Englewood Story

Link: http://EyeOnEnglewood.com

Our family has so much to be thankful for. We sit on the back porch under the swirling umbrella limbs of one of the two great elms on our property on Pearl Street. These are the good elms, of which are few survivors in Englewood.

We tell stories, drinking from a hot cup, snacking on sandwiches; strains of guitars in the background.

When I was a little girl, my dad accepted a job in Philadelphia as an office manager of a mission organization. The place had acres of developed lawns and big old brick or stone houses for staff members. The streets were lined with cherry blossoms in the Spring.

Our house had creaky oak floors an oak staircase, and four bedrooms at the top of it, encircling, with a large white tiled bathroom to share.

Follow up:

Riding my bike around those grounds were some of my happiest memories. That, and climbing a huge old beech tree as far up as a seven year old could manage.

Years have since passed.

At 29, I worked as a volunteer music therapist at Craig Hospital where I met my husband to be.

It seemed every time I needed something the doctors,nurses and even secretaries would point to Bill Bartnick. “He would know,” they would say.

Well, Bill began following me around the hospital offering his help and before long, he helped me right into being Mrs. Bartnick.

My Bill had lived in Englewood all of his adult life, and Craig being the center of his life, we decided to buy a beautiful bungalow on Acoma Street. The house glowed when the sun flooded in mid-morning.

We hosted all the family holidays there, a writer's group and Bill mentored people coming out of abusive lives.

One day, some friends whose wedding we had just attended announced they were getting a divorce. Our hearts went out to them and we offered a room in our home to the bride hoping to help them find a way back together.

After she left, a woman called to ask us to look around Denver for a safe place to stay for a friend going through a divorce. We researched the Rescue Mission, Providence Ministries, the McDonald House and a host of other places, but none of them had a room available for this poor woman.

She came to live with us and found a job at one of the last retail shops open at Cinderella City. She would walk to work until she was able to buy a car and get out on her own.

Being an artist and interested in the Prairie Home architecture of our house, I took some drafting classes and a history of architecture at Arapahoe Community College at night, working as a paralegal by day.

We scrimped and wouldn't even purchase a V.C.R. But, that house was paid off within ten years.

Being debt free with a historic home as our primary asset created a strange effect on me in connection with another event.

I desired to leave something as a legacy should I die prematurely. I had no children, but I craved community. In my hand were pages of dream homes.

Drawings of houses with eating nooks, reading nooks, dining rooms with stained glass windows, and wonderful bedroom porches spilling off the paper and into my heart.

Armed with my pencil, I went looking for a property to transform. I wanted to leave a legacy to my community. I could build a nice house in Englewood out of a ruin.

It was a bull market for stock owners at the time, but since neither Bill nor I understood the value of something we couldn't touch or manage ourselves, we decided to invest in real property.

I found my “fix-n-flip” backed up to the steel mill on Elati Street. The faded green corrugated skyscraper of the steel mill loomed over my construction site and I worried about view, so I designed a European courtyard off the dining room and between two bedrooms.

After the fix, we decided not to flip it.

The day we moved in, the City imploded the steel mill, and the Rocky Mountains behind it emerged. Our moving party dropping whatever was in their arms, staring, astounded as the veil boomed and then fell flat. Then, we all erupted in dancing and shouts of laughter.

Our efforts to redevelop one of the worst properties in Englewood were rewarded. We lived and loved in that property for several years, housing two Denver Seminary students with us.

But, there were a couple of issues with the house itself. The boys had to share a small bathroom and one of them had to walk through the living room to get to it. Also, the heat in the yard, without shade, triggered my health condition.

Having learned many lessons from our first house renovation, we began looking for a better site with shady trees and a little more width to the yard.

Once again, we found a site on Pearl Street with a dilapidated HUD house on it. Right next to this house was the park where Bill proposed to me. Location, Location, Location came with great vibes.

We offered full value not because of the house or its sunken site-- which only proposed a particular drainage problem,-- but because of the two enormous healthy trees.

A site can be developed. A house can change, but only God and time can give you shade in a Colorado summer.

Our HUD bid won. We celebrated and moved in. I started designing our dream house immediately; being careful to incorporate all the lessons we had learned from our past home-owning experiences.