Colorado Governor's Mansion | |
![]() | |
Location | 400 E. 8th Ave., Denver, Colorado |
---|---|
Coordinates | 39°43′43″N104°58′53″W / 39.72861°N 104.98139°W |
Area | 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
Built | 1904 |
Architect | Willis A. Marean and Albert J. Norton |
Architectural style | Colonial Revival |
NRHP reference No. | 69000039 [1] |
CSRHP No. | 5DV.169 |
Added to NRHP | December 3, 1969 |
The Colorado Governor's Mansion, also known as the Cheesman-Boettcher Mansion, is a historic U.S. mansion in Denver, Colorado. It is located at 400 East 8th Avenue. On December 3, 1969, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It is open free-of-charge for scheduled tours, and also hosts special public events.
This building is located in Denver on the southeast corner of 8th Avenue and Logan Street. The exact address is 400 E. 8th Avenue. The Governor's Mansion is also known as the Cheesman-Evans-Boettcher Mansion for its former owners.
The building was built in 1908 after a design by Denver architects Willis A. Marean and Albert J. Norton. The house was originally built as a residence for the widow and the daughter of Denver real estate tycoon Walter Cheesman.
The mansion was designed to accommodate two families. On November 8, 1908, Cheesman's daughter, Gladys, married John Evans II, the grandson of John Evans, the second territorial governor of Colorado. The widowed mother and young couple lived together until the birth of the Evans' first child, after which they relocated. On January 2, 1923, Alice Foster Sanger Cheesman died.
Claude K. Boettcher purchased the mansion on February 23, 1923. Boettcher was the head of a financial empire that eventually included sugar, livestock, cement, potash, steel, securities, utilities, and transportation. Boettcher was famous for his lavish parties which included President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. Boettcher died on June 9, 1957, and his wife in 1958.
The house was inherited by the Boettcher Foundation. The foundation offered the house to the State of Colorado as an Executive Residence. The building needed a great deal of work, and its fate remained uncertain for nine months in 1959 as three agencies of the State rejected the offer. On the last day of 1959, Governor Stephen McNichols accepted the building as a gift to the state.
From then until January, 2011, it has been the residence of Governors Stephen L. R. McNichols, John Love, John D.Vanderhoof, Richard D. Lamm, Roy R. Romer, William Owens, and William Ritter. The building was restored in the 1980s under the direction of Edward D. White Jr. [2] Upon taking office in January 2011, Governor John Hickenlooper and his family decided to maintain their private residence in Denver instead of moving to the Governor's Mansion, [3] though Hickenlooper did move into the mansion on a part-time basis after he separated from his wife in 2012. [4]
Hickenlooper's successor, Jared Polis, also chose to only live in the mansion on a part-time basis, staying there during legislative sessions while retaining his home in Boulder as his primary residence. [5]
The Cheesman-Evans-Boettcher Mansion is a formal, late Georgian Revival house. The building is surrounded by a wrought iron fence with cannonball finials on the brick posts. The walls of the mansion are red brick. There is a white wooden frosting under a hipped roof with prominent gabled dormers. The cornice is pedimented and dentiled. The west side portico has massive, two-story fluted Ionic columns. There is a dramatic entry way with grouped columns that support a porch which becomes a balustraded second-story balcony. The semicircular sunroom was added by suggestion of Mrs. Cheesman in 1915, and it overlooks a small park now known as "Governor's Park". [6]
It was built in 1908. [7]
The Colorado State Capitol Building, located at 200 East Colfax Avenue in Denver, Colorado, United States, is the home of the Colorado General Assembly and the offices of the Governor of Colorado, Lieutenant Governor of Colorado, and the Colorado State Treasurer.
Located in the city and county of Denver, Colorado, the Capitol Hill neighborhood is bordered by Broadway, Downing Street, Colfax Avenue, and Seventh Avenue, which carry large volumes of traffic around the neighborhood. It is technically located in East Denver which begins immediately east of Broadway, the neighborhood's western boundary. Many consider the Cheesman Park neighborhood to be a part of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, but as defined by the city, Cheesman Park is a separate neighborhood. Denver also recognizes a statistical neighborhood called North Capitol Hill, also known as Uptown by some residents. Colfax Avenue is the border between these two neighborhoods.
