Editor’s note: John Madden died Friday, his family confirmed. This story originally published on Dec. 1.

John W. Madden Jr. enjoys his enviable views of 150 miles of Colorado’s Front Range, as he looks back on his long and illustrious life.

Madden, 94, is in hospice care at his home in Greenwood Village, the south Denver suburb he developed from the ground up.

Madden sired a closely knit family, built a real estate empire, curated venerable art collections, founded one of the nation’s front-running fitness clubs and constructed the Rocky Mountain region’s largest outdoor concert venue.

On Thanksgiving Day, Madden sat at the head of his table with four generations in his elegant penthouse. He is known to the family as “Das,” a Celtic nickname. Madden spoke of the costs of Thanksgiving dinner, his parents and how he’d like to construct yet another building.

He was born on April 12, 1929, in Omaha to Doris and John Madden. His favorite childhood toys were building blocks — a fitting foundation for his career as a visionary builder of office parks and other commercial developments.

Madden graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1951. One of Denver’s eminent businessmen, Madden never shied from hard work.

In an interview years ago, he said: “From the time I was a boy, I worked mowing lawns, shoveling sidewalks. I worked on a ranch, in a brewery and in a bakery. I’ve been a cement finisher. I carried mail. I loaded boxcars.”

Among his positions that most influenced him were his jobs at Omaha’s Joslyn Museum. As a teen, he worked at the art museum as a tour guide, as well as on the maintenance and construction crews and as a night watchman.

“I knew all the employees and all the paintings,” Madden said. “I learned about Rembrandt and Titian, and it was a grand way to get paid for an education in art.”

Madden’s early exposure to fine art informed and inspired his sensibilities as a developer. He founded the John Madden Co. in 1970 and moved his family to Colorado in 1971.

He was an early champion of the 1 percent for art program as he constructed his buildings. In developing Greenwood Village, he pioneered the installation of public art to synthesize landscape and architecture.

“Every building I’ve ever built, I bought the artwork first,” Madden said. “Art became our trademark.”

John Madden Co. was also an early adopter of sustainable building practices.

Together with his late wife — Marjorie Madden, whom he married in 1950 — and his daughter, Cynthia Madden Leitner, he founded the Museum of Outdoor Arts (MOA) in 1981. Madden collected and hobnobbed with some of the leading artists of the times, including Robert Rauschenberg and Henry Moore.

Madden — a lifelong music aficionado remembered for commanding the family’s stereo system — built Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre as a branch of the Museum of Outdoor Arts. From a natural bowl in the landscape, he constructed a state-of-the-art concert venue that seats 17,000 guests. Over the past 40-plus years, Fiddler’s Green has hosted many of the most admired musicians of every genre.

In 2012, in Palazzo Verde — his Greenwood Village office building — he opened the Madden Gallery to showcase his extensive collection of paintings, sculptures and antiques. He donated much of The Madden Collection to the University of Denver in 2014.

In 1987, with his son, J Madden, he developed Club Greenwood, Denver’s premier fitness and tennis facility. The award-winning club was a favorite spot for the elder Madden, a lifelong swimmer and fitness walker until his health declined. In his prime — particularly at his winter home on Captiva Island, Fla. — Madden walked about seven miles a day.

In a mid-November interview, Madden, still a larger-than-life character, remained chipper, dapper, Hollywood handsome, equal parts tough and tender.

And with a Scotch-Irish spirit akin to that of a mischievous leprechaun, he displayed his usual zest for life.

“Fitness is important,” he said, “though I’ve been a smoker and a drinker virtually all my life. I smoke less now than I did when I was 26 years old. I have a scotch, maybe three or four, but not eight or nine or 10. It’s a hell of a lot about balance.”

Madden developed commercial real estate projects not only in Colorado, but also in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa and Michigan. His business endeavors yielded a personal fortune, a large portion of which he, in turn, donated. Demonstrating his sense of noblesse oblige as one of Colorado’s esteemed philanthropists, he supported artistic and educational organizations.

“I haven’t been as generous as I could have been,” Madden said, “but it felt good to give. Always!”

A man of immense accomplishments, when asked which aspect of his life’s work he is most proud of, Madden said, “I don’t think I was ever trained by my family, growing up, to judge my number one, two, three, four, but my involvement in things was always rather judged by the competition.”

One competitor, Walter (Buz) Koelbel, Jr., is president of Koelbel & Co., among Colorado’s longest continually operating real estate companies. Koelbel interfaced extensively with Madden developing south Denver over many years.

“I love the guy,” Koelbel said of Madden. “I have great respect for him because he is a true visionary with an instinctive sense about how to get things done. He matched that with being creative and an innovator, as well. Every one of his buildings was different and had an iconic nature. He was traveling the world to bring back materials other people weren’t even thinking about. He had to be a huge calculated risk-taker.”

Koelbel noted Madden’s construction of Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre.

“He came up with the idea of Fiddler’s Green, and on that centrally located very valuable piece of dirt millions of people have been entertained with some of the best shows,” Koelbel said. “John Madden created places to please people, to energize people, and he inspired people like me to do things differently.”

Chuck Morris competed against Fiddler’s Green for many years, yet held Madden in esteem. Now chairman emeritus of AEG and director of the music business program at Colorado State University, Morris recalled when Madden staged symphony performances on the grass before building Fiddler’s Green.

“John is a one-in-a-million, a character of all characters. They don’t make them like him anymore,” Morris said. “He’s a brilliant, eccentric, wonderful guy. His genius and his personality: He always makes me laugh. He’s smarter than a whip. I don’t think there’ll be another John Madden.”

Asked what brought him the most gratification when looking back at his productive and profitable career, Madden replied, “Accomplishments made me happiest. Accomplishments were the result of my sense of purpose.”

And when asked to share his advice for would-be entrepreneurs, he said, “Instead of wishing, we have to be active. If you want it, you do it.”

In addition to his plethora of relationships with family, friends and business associates, Madden doted on a long line of family dogs, including a series of eight Irish wolfhounds. He named the land adjacent to Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre Samson Park to memorialize a beloved family terrier. The family redeveloped and renamed the land Marjorie Park to honor Madden’s wife.

His recent months have delivered a placid time of reflection and rest. After a lifetime of international travels, multimillion-dollar deals, extensive transactions and activities, Madden mostly has been bedridden in recent weeks.

“I’m exclusively in bed, but I’m in an honored position,” he said wryly.

From his bed in a room warmed by a fireplace and naturally lit by a wall of windows, Madden continues to find joy in life’s simple pleasures — visits from family and friends, the presence of family dogs, vistas of spectacular sunsets and snowy peaks, songbirds at the feeder outside his window, the taste of cold watermelon, the oil painting at the foot of his bed, twinkling lights of Christmas trees on his expansive terrace and televised Nebraska football.

His sharp memory remains largely intact as evidenced while he watched a Big Red football game.

“I noticed University of Nebraska has a tall guy named Prochazka. Back when I was about 10 years old, Nebraska had a player by the name of Ray Prochaska, No. 31. At this age, your icons are gone, but maybe you yourself are one,” Madden said. “I have arrived at acceptance.”