cars, just about everything here save for the ceiling is brick.
Fifty-eight thousand, six hundred bricks. That’s how many bricks make up the foundation of this 3,500-square-foot, 1954 ranch-style house located in this city’s Country Club Heights neighborhood.
The interior walls, the flooring and the 4-foot walkway surrounding the house to prevent water from leaking into the foundation are all brick. Even the backyard fence, patio, outdoor table and sprinkler-system storage unit are brick.
“If the house gets dirty, we just hose off the brick,” says homeowner Mark Welte, who runs the Summit Brick Co. founded by his great-grandfather in 1902. “There is no paint inside because there are no interior walls to paint.”
With all that brick, one might think the house would be cold and utilitarian — more like a castle than a place of warmth, comfort and beauty.
But Mark and his wife, Jennifer, have softened its edges with a few modern updates while maintaining the home’s historical integrity.
“We talked about building a new house for our family, but this one has so many unique features,” Mark Welte says. “To try to rebuild this kind of house today would cost at least a half-million dollars just in labor alone.”
Decorative wood beams run throughout the home. Large windows flooded with natural light and the brick’s warm patina make it cozy. A few cracks in the brick show that the house is finally settling — a comfort rather than a stress-inducer for its occupants.
“We are in it to stay,” Jennifer Welte says. She and her husband share the place with Elly, their 2-year-old daughter, and Joey, their 10-month-old son.
In one hallway, a lighted niche featuring Italian-made Jesus, Mary and Joseph figurines is a nod to the family’s strong religious roots. The house was built around this niche, and Welte can remember his grandfather kneeling in front of it every day for his morning prayers.
Many homeowners use paint or artwork to differentiate one room from the next, but here, few pictures dot the brick walls — an effort to avoid scoring them with holes. Instead, different colors and textures of brick — called “faces” — make each room stand out.
Outside, the brick has a rough, tree- bark face. Inside, a hallway is buff-colored with a smooth face.
Salt-glazed brick tile sets off the bathroom from the bedrooms. A creamy finish highlights the kids’ room, and standard red brick with lime “pop holes” in the face accentuates the master suite.
Archways — extremely difficult for a brick mason to master — throughout the home serve as testament to the craftsmanship that went into the construction. Other features, such as the milkman’s door, give the house a traditional flavor.
“Before this, we lived in a home that was fairly new,” Mark Welte says. “We still had more maintenance with that house than we do with this one that’s 50 years old.”
He credits his grandmother, Frances Welte, with having a before-her-time decorating sense that helped shape the look and feel of the house. The oldest of five children, Frances grew up in a cramped, Victorian home built in the late 1800s. Victorian homes were boxy structures with tiny rooms.
Welte says his grandmother knew she wanted her adult home to have a spacious, open floor plan. So she defied the design trends of her time by choosing to build large rooms with 9-foot-high ceilings.
The master bedroom is so large, for instance, that Jennifer Welte suspects she could fit two queen-size beds in it. The entire layout of the house is well-suited for family living, she says.
“You don’t have to worry about children accidentally falling down stairs” — because there are none. “I don’t have to lug laundry up and down stairs, either,” she says.
As a child, Frances Welte toiled in the tiny kitchen of her family home, frustrated that she had neither the room nor the storage to cook proper meals for her brothers and sisters. So this brick house has an unusually large kitchen with enough room for a 40-inch stove.
A fireplace near the kitchen table is another throwback.
“She remembered a couple of times when they would get a storm and wouldn’t have electricity,” Mark Welte recalls.
The family’s brick business also had an impact on the building plans. Frances Welte reportedly mimicked features that were adapted from the Summit’s commercial buildings.
All of the electrical wiring is in conduit, for instance, a common commercial feature that makes it easier to replace or add new lights without damaging drywall.
And the floors, made of hollowed brick, are warmed by forced-air radiant heat.
Homes usually have 4- to 5-inch gutters, but this one has a 6-inch gutter, another expensive but durable commercial- building feature.
The house also includes a low-voltage, relay lighting system. A push-button switch in the master suite can turn on lights at the front door or in the far end of the house.
“At night, if we hear anything strange or have someone come to the door,” Welte says, “we can turn on all the lights outside to see what’s going on.”
Because the house has no basement, attic or crawl space, often-underutilized areas serve as storage. Six drawers are built into the bottom of the bedroom closets. And the master bedroom closet includes a built-in dresser.
False cabinets in the kitchen hide air ducts. An island where food is served also has hidden storage for dishes, pots and pans. Plus, an entire hallway in the kitchen is nothing but built-ins, along with a walk-in pantry.
When his grandmother died three years ago, Welte says, no one else in the family wanted to take on the brick house. But Welte grew nostalgic for all the birthdays, Christmas parties and Fourth of July barbecues spent there.
“You just don’t see third and fourth generations living in the same house anymore,” he says. “You see people going back now, trying to trace their ancestry and understand where they came from.”
But this house is the Welte family’s past, present and future.
Sheba R. Wheeler: 303-954-1283 or swheeler@denverpost.com
