Old houses? (Denver, Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs: apartments, hotel, neighborhoods)

[krisiw5]

My husband and I are looking around the country for a new place to live, and one of the main things we are looking for is an abundance of old houses with character. The age we are looking for is anywhere between 1900-1930s. We like everything else about Colorado Springs, so we are trying to find out if it has a good number of houses in this age range.

Thanks.

[vfrpilot]

I think you'll like the area around Colorado College, just north of downtown. There are some amazing old houses. A lot of the larger ones have been converted into boarding or apartments for students. The area west of downtown, known as Old Colorado City also has older neighborhoods. These homes are generally smaller and not as nice. The area around the Broadmoor Hotel has some neat older neighborhoods also. Some of those homes are literally mansions with guesthouses and servants quarters.
Manitou Springs, also on the west side, has older houses, mostly on very hilly terrain. It's very scenic.
Hope this helps.

[tfox]

I'm live in Denver, where we have no shortage of lovely old neighborhoods, but I was very surprised at the Old North End of Colorado Springs (near Colorado College). Beautiful, stately Victorians. If you transplanted the neighborhood and moved it to Denver, it'd be the toast of the town and command prices 4-5 times what they are worth down in the Springs. It's really quite underappreciated, like many other things down in the Springs.

[bashep]

Right now in Central Colorado Springs, we have 92 plus homes built in that time frame on the market. They range from $105,000-$1million. Some of them are great and some need some TLC. Hope that helps! bashep

[Mike from back east]

That Old North End area (near downtown, Colorado College and Penrose Hospital) is superb for older homes (that's why its the 'OLD' north end). Some of those streets have broad medians full of mature trees forming a simply marvelous canopied treescape. You'd pay huge prices for homes in such treed areas if located in big cities like Denver, DC or Atlanta, etc. Those trees are tended by a staff of city arborists.

Old Colorado City on the west side has lots of older, small homes. Here you find purple-painted homes like in San Francisco, etc. OCC has a cool, funky charm, like Old Town Alexandria (VA) before it yuppified 30+ years ago.

I keep saying home prices in this city make COL SPGS the sweet spot in nation for big city living at VERY affordable prices. Get 'em while the getting is good, once the boomers retire and flock here the prices will go way up.

[krisiw5]

Thanks so much for your answers, you've really helped!! Very happy to hear there are a good number of old houses there.