Silvio DeBartolomeis and Cheryl Harpt in the kitchen of Pioneer Hills 3-bedroom show home. That model sold…around the corner from a 1,494-foot home on sale for $239,900.

When you have nice single-family homes, sooner or later you have kids who grow up and leave…empty nesters who want out of shoveling snow…people changing, needing newer spaces. Most of those people still want to stay in the same neighborhood, with its trails and Cherry Creek Schools; and Colonnade reaches to them with a neighborhood that has a secluded feel, big pool and cabana, parks and trails.

“People get tired of taking care of larger houses,” says Silvio DeBartolomeis, who can show you the home by appointment. It has two bedrooms and 2-1/2 baths…including a luxury 5-piece master bath, a great room with fireplace, basement and 2-car attached garage.

The price of $239,900 is a huge discount from its original list — $80,926 off. You can also see a few other homes of the same floor plan at $250,000; and some bigger 3-bedrooms with over 2,000 feet, all at huge discounts, $50,000, $60,000 or $70,000 off.
Needless to say, this will work even if you don’t live in Piney Creek, just taking advantage of the federal tax credit (it requires a contract by April 30 and closing by June 31… Any of these homes qualify, even allow you a little time to pick custom colors on some.

Buyers are already moving on the prices. All of the Phase-I ranches are gone, and Thursday the model home went under contract (it was the most expensive in the community). You can walk the trail over a footbridge to Pioneer Hills Shopping Center, with its “Grind’ coffee shop with free wi-fi; a half dozen other restaurants and taverns including Jason’s Deli, Purple Orchid, T.G.I. Friday’s and more.

“This is a new urban concept,” DeBartolomeis added…walkable to two dozen stores, Home Depot and Wal-mart beyond, with Light Rail five minutes away at Parker and I-225. To the west is Cherry Creek State Park, including its off-leash dog park and Cherry Creek Trail. The sale runs through Feb. 28, open today 10-5; take Parker Road south from I-225 or north from Arapahoe to Chambers; turn north 1/4-mile to the entryway.
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WHERE: Pioneer Hills, 2- & 3-bedroom 2-story townhomes, Phase-I inventory close-out; pool and trails that link to Pioneer Hills Shopping Center; call for showing. 15097 E. Crestline Pl.; take Parker Road south from I-225 3.6 mi. to Chambers Rd. and turn left, quarter-mile to entryway on left.

PRICE: From $239,900
PHONE: 303-995-6363 WEB: ColonnadeCommunities.com

Why is Denver being ranked as a national market (perhaps THE market) most likely to lead a real estate recovery? In part for the excitement buyers and developers are finding in the city’s core urban neighborhoods…highlighted by Cherry Creek, where new upscale stores, exclusive restaurants, are emerging right now, this year.

Developers David Steel (left) and Roy Kline show off the Paris-inspired courtyard of NorthCreek, where residents have their cars valet-parked.

“Everybody’s trying to mimic Cherry Creek,” says Roy Kline of Western Development Group, overseeing the metamorphosis of an entire block of Cherry Creek North into NorthCreek, a medley of residential offerings that have already lured a complement of stores to the street level….including Hermes (famous Paris accessory house that opened in April); Eileen Fisher; Loro Piana, Marmi…all of them either a flagship, or making a singular appearance.

What you WON’T find are restaurants. Early on, developer David Steel says, NorthCreek buyers expressed a preference for keeping the hubbub that goes with popular eateries at arm’s length. When you tour NorthCreek’s blend of flats and brownstones (by appointment only), you’ll see Pekoe Tea House downstairs; but the rest of Cherry Creek’s thirty-odd dining spots are either up the street or around the corner.

You’ll visit plush offerings for any size preference. When Western took over the site from another developer, first thing they did was upsize the homes in NorthCreek’s Tower Residences (75% of them are now closed, one at 11,000 feet!), while decreasing the unit count. They also upgraded finishes: “This is a very narrow bandwidth of buyer,” Steel said, showing me one flat (from $1.2 million) with views to downtown, where the budget for showerheads exceeds $4,000.

You’ll find the same quality in the Brownstones (around 2,700 feet, from $2.7 million), with entries facing NorthCreek’s private, Paris-inspired courtyard, where residents drive in for valet parking and where their party guests do the same. The one place the developer has made no assumptions about finish is in some Courtyard Flats (from $3 million) with huge terraces, where finishes are left to buyers.

The set attracted to this, Steel says, include more than a few Aspenites. (“I see the mountains every day,” one told him. “I want this to be a city feel.”) But however you finish, adds Steel, don’t expect to find this waiting three years from now. “There’ll never be this location, this access,” he says. “When they’re gone, they’re gone.”

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WHERE: NorthCreek, medley of luxurious urban flats and brownstones with exclusive concierge services, created for a full block in the heart of Cherry Creek North. Information Center 2800 E. Second Avenue, between Detroit & Fillmore, Cherry Creek. Residential tours by appointment only.

PRICE: From $1.2 million; Brownstones from $2.7 million

WHEN: Tours by appointment only

PHONE: PHONE: 303-270-0101 WEB: NorthCreekDenver.com

Within a block are venerable Abe’s Café (40 years of sandwiches), the old city hall (now a theater), 5-star rated Opus fine dining, JaJa Bistro, a couple of spas, Pinon Fine Art, Iris Gallery and a half dozen other galleries and antique shops. Two blocks west is Melting Pot in the old Carnegie library; and two blocks east, the train into Denver.

