Denver fire crews rushed to protect one of the city’s oldest houses early Saturday morning after the famed Croke-Patterson Mansion caught fire.
The Denver Fire Department responded to smoke streaming from a second-floor window, on the northeast side of the house, at about 12:39 a.m., said Division Chief Steven Garrod.
Crews used an engine ladder to get into the mansion.
The fire appears to have started in a second-floor bedroom, Garrod said. Firefighters were able to contain the fire to the bedroom and quickly extinguish it.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. The house is currently under renovation and various construction materials were present.
More than seven engines, along with paramedics, arrived at the scene.
The house, a three-story, red sandstone mansion at 420 East 11th Avenue between Pennsylvania and Logan streets on Capitol Hill, was built in 1890. It has Denver, Colorado and national historic landmark designation.
But the house stood empty for several years as it shuttled in and out of ownership.
In recent months, the mansion was bought by C-P-C Mansion, LLC, and was being renovated into a bed and breakfast inn.
The house is also known as a stop on popular haunted house tours of the city.
The Croke-Patterson mansion is a “rare example of the use of Chateauesque style architecture in Denver,” according to the Denver Library. Thomas B. Croke, a merchant, experimental plant breeder and state senator first lived in the house.
He later sold it to Thomas M. Patterson, a Colorado territorial and state congressman and senator who later worked as editor and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News until 1913.
Nick Groke: 303-954-1015 or ngroke@denverpost.com
