It’s daybreak in Bonnie Brae. Listen to the early morning sounds: birds chirping, leaves softly rustling in a gentle dawn breeze, bulldozers razing modest brick bungalows.
Pop-tops and scrape-offs are everywhere. Chain saws, nail guns, sanders and drills are the instruments of choice in our local construction symphony orchestra. Concerts are given 12 hours a day, six days a week. Guest appearances by cement trucks. No more sleeping past 7 a.m.
Two years ago, I rented the last bungalow standing in the heart of Bonnie Brae. Just last month, I moved out, and I already miss the place. Back in the 1920s, city planner S.R. DeBoer designed this neighborhood to look like a Scottish village inside Denver, a serene enclave of stately homes attractively sited on curving streets bordered by lush landscaping. For decades, it stood virtually unchanged.
Then came the demolition derby. Now, old houses go down and new mansions rise up, phoenix-like, in their place. Today, with its surreal hodgepodge of architectural styles, it has the look and feel of a Scottish/ Spanish/French/German village designed by Salvador Dali on crack. We’re talking Beaux Arts and Bauhaus, Colonial and Tudor, Gothic and Romanesque Revival, sometimes all in one house. This is a neighborhood where Frank Lloyd Wright meets Michelangelo and they go to a party at Castle Dracul.
While living there, I never had to spend a dime on world travel. In the course of a single daily walk, I could pass by the Leaning Tower of Pisa just down the street, cut over two blocks to the Palace of Versailles, turn the corner and there I was at the Vatican.
Of course, scrape-offs are not confined to Bonnie Brae. Developers are clear-cutting all over Denver. In response, neighborhood associations rise up in revolt. Historical preservation activists protest and picket. The battle escalates, pitting neighbor against neighbor in one property rights showdown after another.
Pity the poor homeowner who wants only to wreck his cramped, drafty old hovel and replace it with a brand-spanking-new, 60,000-square- foot chateau. Pity his poor neighbors, who must live for months with the noise, dust and porta-potties of a construction zone. No wonder they object and file an application for historical landmark status, insisting that the community can ill afford to lose such a fine example of Queen Anne architecture where a 1970s sitcom star lived for six months two decades ago.
It’s true that if your neighbor wishes to erect a dwelling large enough to quarter an infantry regiment, that is his right, as long as he doesn’t violate zoning laws or run a hog farm.
On the other hand, your neighbor should understand that when you’ve spent a lot of money for a really nice house, you don’t want the feel of a Bronx tenement, with his place close enough to yours to string a clothesline and hang laundry out to dry.
Now, I believe in urban revitalization. Bigger and better houses mean bigger and better property tax revenues. And I don’t object to mansions, per se. I understand that a modern American family cannot live in a yurt.
But what if you really do hit the jackpot and build the grand palace of your dreams? What will you do with all of that space and opulent luxury? Host an Oscar party for Spielberg and a few hundred of his closest personal friends?
Or you could follow the example set by my former neighbors. During many a nighttime stroll, I used to pause on the sidewalk to gaze up in awe at their magnificent mansions, equipped with spas, libraries, billiard rooms and gourmet kitchens. And what did I see through the windows? A telltale flickering light. What were my neighbors doing in their vast expanses? Same as me, when in my tiny bungalow:
Watching TV.
Teresa Keegan (tkeegan@ ) of Denver is a court clerk.
