The other day I was driving down Colorado Boulevard in Idaho Springs, a former mining town about 40 minutes west of Denver, and took the photograph on the left of a house located at 804 Colorado Boulevard. It was built in 1891 in the Queen Anne style and back in 2006 the owners filed for and were granted the house's designation as a Historic Preservation Site. I have no idea how long they have actually been restoring the place, but I have to say that I have never seen this house not undergoing repairs. It seemed like they worked on that gazebo-style entry porch for months and months, and now it looks like they are beginning to repaint the outside. And have they been working on the inside of the house since 2006? Lord knows. All I have to say is that owning a 135-year-old home has its downsides, the biggest one being that you can never stop working on it.
The owner of this home also seems to like restoring old cars, two of which can be seen in the photograph on the right. If I removed the color from that photo, you would not be able to tell it wasn't taken in the early 20th Century. Perhaps that is the goal - turning that particular corner of Idaho Springs back to a simpler time, allowing you to sit by the fire, the house lit by gas lamps, and look out the window and see a scene straight out of the 1920s. Get rid of the televisions and computers and smart phones and you are back in the past. No war in Iran, no mass deportations, no attempt to establish an authoritarian dynasty throughout the country. And by the way, Calvin Coolidge was the president back in the 1920s, who, I might add, restored public confidence in the White House after the many scandals of the Harding administration. Now that is something to think about.
No comments:
Post a Comment