Home is Where the Heart is

Our favorite neighborhoods for superior home remodels and renovation

Home is where the heart is. There has never been a more true statement for most of Factor Design Build’s clients.
Most luxury home owners in Colorado, where property values have skyrocketed over the last decade, certainly have options when deciding whether to build new or renovate their current home. But for most Factor Design Build home renovation clients the answer is much easier than going through lengthy cost-benefit analysis.
“Most people who hire us love their neighborhood and want to keep sending their kids to the same school,” said Factor Project Developer David Bell. “They love the character that their old home has, and they don’t want new construction that loses all that character.”
Factor’s comprehensive design-build approach makes it a much easier decision in these neighborhoods rich in tradition, schools, sports and friends. We are carefully scheduling our own construction personnel in these neighborhoods, minimizing disturbance to the families we serve, as well as the neighborhood they love.
“More than half of our business comes from referral,” Bell said.
So while Factor Design Build serves much of the northern Front Range, we find ourselves coming back often to the same neighborhoods. Here’s a few we love, in the older Denver areas east of U.S. Interstate 25.

Cherry Creek, Cherry Creek Hills, Greenwood Village, Country Club Historic District

This is the one of the areas gold was first discovered in Colorado in 1857, on Cherry Creek near the confluence with the South Platte. Today it stands as one of the most popular and prosperous locations in the entire state, with sophisticated shopping, celebrity residents and the highly ranked Cherry Creek School District, which boasts a student-teacher ratio of 16-1. Many of these neighborhoods have distinct Victorian era architecture, street layout and lots.

Cherry Hills Village

Cherry Hills Village is home to a number of former and current National Football League stars, including former Broncos coach Mike Shanahan, Hall of Fame Broncos quarterback/executive John Elway, former Broncos and Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, and current Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson. Former Avalanche great (and current executive) Joe Sakic calls this home, as did Broadway star Ethel Merman back in the day.
The home rule municipality had a population of only 6,442 and a total area of 4,017 acres, according to the 2020 United States Census. So few homes are on the market at any given time, but recently purchased homes are often renovated according to the taste of their prosperous owners.

Cherry Creek

The Cherry Creek Neighborhood is a unique blend of residential and specialty shopping, home to many premier art galleries and independently owned boutiques, as well as Cherry Creek Shopping Center. Cherry Creek Park is alongside the stream, and there are numerous hiking and biking trails, as well as attractions such as the Denver Botanic Gardens and the annual Cherry Creek Arts Festival. Compared to Cherry Hills, these homes are more accessible to young families, who often need home renovation to make their space work for children and work-at-home owners.

Greenwood Village

The City of Greenwood Village is another home rule municipality, south of Cherry Hills, with a population of 15,691 at the 2020 Census. The area was first settled as part of the gold rush, but soon became a farm community, with much of the area planted with apple, apricot, cherry, plum, and pear trees. By the 1940s there was a strong influx of suburbanites, but also wealthy Denver residents who had  “country” homes here. According to the Village website, fear that encroaching development from Denver would spoil this country lifestyle helped spur the incorporation in 1950.

Cherry Creek School District is based in Greenwood Village and the town has an incredibly well-educated population. More than 98 percent of the people 25 years or older graduated from high school, more than 72 had a bachelor’s degree or higher, and more than 31 percent had a graduate or professional degree.

Country Club Historic District

The Country Club Historic District, located downstream and west of the Cherry Creek neighborhood, was developed alongside the Denver Country Club in the early 1900s. The neighborhood’s significance was first recognized in 1979 when the western half of the district was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In 1990 the Country Club Historic District was designated as a Landmark District by the City of Denver for its architectural and historical significance. Many of the homes were designed by Denver’s leading architects at the time employing Gothic, Colonial, Mediterranean, and other early 20th century revival styles.

Washington Park, Belcaro, Hilltop

These neighborhoods, in close proximity to downtown Denver, contain some of the most elegantly renovated homes in the Denver-Boulder area.

Washington Park

Wash Park, as locals call it, is largely residential and the neighborhood surrounds the park of the same name, which is consistently named Denver’s best. The park itself has two lakes, a boathouse now scheduled for renovation, formal flower gardens, tree-lined paths and acres of grass often filled with games and activities of endless variety. With an average age of about 47, this is a highly educated community – more than 80 percent of the adults 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher – and boasts the second highest household income in Denver.

Belcaro

East of Wash Park, Belcaro is a neighborhood featuring 1960s and 70s-built homes on large lots, making it ideal for large-scale renovation projects. Early this decade the average home sale price eclipsed $2 million, along with Country Club. A short distance to downtown and U.S. Interstate-70, Belcaro is lauded as both a quiet and unpretentious neighborhood.

Hilltop

Near Cherry Creek North, and its abundant selective shopping, Hilltop features a lively mix of traditional, modern and Spanish style homes from the 1950s and 1960s. With its larger lot size it has also been the focus of large-scale remodeling projects. With about 4,000 residential units, and a population of about 10,000, Hilltop featured an average household income of $215,780 in 2016.

Congress Park

Congress Park is another of Denver’s oldest neighborhoods, east of Capitol Hill and Cheesman Park. Cheesman was originally a cemetery located on a prominent Hill, today that parkland includes the Morgan Addition, Denver Botanic Gardens, the Waterboard Reservoir and Congress Park The neighborhood has a delightful mix of homes, including the original Victorian homes, bungalows, Queen Annes and row housing known locally as “Denver Squares.”