Living The Good Life At Sloan's Lake

I biked from my condo across from the University of Denver to Sloan's Lake last week on a really sunny, warm weekend afternoon. Sloan's Lake was always pretty upscale to the north, bordering the trendy Highlands neighborhood, while on the south end it was mainly an Hispanic community. In recent years, this area has become gentrified, with lots of apartments and condos, culminating in the construction of The Lake House, a high rise condo development with units starting in the million dollar range, as seen in the background of the photo on the left. Many of the modest bungalows in the area have been torn down and replaced by upscale McMansions.

Today the area is a hangout for hipsters. There is now a trendy brewpub on the northwest corner of the park, and Odell's Brewery, a Fort Collins icon, is building another brewery across from the park, with a rooftop patio overlooking the lake. And it might surprise you - or perhaps not - that millennials, who seem to make up most of the residents now, just love hammocks. I see them all over the place, including at Washington Park, on the balconies of pricey apartments, and at Sloan's Lake, too, as seen in the photo on the right. What I want to know is where the hell these millennials are getting all that money? I also want to know if they are hiring.