Humboldt Island
The stately mansions that line Humboldt Street on Cheesman Park’s west side boast a variety of handsome architectural styles including Georgian Revival; Eclectic Classical Revival; Mediterranean Revival; Tudor; Denver Squares with Mission, Italianate, and Queen Anne influences; and Renaissance Revival.
More cozy enclave than neighborhood, Humboldt Island is one of very few Denver residential districts with homes that directly border a large city park. Imagine having your own tree-studded, 80-acre backyard with someone else to keep it looking green and well-manicured.
Humboldt Island was Denver’s first residential neighborhood and only the second overall to receive historic-district designation. Larimer Square, a commercial district, was the first. Most of Humboldt Island’s wealthy and prominent early residents came to be listed in City’s social registry.
Among the notables were Frederick Bonfils and Harry Tammen, co-owners of the Denver Post, and William McPhee, president of McPhee and McGinnity, one of the region’s largest lumber companies. Both Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, while serving as presidents, gave addresses from an interior balcony of Tammen’s handsome Eclectic-Classical Revival home.
Between 1922 and 1924, 1075 Humboldt Street became the governor’s mansion, home of Colorado governor William Sweet, who failed to receive a second term after refusing to support the powerful Ku Klux Klan. The Stoiber-Reed-Humphreys Mansion, a masterpiece of Renaissance Revival architecture, boasts 46 rooms spread over 14,500 square feet including a 2000-square-foot living room, eight bedrooms, nine baths, and a basement swimming pool and theater.
A block away, the Waldman’s luxurious condominium residences are among the most sought-after in the City. Nearby Cheesman Gardens, which offers stunning views of Cheesman Park and Front Range 14ers has been called “the ultimate address in Denver.”
If the rank of a neighborhood can be assessed by the company it keeps, then consider that Humboldt Island is surrounded by the Denver Botanic Gardens, Wymann Historic District, Morgan’s Historic District, the Denver Country Club, and eclectic Capitol Hill.
Where can you get to from here? Everywhere. Denver lies at your feet at Humboldt Island. For a truly magnificent home in a centrally located historic neighborhood with one of the City’s most beautiful parks for a backdrop, don’t overlook Humboldt Island. It’s simply not possible to get farther away from the urban hubbub and still live at the center of everything.
Denver’s theater district, library, art museum, botanic gardens, civic center, restaurant districts, and innumerable galleries are close enough to touch, yet you’re likely to imagine that your living in the country. Think of Humboldt Island as a more manageable version of New York’s Central Park.