Customer Reviews

The Mansions Of Denver: The Vintage Years 1870-1938

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
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Excellent book. Gives a great historical perspective on each home. Really puts a face to them.

"The Mansions of Denver" is a must for anyone interested in the history of Denver and Denver's prominent families during the "gilded-age." There are plenty of photos of the mansions of Denver, both those that are still standing as well as those lost to the greed of fools with no sense of historic preservation.

This is the book many of us have been waiting for. I, and many of my friends, have wondered about the history of downtown Denver, especially Captiol Hill, and particularly about the Victorian mansions in the neighborhood that we heard had been torn down years ago. Not many people we talked to had any information. This book has it all. It covers all the big houses and major names in the development of early Denver. It tells how fortunes were made and lost, and what happened to the many mansions that were built with money from mining, oil, real estate, and ranching. While some of these gems survive, most notably the Governor's Mansion and the nearby Grant/Humphreys mansion, hundreds were lost to urban renewal in the 1960s and 70s. While Bretz laments their losses, he gives us a glimmer of hope that those that have survived will be with us a long, long time.

This is a great book. I got it in like 3 days. It's too bad the city tore down all these treasures.

Denver is blessed with an abudence of Gilded Age gradeur and this book does a fine job of focusing on the best of these. The images are crisp and clean and the text is very enlighening. It is a shame that some of these homes have been lost, but having said that, Denver should be proud that so many are extant. Highly recommended to anyone interested in Denver or just fine residential architecture in general.