Living in Manitou Springs (Colorado Springs, Littleton: to rent, hotel, houses)

[toxicavenger]

Manitou is really nice but the prices of houses have gotten out of hand. There is a nice shopping area you can walk to but it is more for tourist type stuff so you would have to drive to get necessities. Also if you need a garage alot of there places don't have one and alot of the house are on the side of the mountain. When tourist season kicks in and you live close to the downtown area then you can forget about parking in front of your house. And OCC has this issue some of the times too when the Teritory Days is going on there. If you want a mountain community look up Green Mountain Falls and Chitpita.

[AaronMoore]

Originally Posted by Jubi

I've been researching the Colorado Springs area for about 6 months now. I keep coming back to Manitou Springs. I like it for several reasons: the artistic, more liberal community, the mountain setting, the feeling that you're outside the city rather than right on top of it (but still near it), the quaint shops etc. My only concern is that I will be able to find a townhouse there in my budget when I am looking to move. So, I have also been looking in the surrounding areas also, mainly Rockrimmon, where there are more places available in my price range (around 150K). I plan on staying in Manitou when I look for a place next Spring. I'll just have to wait and see how it goes!

I suggest renting for a bit and looking around. I know there is supposed to be a new community of homes (townhomes?) called Gold Hill Mesa being built up near the Old Colorado City / Manitou Springs Area. It is a great time for home shopping - lots of bargains.

There is also an area between Garden of the Gods and Manitou Springs with homes nestled in the red rocks. Not sure what city they officially belong to but they are generally older homes from the '70s and earlier.

[lalahartma]

Originally Posted by wanttoliveinsnow

i have found so many homes for sale in the crystal park subdivision of manitou springs, in our price range, that i am actually a little afraid of what is going on there. i did find 1 article saying there are MANY foreclosures in crystal park. any knowledge about this would be SO helpful, as we are ready to move. also have looked at pagosa springs- it's between those two. help anyone, thx

I'm not sure what you mean. Crystal Park is higher end, so I assume people were buying out of their true means. You muight be able to pick up a real nice bargain!

[BlueSimple]

Moving to Manitou Springs next week from Illinois. Renting first and definitely looking forward to it. Crystal Park is nice, but it is not very attractive, to me anyway, just looks like a box neighborhood grafted onto a beautiful area.

[lalahartma]

Originally Posted by AaronMoore

I suggest renting for a bit and looking around. I know there is supposed to be a new community of homes (townhomes?) called Gold Hill Mesa being built up near the Old Colorado City / Manitou Springs Area. It is a great time for home shopping - lots of bargains.

There is also an area between Garden of the Gods and Manitou Springs with homes nestled in the red rocks. Not sure what city they officially belong to but they are generally older homes from the '70s and earlier.

Don't forget about Gold Hill Mesa:

The development eventually will have more than 1,200 houses, and it's built on ground that was once the home to the nation's largest gold and silver mill. In the soil are an estimated 14 million tons of deadly contaminants.

Here's what the National Safety Council says about lead, the other big treat under the new homes: "[Lead] can contaminate household dust as well as bare soil around the house, where children may play. ... All it takes is the lead dust equivalent of a single grain of salt for a child to register an elevated blood lead level."


Arsenic Acres — the developer and people who've bought homes call it Gold Hill Mesa — was once the Golden Cycle Mill. It opened in 1908, closed in 1949 and at its peak processed 800 tons of gold-rich ore every day from the gold mines of Cripple Creek. The process left millions of tons of arsenic and lead, natural elements separated from the gold. Cyanide was also used and it, too, remains in the soil. But developer Bob Willard covered the 210-acre site with about four feet of new soil. And plastic tarps. State and local officials say that was good enough.

Don't plant a garden!

Sympathy for the developer : Maybe we should worry about people not living on Gold Hill Mesa : Local News : Cover Story : Colorado Springs Independent : Colorado Springs
GOLD HILL MESA MAY GET NEW FUNDS | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs) | Find Articles at BNET
GOLD HILL MESS - Side Streets : Gazette.com

[toxicavenger]

And don't let you dog dig in the yard because he might bring some nasty dust with you. I saw a article on this awhile back and I still can't understand how the EPA approved these houses being built.

[Vertigo7]

Originally Posted by Minz

I moved to The Springs last February from TX...and have never looked back. I'm considering buying a place in Manitou Springs...or one of the other nearby mountain towns...but am leaning towards Manitou. I love the the older homes and it seems to be an open-minded, charming, art-sie type community. Can anyone give me feedback about Manitou Springs...like what it's like to live there, the "vibe" or reputation of the town...any positive or negative input will be greatly appreciated.

BTW...thank you to everyone over the past year who gave me great advice and insight which inspired me to move here. My four kitties and I moved here without knowing a soul and we feel blessed that we are making Colorado my home.

I lived in Manitou for 8 years. I think it is one of the most extraordinary towns in the U.S., and so close and convenient to, yet a world away from Colorado Springs. A beautiful Victorian town instead of a sprawl, not that the Springs doesn't have some wonderful areas.

The big grocery store was what, 3 or so miles right down the road. Very convenient I thought.

