Getting your player ready...
Inside the stucco-walled gates of Country Club’s historic district, where streets divide around central tree lawns, you can tour a newly listed property at 3rd and Franklin, built 1909, four years after the neighborhood’s namesake clubhouse moved to E. 1st and Gilpin, a block south – 14 years after it held a first golf championship.
“Country Club is thought of as the most prestigious neighborhood in the Denver area,” says Coldwell Banker Devonshire agent Julie Gelfond, who does lots of business there and is watching a remarkable drop in inventory within its prime, L-shaped parcel of grand homes – three blocks deep on the west; reaching north all the way to Sixth Avenue on the east. In those confines 21 homes sold in 2012, leaving only nine listings on the market; and six of those have gone under contract since Jan. 1. “That’s low,” she adds. “Everything in the city is low now. Sellers are going to assume that they can get more.” On this home, a Denver Square with a corner setting that shows a six-bedroom layout including a nanny apartment, with plenty of original woodwork and a new remodeled kitchen-family area behind the formal spaces, Gelfond set the price at $2.980 million, based on a comp that sold last year a few blocks east – a little smaller and lower priced, she says, but requiring much more work. The original design, probably including a servants’ quarters where the nanny suite is now, was always a family-type plan – something that Gelfond says sets Country Club apart from less family-friendly areas to the east in Cherry Creek North. “There are lots of kids in this neighborhood,” she adds; noting that out-of-state buyers come to her knowing all about Country Club from their Google homework. In addition to this open house, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 305 Franklin Street, she’ll tell you about another listing she has in the northeastern tier of the “L” – a castle-like residence at 500 Circle Drive. WHERE: Denver square grand home built 1909 in Country Club. 305 Franklin St., Denver; from University in Cherry Creek, head west on E. First Ave. 5 blks, past the country club entrance, to Franklin and turn north 1 block PRICE: $2.980 million WHEN: Today, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. PHONE: 303-378-9099
