Community members hope to save house on Gaylord Street as future remains unknown: "These homes represent the history of Denver"

UPDATE: City Council votes for historic designation for Denver home built in 1902, against owner's wishes

After months of mediation and no resolution, the future of a house on Gaylord street in Denver is still unknown. While the owner wants to demolish it, community members are hoping to save it.

Resident, Scott Holder, is one of three residents who applied for a historic landmark designation for the house at 1741 Gaylord Street in February. 

Holder and groups like Historic Denver, don't want the house to be torn down and replaced with a three-story building that holds 37 apartments. 

He said it's the home's architecture, design and history that make it so special.

"This particular house is unique in that it's only one of four residential houses that are left, that were designed by the architects that designed Union Station," Holder told CBS News Colorado. "These homes represent the history of Denver."

Built in 1900, Holder said the home was designed by architects Gove & Walsh. But when the new owner, Michael Mathieson, bought the house in 2021, he said the home did not have a historic designation and he wouldn't have purchased it had that been the case. 

Mathieson believes if the home truly is considered a historic landmark, he wonders why that designation didn't come sooner.

"We believe in historic homes, but this is not an architecturally significant property," Mathieson told CBS News Colorado. 

In a 2019 survey sponsored by Discover Denver and Historic Denver, several properties in City Park West were identified as "architecturally significant," but 1741 Gaylord Street was not one of them. 

However, the report did find that more data was needed to more accurately access the property and determine if it's significant. 

Mathieson said this comes down to property rights.

"They are trying to exercise a loophole to stop development," he said. "And what that does is that it completely restricts this type of housing and the housing that is across the street, and people can't afford to live here."

Holder said he and other residents are not against all development on that land, they just want to protect the house itself. But Mathieson believes building something new like apartments is what residents in the area need most, and additional housing is a necessity for many in Denver currently. 

Drew Hamrick, with the Apartment Association of Metro Denver, says it's about supply and demand. 

"There's not enough housing to go around. You fix that problem by building more housing," Hamrick said. "And so anything that unreasonably prevents that development and landmark designations can be one of those things, is bad for us all as consumers, and drives our housing prices up." 

The application for the landmark designation will now go to the Landmark Preservation Commission. 

They will discuss the issue on March 7 and decide whether to forward the application to Denver City Council for a final decision.

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