Walk down into town after a snow storm, and it looks like a Christmas Card. So many neat things nearby, like Cave of the Winds, some natural caves, hiking trails, Angel Falls (okay, that was nicer at the turn of the century), cool location for the High School.

Trails into the foothills leading up to Pike's Peak were only three blocks from my house, and I also used to run and bike to Garden of the Gods, as the back entrance is right there.

Humorously, at the time I lived there, the 1990's. Manitou was thought of as having dangerous enclaves of devil worshipers -- didn't see it AT ALL -- and other dangerous liberals. Definitely, overall, a little freer, a little more hippie, friendlier, and a little less vote-for-bush-two-times-and-support-palin-to-bomb-everything fear mongering crazy than most of Colorado Springs. So yes, Manitou is more liberal than the Springs.

Of course the wingnuts couldn't help but invade Manitou early on, with Summit Ministries, and the "Christian Community" of Crystal Park, but as long as you avoided reading any of the pamphlet spew put out by Summit, they were really no problem. I don't know if Crystal Park is still professing to be a "Christian Community" with big sign, but even when they were, it was still a section of Manitou in which I wouldn't have hesitated to live. As far as I know, they didn't set fire to any white witches, or even try to ban library books.

Ask the librarian to direct you toward books written about Manitou. I especially like the novel, set in 1960's Manitou, which was called "Manitou" I think.

Manitou is high priced now, that is for sure. We had big rain one year, and a few newer houses started sliding down the hill. So, if you buy a house hanging off a hillside, as I did, make sure it is rock.

The problem with Cascade, Chapita Park, Woodland Park etc., is the drive in, is much more of a chore, plus they do not have the feel of Manitou.

I've stayed in Salzburg, Austria, and lived in various beautiful European towns in the mountains. There's no place quite like Manitou. I still miss it. I knew people who grew up there, and they even know how special it is.
I never thought I'd leave, but oh well, something came up.

[BlueSimple]

As someone who is moving there next week, I was happy to see this post above.

Funnily enough, when I first started making inquiries about moving, starting with family, a cousin my age, (one of those magical Colorado "natives"), immediately after hearing Manitou Spring mentions the withcraft and supposed devil worshiping, and that was about two months ago.

[Vertigo7]

Someone mentioned the vibe in Manitou. Not only does Manitou have a special vibe, the New Age people believe the convergence in Manitou is a vortex, that is, a center of spiritual power. Sedona, AZ, has a few. The convergence is the mountain pass, that begins with Ruxton Ave., (left off Manitou Avenue), up to where the cog railway is.

New Age things aside, before the white man arrived, Manitou and Garden of the Gods were considered sacred places, for the Ute, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Kiowa tribes. I felt the vibe just driving down Manitou Avenue for very first time. Let me tell you a little about the history of Manitou, mixing in my personal experiences.

The Native Americans bathed in the naturally effervescent waters, in small natural pools in downtown Manitou. If I remember correctly, they were in the park to the left of the Spa Building. They no longer exist although Fountain Creek (“Fountaine qui Bouille”) is still there, along with a few dozen springs producing the same highly mineralized water. It is safe to drink from the Springs, but I wouldn’t drink quarts of it. It is three times as mineralized as most mineral water in places like Baden-Baden. When I lived there, one Spring was closed off because it was also producing a gas teens were huffing.

After the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike first explored the area. I climbed Pike’s Peak around 1992, something Lt. Pike failed to do incidentally. Not only did I climb it, I climbed the top half of it in a snow storm, in June, wearing shorts!

By 1858. when gold was discovered in Ute Pass (mostly in Cripple Creek and Victor although there are a few abandoned mines just outside of Manitou), the whole dynamic of the area changed. Natives were bribed, cheated, attacked, forced to relocate to reservations, pushed out by white men with gold fever. (It’s the American way.)

Today, at the Cliff Dwellings attraction, a really nice fake mini Mesa Verde right near Manitou that operates during the warmer months I think, they get their Indians from Oklahoma. Still, it is worth a few visits, especially with out-of-towners who have never seen cliff dwellings.

By 1872, Manitou began taking civilized form, modeled as a European Spa Town, with a hotel and villa lots in town and on the hillside, where wealthy people built their estates.

Beginning around 1880, during rising cases of tuberculosis in the U.S., Manitou gained a reputation as a place to come for “the cure,” just as in Europe, people went to sanatoriums in Switzerland. Clean air, high altitude, and drinking the healing waters of Manitou’s springs in town, caused people to flock to Manitou. They lived in tents, built shacks or small cottages, slept in the open air on sleeping porches even during winter. (They thought that cold fresh air sleeping was helpful.) They also went into Manitou, from spring to spring, in a prescribed order, sipping the “healing” waters. By spring, as in Manitou Springs, I mean a spigot with water coming up out of it. Today, people in the area seek healing at the NEW LIFE CHURCH, in Colorado Springs, presumably under new leadership after its founder, Ted Haggard, was discovered to be seeking his healing with crystal meth and a male prostitute. Such is life in Colorado Springs. Don’t go near it!