This isn’t LoDo. ”It’s ‘LiDo,’ Littleton downtown,” says Michelle Donahue with Classic New Home Sales, agents for Nevada Place. “People have been waiting for this project, some ever since it first hit the planning commission.”

The sales center was once the First National Bank; and as we chatted, Jayne Barth walked in to invite us next door to watch her cut the ribbon for her new wine bar, “Kate’s”…with a Sinatra soundtrack and vintages that are stored in the bank’s old vault under the shops.

Nevada Place is banking on bright plans that have top-rated finishes, secured parking, and big outdoor spaces (some patios are 40 feet long; decks are dining-sized and plumbed for gas grills) to lure buyers. Right now you can pick from a wide range of 2-bedroom plans, along with a 1-bedroom-plus-den ($329,900)…and a few luxury units sized 1,700 or 1,800 feet. The storefront’s at 2509 W. Main; take Main west into downtown (or Alamo east) to Nevada.
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An exceptionally snowy winter and the low dollar are adding to the allure of Grand County to purchasers from the British Isles, who have long favored Winter Park.

“Winter Park has always appealed to the British,” says Denise O’Connell, Broker Associate with Coldwell Banker Mountain Properties, who was part of a team of local real estate specialists who flew to London several years ago to present at a travel exhibition.

Now, O’Connell’s newest buyers for a custom home in Grand County are British. “They’ve had fabulous packages on Winter Park travel for years,” she says, adding that those opportunities have only become better as United has begun offering London-DIA non-stops in competition with British Airways; and as the dollar’s fall has made a vacation to the U.S. something akin to the way Americans view travel to Mexico.

Some Winter Park bed-n-breakfasts have long catered to European visitors…but the airlines’ extra baggage charges ($147 for a pair of skis), says O’Connell, are prompting Brits to wonder whether they’d be better off to own a place and keep the gear here. She adds they like the funky style, including the ‘pub’ life; and after a year of exceptionally heavy snows, they’re carrying home great stories about the skiing, too.

Custom home on 35 acres ten miles southwest of downtown Grand Junction is on market at $1.45 million

“We’re maybe down a little now, but we’ll have a good year,” says Sharon Vaughn, who along with husband Larry are part owners of Coldwell Banker Home Owners Realty in Grand Junction. A major factor fueling recent growth—oil, gas and shale oil production in the region—is likely to keep bringing relocations, including to Grand Junction itself, where some employees are willing to commute 45 minutes up the valley to Parachute near many of the energy industry ventures.

Just as on the Front Range, Vaughn says showings and sales saw a noticeable drop last fall that continued through the mid-winter months…but appeared to reverse in February as spring activity picked up. “We have more inventory now than we did a year ago, particularly upper end, over $400,000,” she adds. The extra listings are visible at prestigious Redlands Mesa Golf Club…but not at Chatfield, a single-family project listed by Coldwell Banker in the southwest part of the city, from the $280s, attracting energy employees among others.

Coldwell Banker, meanwhile, is set to open a second branch office near St. Mary’s Hospital, undergoing a 10-story expansion that will draw patients from a 2-state area, as well as employees qualified for higher priced homes. The Vaughn Team is at (970)242-5505.

So, where in the metro area did Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony plop down a reported $12 million last year for a 16,000-square-foot Tuscan-style pad on a sprawling, gated estate? Was it Cherry Hills Village? Franktown? North Boulder County?

Actually, Littleton. Polo Reserve is off Platte Canyon Road, designed around a polo field for a Parade of Homes in the early ’90s.

The Parade was in The Farm at Polo Reserve: giant customs clustered around the field created for the Denver Polo Classic (300 yards long and equaling nine football fields…as backyard open space goes, very open indeed.)

Carmelo’s place is in there (it’s behind two gates). Next door is The Sanctuary, with acre/2-acres; and north of that, The Meadows at Polo Reserve, half acre-one acre, including a home for sale now.

Realtor Karen Brinckerhoff grew up riding at stables in Denver and says she doesn’t recall going south of Alameda Street until she returned home from college. Now she’s an advocate for Polo Reserve and its Littleton lifestyle…and lives in the Meadows.

What you get here, Brinckerhoff told me, are amenities to exceed what buyers find in fancy areas east of the Platte River. Those include the field (residents have purchased it from a private interest that had been staging outside events); and nice stables…linked into area trails, including the Platte Greenway that passes directly by.
Also Columbine Country Club and golf course, with a new chef recruited from Del Frisco’s, so close that Polo Reserve residents consider it to be a fixture of the neighborhood lifestyle.

After the 1980s real estate bust (worse by far than anything we’ve seen the last two years) Old Littleton was looking down at the heels. Now, downtown has Light Rail, trendy new dining, and a bright outlook, one that Brinckerhoff says is a great match for Polo Reserve itself – attracting an unusual number of east-coasters and Midwesterners, who feel at home with the clubby lifestyle here.

She also gives high marks to the public Littleton Schools. The traditional 5-bedroom house at No. 1 Arabian
Place is 3,415 sq. ft. on a half acre and has a nicely finished basement. Brinckerhoof has a web site where you can learn more about the listing at karen.brinckerhoff@coloradohomes.com.

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