Humboldt Street Historic District, or Humboldt Island, is located west of Cheesman Park in Denver, Colorado on Humboldt Street between East Tenth and Twelfth Streets. It was the first residential district to be designated a historic district by the Denver Landmark Preservation Commission in 1972, and is listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Stoiber-Reed-Humphreys Mansion is located within the Humboldt Street Historic District in Denver, Colorado. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 29, 1978. The mansion is considered "the largest and most imposing residence in the district."
The Colorado Democratic Party is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the U.S. state of Colorado. Shad Murib serves as its chair.
Jared Schutz Polis is an American politician, businessman, and philanthropist serving as the 43rd governor of Colorado since 2019.
Jules Jacques Benois Benedict was one of the most prominent architects in Colorado history, whose works include a number of well-known landmarks and buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Cheesman Park is an urban park and neighborhood located in the City and County of Denver, Colorado, United States.
The politics of Colorado, United States, are that of a blue state. Once considered a swing state that used to be Republican-leaning, Colorado has been trending Democratic since the early part of the 21st century due to changing demographics and a rising number of the large unaffiliated bloc of voters leaning Democratic. The growing shift of the state's Republican Party towards social and religious conservatism along with shifting further to the right has also been cited as reasons for the changing voting patterns of Colorado.
The Boettcher Foundation is a Denver-based philanthropic organization whose mission is to invest in the promise of Colorado and the potential of Coloradans. Founded by Claude K. Boettcher and his son, Charles, with additional support from other family members, the foundation has invested more than $375 million in Colorado through scholarships, biomedical research funding and capital grants. The foundation currently has net assets of approximately $300 million.
Edward Divine White Jr., FAIA, was an architect based in Denver, Colorado, whose forty-year practice focused on contemporary architecture and historic preservation. Along with his architectural practice, White was lifelong friend to Jack Kerouac from 1947 to Kerouac's death in 1969. The pair exchanged over 90 letters and postcards during that time.
Joseph A. Garcia is an American lawyer and politician. He served as the 48th Lieutenant Governor of Colorado from January 2011 to May 2016. He is currently the chancellor of the Colorado Community College System.
Burnham Hoyt was a prominent mid-20th-century architect born in Denver, Colorado.
John James Huddart (1856–1930), known usually as John J. Huddart, was a British born and trained architect who practised out of Denver, Colorado in the United States. At the end of the Nineteenth century he was one of Denver's leading architects, known for his work on public buildings and as a courthouse architect. His practice lasted from 1882 to 1930 and commissions included Charles Boettcher House in Denver, Colorado's Fort Morgan State Armory, Denver's Filbeck Building, and six of Colorado's county courthouses.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Denver, Colorado, United States, from its founding in 1858 to the present.
On December 14, 1993, four employees were shot and killed and a fifth employee was seriously injured at a Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant in Aurora, Colorado, United States. The perpetrator, 19-year-old Nathan Dunlap, a former employee of the restaurant, was frustrated about being fired five months prior to the shooting and sought revenge by committing the attack. He fled the scene of the shooting with stolen money and restaurant items. At the time, The Chuck E. Cheese Massacre was the deadliest mass shooting in Colorado, being surpassed 6 years later by the Columbine High School massacre.
The 2018 Colorado gubernatorial election took place on November 6, 2018, to elect the next governor of Colorado. Incumbent Democratic governor John Hickenlooper was term-limited and could not seek a third consecutive term. The primary election was held on June 26.
James Murdoch (1844–1914) was "an important architect in Denver in the late 19th and early 20th centuries". Several of his works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). At least two of his works have been designated Denver landmarks.
The COVID-19 pandemic reached Colorado on March 5, 2020, when the state's first two cases were confirmed. Many of the early COVID-19 cases in Colorado occurred in mountain resort towns such as Crested Butte, Aspen, and Vail, apparently brought in, and sometimes taken home, by international ski tourists.