But if you must, there’s a cool museum near the center of Colorado Springs, where they show old medical instruments, including the long aspiration pick used to collapse a person’s lung, to give it rest. As it turned out, this was just for the placebo effect. However, before the antibiotic for TB was discovered, high altitude was good at slowing the spread of the TB bacillus, and helped some people recover.

By 1920, tuberculosis was pretty much over and Manitou continued on as a spa and vacation town, with cottages and homes dotting the hillsides.

In 1960, Hwy 24 was built, bypassing Manitou, and Manitou went into a decline which created a more affordable environment for hippies and artists.

By 1980’s an economic revival began and in 1987 an organization was formed to reopen many of the springs that had been closed. They also restored parks, and began a lot of renovation to restore the charm of historic buildings on Manitou Avenue, while setting standards for new construction.

I had neighbors who rented in Manitou, liked Manitou, but when it came to buying, just couldn’t reconcile living in a dilapidated house in Manitou, with virtually no yard, when for similar money they could buy a nice small home in Colorado Springs, with a big yard and room to build their two car garage and workshop. In Colorado Springs, they had views of Pike’s Peak and were not near street noise. Such things in Manitou would cost you. The selection of homes for sale in Manitou, a town of 5000 people, is tiny compared to Colorado Springs.

Again, unless you are loaded, probably makes a lot of sense to rent in Colorado Springs, and wait for just the right house for you, to come up in Manitou. It took me six months. I was torn between two, and in retrospect, should have chosen the more expensive one that needed less fixing up.

Don’t believe a thing people in Colorado Springs say about living in Manitou. The only ones who know about Manitou are the people who live(d) there. It is special living in Manitou and most of the people who live there, think the trade-offs are well worth it. It is the small-town living environment without the small town isolation. The tourists are fun. People from all over come for the Pike’s Peak marathon, a run up and down Pike’s Peak. I told visitors “I live here,” and people always envied that.

What is difficult in Manitou, unless you have a million dollars, is trying to have everything, if you are a person who can’t make sacrifices: great views, privacy, yard, charm, quiet, and a well constructed house in excellent condition, with an easily accessible road. Maybe there are a few houses like that in Manitou at a lower price range and they just aren’t for sale. When people live in one of those dreamy view spots, like some houses on Sutherland, they live there forever.

Some things you might have to put up with in a house in Manitou: needs work, low ceilings, one bathroom, tiny yard or no yard, ten feet from neighbor’s house, traffic noise, shady side of the street (that would have been terrible to me), not the best insulation, things not done to code. I did a few of those myself,

When I was looking for a house in Manitou in 1991, which was during a sort of local real estate crisis brought on by cancellation of Reagan’s Star Wars missile defense program and the collapse of several other businesses, I could have bought a cute, newer house that was a foreclosure by the VA, for $42,000, in a nice, quiet, but non-descript neighborhood of Colorado Springs. It had a nicely fenced back yard, two bedrooms and two bathrooms, 1050 sq. ft., fireplace, cathedral ceilings, all cute as a bug-in-a-rug, with garage. In Manitou, the same house on a lot with practically no yard would have cost $85,000.

And now, as another poster noted, many of those old Victorian houses, they want $300,000 or whatever for, don’t even have a garage.

Before I bought my home in Manitou, I rented in Colorado Springs for six months, in a pleasant, but non-descript neighborhood. It was in easy biking distance of the Broadmoor and Seven Falls, and I regularly biked up to Helen Hunt Falls and Goldcamp Road, even over to Manitou. Still, when I moved to Manitou, there was nothing so nice as being able to live right there. Much nicer than visiting. I’d prefer to visit the mall, than live next to one, thank you.

If you like taking walks, Manitou is a town you can walk around in, and up and around the hilly streets, and just enjoy looking at the scenery, and marveling at the variety of houses, some very small and cute, and others that are just plain interesting. All the houses do not look the same. There is no other place like it. Manitou is one of a kind.

Or walk up into the trails in the mountains. Some of the trails are hard to find but you can ask around.

When biking into Colorado Springs, I never went on Manitou Avenue which turns into Colorado Avenue. Instead, go on the back street that runs parallel. Lover’s Lane turns into El Paso Blvd, turns into Pike’s Peak Avenue.

Lastly, if you can’t find anything in Manitou, another area I like, were the few streets off El Paso, that go up toward the edge of Garden of the Gods. Of course, that’s all pretty expensive too now.

If we go into a deep recession, it may be a golden opportunity to find a house in Manitou, for a person with savings that doesn’t need to sell their house.

[Minz]

Originally Posted by BlueSimple

Moving to Manitou Springs next week from Illinois. Renting first and definitely looking forward to it. Crystal Park is nice, but it is not very attractive, to me anyway, just looks like a box neighborhood grafted onto a beautiful area.

BlueSimple,

So have you since moved to Manitou? What do you think about it?
It's been about a year since I closed on my house in Manitou...and I feel blessed everyday to live here (and blessed to live in Colorado)!

I hope people who want to buy in Manitou don't get discouraged....sure it is not cheap, but it just takes some perserverence. Best of luck!