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FrontRangeLiving.com -> Architecture -> Colorado Modernism
NIFTY
FIFTIES: ARAPAHOE ACRES CELEBRATES MODERNISM IN COLORADO
By Niki Hayden
Glance at the National Register of Historic Places, which notes remarkable
buildings and neighborhoods in America, and you’ll find plenty of Colonial
town squares and elegant Victorian streets. We’re accustomed to anything over
100 years old becoming a revered site. So it’s all the more jolting to realize
a neighborhood just south of Denver, in Englewood, is also listed on the
Register. It dates to the 1950s, the first neighborhood in the United States to
be listed from that era.
Arapahoe Acres includes 124 houses built from 1949 to 1957. A brainchild of
Colorado builder Edward Hawkins and Czech-born architect Eugene Sternberg, the
pattern of homes marries European modernism and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian
style with bold and brash flourishes. The neighborhood is like a laboratory,
showcasing exciting new architectural ideas of the time. A post World War II
optimism encouraged breaking away from vertical and ornamented buildings,
experimenting with the most basic of forms--whether horizontal or cubed.
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rest of this story is now contained in "Colorado Antique Lover's Guide" by
Front Range Living and Fulcrum Publishing. It can be purchased through www.fulcrum-books.com
or at bookstores, such as: www.tatteredcover.com,
www.barnesandnoble.com,
www.borders.com
or www.amazon.com.
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