Highlights:
- Landmark Preservation Commission recommends historic designation for NW Denver home.
- City Council will vote the historic designation for the Lambourn home next month
- This marks the second hostile historic designation going to the council in November.
City Council will consider a historic designation for this home at 5115 W. 29th Avenue in November.
In a victory for dozens of neighbors and a defeat for the property owner, a “Denver Square on steroids” next month will go to Denver City Council for a historic designation.
The Denver Planning Commission, with one dissenting vote, on Tuesday afternoon, recommended historic designation for a hilltop home at 5115 W. 29th Ave. in West Highland.
Board member Kathleen Corbett described the home as a Denver Square on steroids, while fellow board member Amy Zimmer said it is a “slam dunk” that the architecture of the home, with its unusual corner entrance and its geography, makes it worthy of a historic designation.
Historic Denver Inc. also joined with the neighbors in supporting the historic designation. Only one neighbor, Keith Painter, spoke against the historic designation.
The City Council is scheduled to consider the recommendation for historic designation on Nov. 23.
About 40 residents, most of them who live near the house at Zenobia Street and West 29th Avenue signed the historic application for what is known as the Lambourn View house, built around 1918.
The current owner of the home, developer/general contractor Brad Teets, opposes the designation.
Teets earlier sought a Non Historic Status designation for the home and submitted a preliminary plan to build 38 apartment units in a new 3-story building on the 0.3-acre site.
Following the meeting, he said he doesn’t know he will do if the council approves the designation.
This marks the second so-called “hostile” historic designation that the Planning Commission has recommended.
A hostile historic designation is when a historic designation is sought by neighbors over the wishes of the owner.
Another high-profile historic designation in Jefferson Park, goes to the City Council on Nov. 16.
City Councilman Rafael Espinoza, who got the ball rolling on that historic designation when he was a councilman-elect, is scheduled to go before the Denver Board of Ethics this morning apparently to get advice on whether he needs to recuse himself from voting on the historic designation for the Jefferson Park home at 2329 Eliot St., because he was one of the neighbors who filed the application for historic designation, against the wishes of the owner.
Landmark Preservation is recommending a historic designation for this home a half block from Sheridan Boulevard in West Highland.
Daniel Findlay, who lives near the home in West Highland, was one of several neighbors who testified in favor of the historic designation for the Lambourn home on Tuesday.
However, he was unhappy that none of the other 40 people who signed the application were allowed to testify. He called that a “harsh” ruling.
Still, he said he spoke for “the entire neighborhood,” whether they were young or old, new arrivals or longtime residents.
“At the root of this, is a bit of a philosophical question: What is history?” he said.
He said this house is the type of “magical” home that you or your kids would imagine while reading a children book about the “big house on top of the hill.”
Saving the house, he said, is “protecting Denver’s history.”
He said when he asks people about the home, he found it has various monikers, including the Castle, the Big Old House, the White Manor and the Watching House.
Even a child attending the day care center across 29th Avenue from the home, once saw Findlay coming home from Sloan’s Lake and in wondered out loud if he “lived in that big old house on the hill,” he said.
“This is the house that anchors the neighborhood,” Findlay said.
Teets, who paid $850,000 for the property according to public records, however, said it he didn’t think it was right that “people can take away” property rights “without any financial risk” to themselves.
While there are a lot of Four Squares, known as Denver Squares in the city,, few of them have a corner entrance like this 2-story Denver Square at Zenobia Street and West 29th Avenue. The Denver City Council will vote on Nov. 23 whether it deserves a historic designation, against the wishes of its owner.
He said he would never have purchased the property if he knew this could happen. He also said a deal to sell the property collapsed because the developer who was going to buy it doesn’t want it now that it may be designated as historic. That deal had been scheduled to close on Monday.
Teets also said that other than one phone call to his office over a weekend, none of the 40 people had made an effort to reach out to him, which he found disturbing. One board member, however, said communications is a “two-way street” and he could have made an effort to reach out to neighborhoods, too.
Teets said he “wants to go on record” as not supporting the historic designation.
His attorney, David Foster, unsuccessfully, asked the board to delay the hearing to give them time to find an architect who could address why the home does not deserve a historic designation.
Several board members, while supporting the historic designation, said it was unsettling to get two hostile historic designations back to back and while it is easy to fall in love with a home, they also said they must be cognizant of development pressures in Denver.
Jude Aiello, however, said that Denver neighbors are losing grand old home to “hostile demolitions.”
Aiello, who lives in the area for 33 years before moving to Capitol Hill, said that efforts to save homes such as this are “heroic.”
Several board members noted that there is nothing preventing Teets and the neighbors to try to work something out that would save the house, but still allow an acceptable development on the property that would be economically viable.
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