Getting your player ready...
For going-on sixty years, Applewood has had an aura of an upscale neighborhood – a feeling of arrival as you head west from town into the undulating landscape between Wheat Ridge and Golden. But market forces this new year are now kicking its remaining residential sites into hyper-drive – an experience you can have this weekend when you tour a luxurious walkout ranch model – 4,333 square feet finished – that’ll have full landscape maintenance provided for its large site.
The minimum price in Applewood’s Quail Hollow is $999,950 – and along with the elegant model (it’s already sold to a couple moving from the Midwest to be close to Denver grandkids) you can tour a second of four homes on track for delivery in early spring at $1.425 million. But this year that price isn’t the stretch you might imagine: In 2015 ranch style enclaves by corporate production builders further east in Applewood, on small lots and not the quality of this particular setting, were selling into the $800,000s and higher. “This area is a gem,” says Janelle Sears, Sales Manager for Quail Hollow Patio Homes, who showed me the enclave of just 12 sites running from a quarter to half acre (five are already sold or reserved), north of W. 32nd at Quail Street, behind Applewood Baptist church. “It has close-up views of the foothills you don’t get further east, and it has a convenience that’s a well-kept secret in this part of town.” Part of that, she says, is the easy I-70 access into the mountains; but the commute downtown via W. 32nd and other avenues is near amazing – just 15 minutes to restaurants in Highlands and even into LoDo during lower traffic hours. The builder on this is a private individual who’s done dozens of upscale single family and multifamily communities around Colorado in past decades, and prefers to keep out of the spotlight. “His kids have now moved out and he was feeling that same urge to downsize to main floor living that so many buyers are experiencing now,” Sears said. Three years ago he launched a ranch enclave south of Cherry Hills Village as a prototype, and built a personal home for himself. “But now he wishes he had waited for this Applewood location,” she adds. After you tour the model (with large entertaining spaces, a protected interior deck for outdoor living, finished basement with bedrooms three-and-four for when the kids come to visit, and an elegant master with his-and-her closets) you’ll walk past another ranch where a buyer is getting a 7-car garage for a custom car collection. “This builder invites custom ideas that other builders won’t do,” says Sears. Beyond that, close to where cottonwood lined, beaver-inhabited Lena Gulch passes through the site, is the custom-spec home under way for spring delivery (still time for you to get involved on a few personal selections). It’s at a stage where you can see the hardwood finishes going in – way beyond ‘luxury-production home’ quality: herringbone wood entryway, and a full wainscot library that was being installed by Darrin Coffman of Sterling Construction. “They’re one of the best in the state,” says Sears. And you’ll get to see the remaining seven sites still available, where you could order one of these from scratch – all WAY larger than typical ‘patio home’ enclaves, but with full maintenance provided – lock it and leave. To reach 3325 Quail Street, noon until 5 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday, with coffee and cookies, from downtown take Speer north to W. 32nd, continue west five miles (past Kipling) to Quail and turn right. Or from I-70 take the 32nd Ave/Youngfield exit; then turn east on 32nd a mile and a half. WHERE: Quail Hollow in Applewood, luxurious ranch model home, 12 sites, maintenance free (100% lawn maintenance and snow removal), choice finishes, walkout basements, coffee & cookies tomorrow & Sunday. 3325 Quail St, Wheat Ridge; from downtown take Speer north to W. 32nd, continue west 5 mi., past Kipling, to Quail, right. Or from I-70 take 32nd/Youngfield exit; turn east on 32nd, 1-1/2 mi.at DenverPostHomes.com