Are you thinking about a historic home renovation in Denver? Hopefully, this checklist will bring some clarity to the process and help guide you through the next steps. With 25 years of experience working in 7 of Denver’s Historic Districts, Squareroot has a lot of experience navigating the Landmark process, working to bring new life to Denver’s original housing stock.
Why You Need a Historic Home Renovation Checklist
Tackling a historic home renovation is entirely different from a standard remodeling project. When you are dealing with vintage craftsmanship and strict municipal codes, the order of operations matters.
A dedicated checklist keeps your project on track by preventing costly, out-of-order mistakes, such as finalizing expensive construction documents before receiving preliminary city approval. By mapping out the structural, financial, and regulatory milestones ahead of time, you can protect your investment and approach the build with realistic expectations. In Denver, this structured preparation is particularly essential because of the specific local guidelines established to protect our oldest neighborhoods.
Understanding Denver’s Historic Districts
Denver is blessed to have many of its original neighborhoods surrounding the city center intact and thriving. With the charm of their historic homes, established trees, and proximity to all that Denver has to offer, city-close neighborhoods like Washington Park and West Highlands have continued to grow in desirability and value over the years.
This desirability has also brought the inevitable development pressures that many popular urban neighborhoods around the country have experienced. Tear-downs, large multi-family projects, and expanding dining and retail opportunities can threaten the very thing that makes an old neighborhood unique and special.
In response to those pressures, Denver has identified 60 Historic Districts, which are regulated by Landmark Preservation within the Community Planning and Development department. Landmark strictly regulates what you are allowed to do to the exterior of your home, including traditional landscaping features like fences and pergolas.
Step-by-Step Historic Home Renovation Checklist
Tackling a historic home renovation in Denver requires a few additional steps. Listed below is a sequential checklist of what to expect when taking on a historic home renovation.
1. Verify Your Historic District Status
The easiest way to determine if your home is in a historic district is to visit the City of Denver Landmark Preservation home page. There you will find an interactive map and a property search dialog to search by street address.
2. Define Your Exterior Project Goals
Before you start interviewing architects, put together a program of your needs and desires. This could be a simple list, but it will really help your architect get started in the right direction. A sample program list for your historic home renovation could look something like this:
- Updated kitchen with a big island
- 3 beds / 3 baths with an office
- Primary suite with walk-in closet and a steam shower
- Second-floor laundry
- Open concept main floor area linking the kitchen to the dining and living areas
- Functional mud room
- Indoor / outdoor connection
3. Select Your Historic Home Renovation Team
One of the first formal steps in your historic home renovation is to bring a set of plans to Denver Landmark for their review. More details about this step are provided below. Most homeowners are going to need the expertise of an experienced architect and builder in order to get through this initial process. The architect will be your design and feasibility expert, and your builder will be your constructability and pricing expert.
You want these efforts to be performed in parallel so that you know you are designing a project that you can afford. There is a real risk in designing a project without the opinion of a builder regarding cost. The last thing you want to do is design your dream historic home renovation only to find out you can’t afford to build it. When selecting your team, it is critical to ask the right questions so you can be sure to partner with professionals who will exceed your standards.
4. Prepare Schematic Designs
The schematic plan preparation for your historic home renovation in Denver is going to be more detailed than a plan set outside a historic district. This is because Denver Landmark requires a fair amount of detail at the initial stage of the project, which can include a definition of all exterior products on your home – windows, doors, siding, roofing, lighting, trim details, even paint colors. Your architect will know what details to provide, but know that this phase will require some careful thought early on in the design process.
5. Secure a Certificate of Appropriateness
What you are looking for from Denver Landmark is a “Certificate of Appropriateness”. This is a letter stating that, based on the schematic drawings, Denver Landmark will approve the project so long as it does not deviate from the schematic drawings. More about how this actually works in real life below. The Denver Building Department will not accept any plans located in a Landmark District without the Certificate of Appropriateness.
6. Move into Design Development plan preparation
Once the Certificate of Appropriateness has been secured, the Architect can begin technical design in earnest. This phase is typically called “Design Development”. This phase will really flesh out how your historic home renovation will be built. This is typically an 80 or 90% set and will include most of the details necessary to build your project.
7. Finalize Construction Documents
The final design phase is the completion of your Construction Documents. This will include all required soils, structural and mechanical engineering. It will also include other required documents like neighbor notifications, shoring reports, and state demolition approvals if required.
8. Complete the Permitting Review
Once your submittal has been accepted, it is not unusual for there to be a few rounds of comments and revisions by the design team. The best advice we can give for the review stage of the project (and for that matter, the entire process) is to remain flexible. No one can really tell you with any certainty how long it will take to get through all the required review stages.
It varies from year to year and probably has a lot to do with the increasing complexity of code regulations, staffing at the City, volume of submittals, internal review policies, staff turnover, and the experience of your lead reviewer. These are all variables that are out of your architect and builder’s control. For a larger historic home renovation in Denver, it is not unusual for the design and permitting process to take a full year, if not longer.
9. Manage Construction and Field Inspections
Yes, it’s finally time to start building! All the design is complete, permits are in hand, and hopefully, you have a solid estimate and schedule from your builder. This is where the vision on paper transforms your house, and your dreams are realized!
One final step, which Landmark will never tell you about, is the final field inspection. At that inspection, Landmark will be looking to see that what you built matches what you submitted – exactly. They are very specific, and it is not uncommon for them to request an updated set of drawings to match what was actually built in the field. This is because it is very unusual to have all your exterior elements match the plans exactly. Maybe the dryer vent moved or was not shown on the plans. Maybe you added a light fixture or changed a door from half-light to full light.
Landmark will require that all of these elements be reviewed and approved. The most important point to take away here is to really understand your exterior elements as they are shown and do not deviate from them in any major way during construction. The worst-case scenario in your historic home renovation is that you direct your builder to change an exterior element, Landmark does not approve it, and makes you tear it out and replace it with an approved material. This can get very frustrating and expensive. Avoid that at all costs by really committing to what the team has designed for your exterior. If you do decide to make a change, check with Landmark first. This is a case where it’s better to ask for permission than forgiveness.
Simplifying a Complex Process
A historic home renovation in Denver is undeniably complex, and balancing the preservation demands of a municipal review board with the structural realities of a century-old house requires highly specialized expertise. Between fluctuating permit timelines and strict material guidelines, the process can easily become overwhelming for homeowners.
At Squareroot, we simplify this journey by combining the roles of a Professional Engineer, an Urban Planner, and a Master Builder under one roof. Our design-build model means your project is evaluated for both architectural beauty and landmark compatibility from day one. Through our disciplined planning phase and real-time project tracking, we clear away the guesswork and handle the heavy regulatory lifting so you can enjoy the experience of bringing your historic home into the modern era.
If you’re planning a historic home renovation in Denver, contact us to talk about your project. We are here to help.
