City Council votes for historic designation for Denver home built in 1902, against owner's wishes

The Denver City Council made its vote on Monday in the debate over whether to preserve an old Denver home or allow the owner to demolish it.

"The debate surrounding the preservation of this structure, reflects to me that we have all run out of patience and tolerance for this type of treatment," said councilwoman Candi CdeBaca.

After months of battling, city council members voted unanimously to approve a historic landmark designation for the home located at 1741 Gaylord Street. The home was built in 1902 and is said to have been designed by architects Gove & Walsh, the same team behind the design of Union Station. 

"While it's a nice older home, it falls well short of the threshhold that homes should be held to if you're going to be taking away the property rights of an owner to landmark it against their will," said Adam Wilmot, a private architect hired to represent the homeowner.

Back in February, CBS News Colorado took a tour of the home and spoke with the owner, Michael Mathieson. Mathieson hoped to replace the house with a 37-unit apartment building, arguing the City Park neighborhood needs more housing. The home was not considered a historic landmark when he purchased it.

"They are trying to exercise a loophole to stop development," he said. "And what that does is that it completely restricts this type of housing and the housing that is across the street, and people can't afford to live here."

After Monday's vote, Mathieson told CBS News Colorado he's not surprised by the vote and that this is just another step in the process. Mathieson plans to follow up on this by taking it to district court because he said the criteria on how the city considers a property historic is contradicting and doesn't fall in line with what was argued during the city council meeting by supporters of the bill.

"There's criteria, and the criteria was changed on this property," Mathieson said. "Is the criteria you wrote, is it something you're going to follow or do we feel like it should be historic? Usually when you're a city organization, you have to follow that criteria, or maybe they don't? I don't know how as a property rights owner there could be a report out there that says that this house is not historic, and then all 326 homes that were not historic, said they needed more data."

Many believe Monday's vote sets a precedent for future buyers of old Denver homes.

"I think for some people this building might be a symbol of what we've might of already lost in our city in terms of the history," said Andrea Burns, the Historic Denver interim president & CEO. "But I think we at Historic Denver, keep working every day to make sure that these places -- that really rise to the level of a landmark -- are preserved are saved."