To hear Cathy Silton describe her first thoughts after learning that she would have to leave Boston — along with her publishing job of a dozen years and her eclectic university neighborhood — for her husband’s new job, she was facing certain doom.
“I felt lost,” the writer, editor and personal trainer says of her relocation to Denver 14 years ago. She thought she “was going to live on the plains and it would be dreadful,” she adds.
Silton felt slightly more secure when she discovered that Denver has its own university neighborhood in Observatory Park, and even more certain when she walked through the doors of an 1898 Queen Anne Victorian on Columbine Street. It instantly felt like home. “This house had soul,” Silton recalls.
Picking up where previous devoted homeowners left off, Silton and husband Richard Gannon poured themselves into the house. “It’s not a perfect house, but it is a wonderful house in a wonderful neighborhood,” she says. The couple’s years of sweat equity were recently rewarded when Denver’s Old House Society — a nonprofit organization that aids the owners of old houses and the residents of historic neighborhoods through education and preservation projects — named theirs the Favorite Old House of 2009.
Although real estate listings can be saccharine by nature, the one for this house simply described what Silton and Gannon saw for themselves when they were house-hunting:
The first floor is characterized by 10-foot-high ceilings, hand-carved woodwork, silk wall coverings, updated Tiffany-style and antique gas lights, honey-colored hardwood floors, and a living room where arched bay windows shed light on a plaster ceiling frieze of cherubs feeding doves in a continuous loop.
“It’s tailored,” Silton says of the house and its finishes. “It’s not frilly,” and reflects hers and Gannon’s “old-world sensibilities.”
Both New England natives, their relatives inhabit homes built in the mid-1800s and even the late 1700s. “This is the second-newest house my husband has ever owned,” Silton says.
She and Gannon are also both former competitive skiers who had lived in Colorado before permanently landing here in 1996. “It was actually the perfect place for us to move,” says Silton, who was also a competitive ice skater. Now, a ceramic skate painted with the word “Welcome” is secured to a wreath on a door frame in her foyer. Ski portraits and snowy landscapes join the framed garden shots that adorn walls throughout the house. Silton is the shutterbug.
These homeowners see themselves as stewards of a house that over the years has been preserved, as opposed to neglected. It came with a three-ring binder prepared by previous owner Roland Blauer, which documented the renovations to date and all of the home’s owners dating back to when the property was originally part of the Colorado Seminary.
To what was already there, these owners added “the kitchen that Richard built,” a chef- style kitchen with two stoves, a granite tile attached bar, copious cabinets, and subtle Victorian and craftsman-inspired touches such as stained-glass light fixtures and period drawer pulls. “I wanted it to be modern but have an old feel,” says Gannon, who’s transformed part of his garage into a carpentry workshop.
The couple also softened the interior with an inn-like palette of rosy blush hues and mossy greens, planted extensive gardens, and built a pergola.
“We put our souls into making this house all that it was meant to be,” says Silton, who now finds it hard to talk about her home without touching the woodwork or fingering an ornately carved keyhole plate.
The Favorite Old House Award is essentially a popularity contest in which the house with the most online votes wins. When Gannon and Silton saw the entries, others were more opulent, but their house has its own charms.
“We pooled our friends,” Gannon says. “They love our house and love to come over.”
To Elizabeth Wheeler, a fifth-generation Denverite and founder of Denver’s Old House Society, Silton and Gannon’s Victorian is a winner because it has been thoughtfully maintained and restored, is a neighborhood asset, and mirrors local history. “These homeowners did a lot of research into what would be appropriate for the house,” says Wheeler.
To see it, she adds, and take in its in curb appeal is to know that this particular old house has been truly loved.
Elana Ashanti Jefferson: 303-954-1957 or ejefferson@denverpost.com
2010 Old House Fair
Tickets are now available for this one-day event organized by Denver’s Old House Society. It will feature workshops on saving antique floors, greening historic homes, landscape planning and more. Victorians, bungalows, Denver Squares, Tudors and mid-century modern homes will all be addressed, and some furnishings will be available to purchase.
When: Saturday, March 27 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Historic Masonic Temple Center, 3550 Federal Blvd.
Tickets: $7 until March 20th at the Modern Bungalow, 2594 S. Colorado Blvd.; Architectural Salvage, 5001 Colorado Blvd.; Classic Homeworks, 3430 E. 12th Ave.; Nostalgic Homes, 3737 West 32nd Ave.; Clotheshorse, 4232 Tennyson St.; and Haney’s Coffee Shop, 3814 Lowell Blvd. Tickets are $10 after March 20.
Details: or 303-916-4359
WeekendProject
Three quick fixes for old houses
Owners (or “stewards”) of old houses often describe their homes as projects that never end — works in progress that reveal new caretaking issues almost as soon as other updates are completed. But not every issue requires months or years of planning, saving and house history research. A recent article in This Old House magazine () revealed that some common nuisances in historic homes can be handled quickly and easily. Here are three of them. Elana Ashanti Jefferson
Squeaky floors and stairs To tighten up creaking floorboards and stair treads, look for Squeeeeek-No-More screws at your local home center or hardware store. This hardware draws flooring tight to joists, or stair treads to stringers; then the heads snap off, leaving a half-inch-wide hole in the finished surface. “The holes disappear in carpeting,” says This Old House general contractor Tom Silva. “For wood floors, fill the holes with a wax filler stick in a matching color.”
Scratches in woodwork To camouflage unsightly blemishes on antique furniture or any fine woodwork, apply a coat of pigmented wax, such as Briwax, or a pigmented polishing fluid, also known as scratch cover, which will make fine scratches all but disappear.
Musty smells Scented candles or potpourri may help mask odors in small areas, but there is an all-encompassing solution for the whole house if the house has forced-air heating: Put a couple of drops of vanilla extract on the furnace filter. The system’s blower will then spread the sweet smell throughout the house. If the heat’s not on, set the system on fan only.
Source: This Old House magazine /
