ON THE HOME FRONT Mark Samuelson

Four years ago, during Covid, home buyers were suddenly headed out of town, wanting more social distance, reversing a long trend in the Denver area that had seen people moving closer-in — looking for urban amenities. Now some agents are saying that they see that trend reversing again, but with a twist.

“We want to be close but not too close,” is the message Kentwood agent Jim Traynor was hearing last week from a couple thinking of moving down from the foothills.

Two dozen eateries

Traynor has a house for just such a buyer, 10 miles from LoDo but a 15-minute walk from two dozen eateries in downtown Littleton. On Saturday morning he’ll hold an open house for 5838 S. Louthan Street, a newly remodeled 4-bedroom 4-bath design with a 3-car garage that’s eight blocks from the town’s Main Street, passing trendy Bacon Social House along the way.

This listing is close to being entirely new — actually a “bump-and-pop” design that had started with a 723-square-foot ranch with a single-car tuck-under garage built in 1947. Traynor had handled a previous sale in 2012. “It was the bottom of the market,” he recalls. Price of the small home back then: $172,000.

Meanwhile, Littleton’s 10-block downtown had long been undergoing a transformation into a walkable shopping and dining hub, starting when the town’s old Carnegie Library on Main morphed into a restaurant, first as the ski-themed Kandahar, then as a tavern by the Broncos’ Three Amigos, and now as the Melting Pot. Light rail opened in 2000 as shops and taverns came and went, but the trend was promising — and the owner of this home planned a major remodel, pretty much everything from the ground up: 

Four bedrooms, 2 home offices

The garage facing the street would be saved, but surrounded by a new basement with 9-foot ceilings, while bumping out and popping the top on the home above for a wide-open main floor area, plus two added garage bays facing the alley. Overhead there would be a big primary with two secondary bedrooms, but it would also have a smaller suite on the main floor. The 4,200-square-foot plan would include two home offices and an overhead deck with a Front Range view.

The project launched in 2021 — but quickly turned into everybody’s custom-home nightmare, Traynor says, with a contractor dispute that brought construction to a halt. The uncompleted house sat empty for four years while the owner found a new contractor, getting underway again last year.

Three weeks ago the finished project came on the market, and a week ago the price was reduced from $1.4 to $1.325 million. Louthan Street, two blocks from Stern Park and lake, shows substantial homes, Traynor says, and two others have already undergone major expansions, one of them a ground-up scrape.

This arrives at a moment when Littleton has launched what it’s calling Project Downtown to further spur Main Street’s attractions with a potential $140 million upgrade of parking and streetscape. That, Traynor says, will make it an ongoing match for that newer buyer that wants urban living but doesn’t want to be downtown.

“They want Golden, they want Castle Rock and Pearl Street,” he says. Those other semi-urban locations may get more attention now from out-of-town buyers than Littleton does, perhaps making Littleton a better value now. 

ABOUT THIS HOME:

WHERE: 5838 S. Louthan Street, Littleton. From S. Santa Fe head east on Littleton Blvd. (becomes one-way W. Alamo Ave) then continue east on Littleton Blvd. 0.6 mile to S. Crocker St., turn south a block to Ida, then east to Louthan; or call 303-888-1711.

WHEN: Saturday, Aug. 16, 10 a.m. to noon

PRICE: $1.325 million