If you're thinking about living in Colorado, Lakewood CO real estate could be your answer. In addition to affordable real estate prices, Lakewood is a great place to live. The rich variety of neighborhoods exemplifies well-planned growth over a long history – there are rustic 1940s & 50s neighborhoods with a country feel where people have horses and gardens, and there are new subdivisions where you will find big homes with neat and efficient landscaping, spacious entryways and marble countertops.
The Lakewood CO real estate market is healthy and robust, as is the city itself. There can be as many as 1,400 Lakewood CO homes for sale in the summer peak season, which is the best time to be looking around in terms of having lots of choices.
Lakewood had its beginnings in 1889, when W.A.H. Loveland, the former president of the Colorado Central Railroad, his wife Miranda, and Charles Welch platted a thirteen square block “country town” along Colfax Avenue west of Denver. Both the Lovelands and Welch retired to estates in their town, which they named after Lakewood, New Jersey, the “Resort in the Heart of the Pines.”
Lakewood developed a reputation as a nice summer home and retirement location for the wealthier citizens of Denver. One of the wealthiest, who left a legacy in the arts with her name attached to a number of cultural monuments, was Mary Madeline (May) Bonfils Stanton. She was the daughter of Denver Post co-founder and publisher Frederick Bonfils. May’s home was Belmar Mansion, a replica of Marie Antoinette’s Trianon retreat at Versailles. She furnished the mansion with a variety of European antiques, and eventually owned the 750 surrounding acres. The Mansion, however, was demolished on her death in 1962, reportedly because she could not bear the thought of anyone else living there. The site is now the location of the Lakewood City Commons, Belmar Library, the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Amphitheater, and Belmar, Lakewood’s “downtown neighborhood” with shops and residences closely intermixed. Lakewood’s Heritage Center in Belmar Park has an outside amphitheater, festival grounds where the annual Cider Days Harvest Festival is held each fall, and several preserved historical structures including a country school and farm house.
Lakewood CO homes are close to the Mile High City and that could be, for some, a big part of the attraction. But Lakewood has taken pains to stand on its own, and one way in which it has succeeded is in its parks and open spaces. Lakewood is home to 85 municipal and two regional parks covering over 6,000 acres. The largest of these, the William F. Hayden Green Mountain Regional Park, is the site of the 27-hole Fox Hollow Golf Course, with three distinct nine-hole courses. Lakewood’s other golf faculty, the Homestead Golf Course at Fox Hollow, was built to resemble a working cattle ranch, complete with windmill, pump house, and log fences.
Bear Creek Lake Regional Park has three lakes and more than fifteen miles of hiking and biking trails, and the city has just been deeded seven acres on which to establish a corridor connecting it with Green Mountain Park. The combined park will total more than 5,000 acres of public use land for a city with a population of only 140,000.
Lakewood also has four recreation centers and five outdoor pools and is less than an hour from all the winter sports of the Rockies.
