This 1957 Denver home is a gem that has only changed hands twice and is almost entirely original.
What would it be like to live in a mid-century home that’s almost entirely original? That’s the dream the Cooper family gets to live every day in their 1957 Denver home. “There’s still usually a moment, maybe about once a year, when I’m inside and the fire is going, it’s snowing outside and I think, ‘I can’t believe I get to live in this room,’” homeowner Jenn Cooper says. “It’s so beautiful and comfortable.”
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1957 Denver Home History
The 1,500-square-foot house was constructed in 1957 as the model home for the master-planned community of Arapaho Hills in Littleton, a suburb of Denver. “This was the model and show home, the first home they built,” homeowner James Cooper says. The original business partnership for the community was between architect and builder Edward B. Hawkins and contractor Clyde Mannon. But after designing this initial model home, Hawkins pulled out of the project. “This is the only house in the neighborhood built by Hawkins,” James says.
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While their home is unique even amid the surrounding neighborhood, it still fits into the exclusively mid-century vibe of the area, with
the newer houses taking their cues from the original model home. “The architectural features are borrowed from each other,” James says.
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But what makes the 1957 Denver home stand out 65 years later is not who designed it but who has lived it in. James and Jenn are only the third homeowners. “The Pflueger family were the original owners. They lived here so long that this house was known as ‘The Pflueger House’ for a long time,” James says. The second homeowner, Mitchell Cowley, was another preservationist who wanted to keep the house as intact as possible. “He helped apply for the neighborhood to be part of the National Register of Historic Places,” James says.
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Preservation, Not Renovation
While the Coopers want the house to stay as original as possible, they’re still living in a 65-year-old structure, and fixes are always necessary. “One day, the kitchen drain line fell off the wall,” James says. “We’d been considering updating because the vent hood had less clearance between the countertop and cabinets, and the vent was old and really didn’t pull any air out.” In 2020, they hired a local custom cabinet maker to rebuild the kitchen in a copy of the original. “He rebuilt picture-perfect cabinets so when we had them ripped off the wall and replaced you’d never realize it,” James says. “We didn’t have any original plans to look at, but we wanted to meticulously reproduce the style with the Masonite sliding doors,” Jenn says.
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It was top priority to the Coopers that everything look exactly the same when the kitchen was finished—excluding the fallen pipe, of course. “Everything original was built on-site at the cabinetry shop,” Jenn explains. “We were careful to preserve the architectural integrity.” They did take the opportunity to update the appliances but stuck with low-profile choices that would match the style. “We chose a ‘plain Jane’ refrigerator,” James says. Jenn adds, “When we bought it, there was what I call an ‘easy-bake oven’ because it was so tiny.” But even with the updates, the kitchen looks and feels exactly like the original iteration.
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Besides the kitchen, the couple has tried to stay away from making any changes. “There are some systems updates we’ve done that no one cares about,” Jenn says. Those systems can be expensive but are a necessary part of maintaining an old house.
Architectural Features of the 1957 Denver Home
There were two main architectural features that drew the Coopers to the home: the stone and the layout of the living spaces. Rose rhyolite is a volcanic rock with a matte and dusty finish with a fine-grained texture and is the main material feature that Hawkins used on both the exterior and interior. On the exterior, a slab of it bisects the two halves of the inverse butterfly roofline. Inside, rhyolite lines part of the main living space as well as the fireplace hearth.
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Three bedrooms and two bathrooms are at the back of the house, so it’s this first room that is the home’s focal point. “This room is the most sexy part of the home,” James says. The couple finds the smaller square footage worth it for the original features and layout. “The house is small and further out [from the city] than we planned to live, but I get all this authenticity,” James says. “The three of us are completely comfortable in this space.”
To read more about MCM neighborhoods in the Denver area, check out Midcentury Neighborhoods: Arapahoe Acres in Englewood, Colorado and Mile High and Mid Mod: A 1955 Harvey Park Home. And of course, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube for more Atomic Ranch articles, house tours, and ideas!