Getting your player ready...
When Baron Walter Von Richthofen, uncle of the famous Red Baron German flying ace, built a castle in the country east of downtown Denver in the 1880s, he would never have guessed that it would one day sell for well over $3 million (that happened a few months ago); or that even his stables would someday be priced over a million dollars.
That latter property – Coldwell Banker Previews agent Gail Wallace will let you tour noon-2 p.m. at 1177 Pontiac Street – owes to hard work by Denver engineer James Buchanan, who bought the place in 1953. He moved his wife and five kids into a 2-bedroom enclosure that had been Richthofen’s physician’s apartment and began a massive conversion of the stable into a residence. Mark Buchanan – he and wife Gwen have the place on the market now – was six months old when the family arrived, five kids in one bedroom. “It was different than friends in school had,” Mark recalls. “We enjoyed going to see other kids because we didn’t know what a finished house was like.” All five Buchanan kids put a shoulder to the makeover, with Mark recalling having installed floors and hauling red rock pavers and historic cobblestones that dad had recovered from ripped-up 16th Street in downtown, to pave the courtyard. John Buchanan, Mark says, loved Denver’s railroads and blacksmithing past, and created a blacksmith shop out back to display various treasures (some have gone to museums, but others can be inclusions in the sale price of $1.349 million). One bedroom at a time, the family moved over the top of the big entry gate, into bigger quarters in the home beyond (the size went from 900 square feet before to 5,773 afterward). After his dad passed away Mark and Gwen Buchanan carried out a further remodel with new kitchen, roof, baths, radiant heat, and landscaping; leaving intact some priceless memories that other kids living in Montclair didn’t have: a 60-foot monkey swing, a castle-like turret that has a 3-story fire pole down to the main level, and a larger than third-acre yard big enough to play football. “You hear people talk about unique, but there is no other house like this one,” Buchanan adds. From Sixth Avenue head north on Monaco to Richthofen Parkway, and east six blocks to Pontiac. If you go… WHERE: Home in Montclair created from historic Richthofen Castle stables; 5 bed, 5,773 sq. ft. 1177 Pontiac St., Denver; from Sixth Ave., head north on Monaco 7 blks to Richthofen Pkwy (between 11th & 12th), east 6 blks to Pontiac, north PRICE: $1.349 million
