Comments on: Denver’s Single-Family Homes by Decade: 1970s

By: Stephen Holben

Stephen Holben — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 15:55:37 +0000

I’ll be darn. I built the first house pictured in the “Shed” section. 1978.
Hated that style, but that’s what people wanted then.

By: Kevin Dickson

Kevin Dickson — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 08:13:25 +0000

The Bi-Level was a particularly hateful design. My contractor friend summed it up best “I make a thousand decisions every day. It sucks when I come home and have to make one more” (whether to go up or down).

For what it’s worth, some tidbits I remember (or misremember) from the period:

1. Many of the Late Modernism redevelopments in Wash Park and Cherry Creek were designed by Dick Crowther, or are copies of his stuff. He died just a few years ago at about age 99.
2. Muchow did a lot of the Mansard roof stuff as well as those huge A frames in Stokes Addition (1960s)
3. The deep-eaved ranches in Belcaro built by the Adams brothers (50s and 60s) will increase in popularity, if any of them survive this round of gentrification.
4. The ULTIMATE multi-level house was designed and built by Langdon Morris around 1967 in the 600 block of So. Garfield. Seven levels I think. I loved it.

By: Chad

Chad — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 20:40:45 +0000

I realize that this blog is really only focusing on exterior architecture, but it may be worth mentioning that one of the real plan inventions of the 1970′s was the split-level and multi-level house. I can tell by looking that the Bear Valley house in section #8 is a multi-level home as the windows indicate a floor slightly below and slightly above the garage/entry level and there is another level above the garage. A split-level (not pictured here anywhere that I can tell) would have just three levels: entry/garage level, upstairs and downstairs)

Prior to the 70′s most houses had a main entry on the main level of the house; bedrooms and other service spaces might be upstairs or downstairs from this level. The Split-level and Multi-level homes beginning in the 70′s created much more ambiguity about which level was the “main level” but it was most commonly the one just above the main entry and garage. The invention of the split-level (or multi-level) created more dramatic entries and much more spatial complexity within American housing for the middle class. The ranches (and modernist usonian-type homes) of the previous decades had greatly opened up the floor plans on one level, but these homes opened the plans up into multiple levels (a trick that can make a small house seem much bigger than it actually is because you can see so much of it all at once)

Interestingly enough, the split-level and multi level plan seems to have fallen out of favor in the last decade (in favor of the more traditional house plan). I’m not sure why that is, perhaps it was all the stairs, or the fact that so few uses were located on the same level, or simply that it started to become “dated.” Whatever the case its an interesting chapter in American housing history.

By: Ken Schroeppel

Ken Schroeppel — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 19:49:54 +0000

I’m glad this series has been enlightening. I too have learned a lot about the diversity of Denver’s architectural styles, particularly in the later decades, through Mark’s photography and descriptions.

By: Freddie

Freddie — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 19:14:22 +0000

When this series first started, I wondered what on earth Ken was going to do once we reached the more recent decades. I had this apparently ill-conceived idea that all new housing was bland tract housing by about 1970 or so – unless you were wealthy enough to buy a plot of land, then commission some custom mansion for it. But most of these homes look like 2000-ish square-foot, middle class homes. I guess my hatred for suburbia has allowed me to develop this hyperbolic idea that every last home built in the US during the 70′s was pretty much an exact replica of that ranch house in the first pic, lol.

By: Ted

Ted — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 05:11:57 +0000

I absolutely love this series! It would be great to see a similar series on Denver’s commercial/retail/mixed use architecture through the years to complement this one!