Littleton (Denver, Boulder, Highlands Ranch: new home, safe area, movies)

[Nick1]

Currently me and my family are interested in moving out of Missouri and into the Denver area and I'm hooked onto this particular suburb. I have $400,000 to spend, so I have enough for a decent home. But I was wondering about how safe it is. Is the air and water quality good? How's the commute to downtown and are the school districts any good? I have a son in third grade and a daughter in sixth grade.
Thanks in advance.

[Micktooth]

Any particular reason you are set on Littleton? It's a nice part of town but it is fairly large. Why don't you tell us some more specifics and we will try to help you. FYI, my family and I moved to Louisville near Boulder last June from New Orleans, we just love it here and so will you.

[BenWolfe]

If you are looking in Littleton you should also look into Highlands Ranch. Both are in Douglas County and Douglas County schools are some to the best in the state. Littleton covers a large geographical area and your commute will vary by as much as 15 minutes from the western edge to the eastern edge. If you plan on a 45 minute commute to downtown you should be okay from anywhere except Roxborough. The area is quite safe and air and water quality is good.

[Nick1]

I just found another good suburb close by with good mountain views, Highlands Ranch. My mind is certainly set around the southern part of the denver metro.

[Nick1]

As a snow lover I'm loving the forecast for the area right now.

[TinajaCo]

Littleton is a great area.... it is large and does cover a large are geographically, in addition to areas west that are not technically in Littleton, but have Littleton addresses. But it is a very safe area, with a high quality of life-- good schools, lots of neighborhood activities, easy access to shopping, parks, recreation, etc. Littleton tends to be older, but well-kept and with character, whereas Highlands Ranch is mostly newer but lacking in character. Littleton has its own school district which is very good, and parts of Littleton also fall under Jefferson County schools, which are also good in the area. Commute times do vary, depending on where in Littleton you are, but count on anything from 20 minutes to (in the far corner of the city) 45-50 minutes.

[2bindenver]

Originally Posted by BenWolfe

If you are looking in Littleton you should also look into Highlands Ranch. Both are in Douglas County and Douglas County schools are some of the best in the state. Littleton covers a large geographical area and your commute will vary by as much as 15 minutes from the western edge to the eastern edge.

Uh, no. Littleton is a city and the county seat in Arapahoe County - north of (get this) County Line Road. When folks moved to southern Jefferson County and northern Douglas County, Littleton was the closest real city, so the post office adopted the mailing address of Littleton, even though those areas are in different counties.

Now the closest city to Highlands Ranch (a subdivision with three zip codes) is Lone Tree, but the post office doesn't mind if you address letters to HR or Littleton as long as the zip code is correct. HR is a whole lot easier to put on an envelope than Littleton or Highlands Ranch...dontcha think

[formercalifornian]

If you're hooked on that part of Denver (and why not?), take a drive through Ken-Caryl Valley. Take 470 to the Ken-Caryl exit and drive west into the valley through the hogback. It has good schools, great hiking, mountain views, and pleasant neighbors. You should be able to find a perfectly adequate house for $400k if you stick to the older section, which was built in the mid-80's. Last fall, friends of ours bought a 3bdr/3bth with a basement for $369. I'd love to live there, but the commute precludes it.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by BenWolfe

If you are looking in Littleton you should also look into Highlands Ranch. Both are in Douglas County and Douglas County schools are some to the best in the state. Littleton covers a large geographical area and your commute will vary by as much as 15 minutes from the western edge to the eastern edge. If you plan on a 45 minute commute to downtown you should be okay from anywhere except Roxborough. The area is quite safe and air and water quality is good.

Littleton, the city, is in Arapahoe County. There is a large area with Littleton addresses, but even so, most if not all are in Arapahoe Co. The Littleton School District is supposed to be good. Search "schools" on this forum to see an excellent answer about schools by 2beindenver.

[rburtoncpa]

We just moved into our new home between Chatfield and Roxborough. Our address is Littleton, and we're in an unincorporated area of Douglas County. Our area feeds into schools on the far western edge of Highlands Ranch, specifically Thunderridge High School. So, we're on the far edges of Douglas County and what is considered Littleton.

Our perspective is probably a little naive, having just moved here from DC, but I'll tell you what we've learned. I commute to downtown Denver daily, and the commute averages about 40-45 minutes each way. That's by taking Santa Fe all the way downtown, which is not a bad commute. Other than the downtown commute, we find ourselves not leaving our area much. Everything we need is within a 5-10 miles radius from our home, so shopping, dining, movies, schools, church, etc. are all within easy reach.

We opted to be out in the country, because it better suits our lifestyle, and we're willing to have the extra commute (I'm the only one who commutes in the family). Our house backs right up to the foothills, so right now as I'm typing this I'm watching a herd of 11 deer graze on a hillside, and the rising sun is casting a gorgeous light across the eastern slopes. Our area is the suburbs, but we enjoy the neighbors and having kids around for our kids to play with.

We are less than a mile from Chatfield Park and Waterton Canyon hiking. We're a few miles from Roxborough Park. My daughter and I ride our bikes to a local coffee shop on some Saturday mornings.

Downsides of this area? It's very windy occasionally, so much so that I've had to get rid of a few pieces of lighter patio furniture that would blow kinto the house on windy days. We often get more snow than other areas of Denver, but we actually enjoy that right now because it's new to us. Our house faces south, so we get the worst snow in the back and I don't have to deal with shoveling much in the driveway or on front walks, so that's nice. If you believe the thermometer in my truck, we're usually 5-10 degrees cooler here than metro Denver, specifically DTC. On weekends, the recreational traffic (hikers, bikers, dog park goers) on the roads near our home gets a little heavy, but again we don't mind this much because we're usually headed to the park also.

In summary, we love it out here. It's very quiet and we feel very safe. The school has been great so far. We don't feel too far removed from metro Denver, but far enough out to escape a lot of the congestion. Also, we're only about 20 miles from Castle Rock if we want to enjoy some of their amenities. Mountain access is easy for us, because we're already pretty far west, and we can take the back roads if traffic is too heavy on I-70.

If you have any questions about our area, feel free to ask.