Byers-Evans House - a review

This house is gorgeous.  It is not ornate and ostentatious as so many wealthy homes turned museums (e.g. the Molly Brown house also here in Denver).  No, this family and this house are perfectly blended with money and humility.  This is one reason it fast became one of my favorite historical homes to visit.  Now, I should add that the Byers and Evans families were not as wealthy as, say, the Vanderbilt family and may be only considered upper-middle class.  But it is still an extremely beautiful home.  

It was extremely easy to get to the house.  From where I am staying in The Curtis on Curtis Street, I walked a bit then took the free bus that drives up and down 16th Street.  Exit the bus at either Cleveland or Cheyenne and walk south through Civic Center Park, which is beautiful in itself.  Just on the other side of Civic Center Park is the Denver Art Museum.  Take a right onto 13th Street and the house is right there on your right.

I was greeted at the front by Judy, our tour guide.  Judy is, by her own admittance, over 70 years old and seems to very much enjoy this work that she does.  While we waited for more groups to join us before the 1:30 tour, we chatted about why I was in Denver (for my husband's work with the AIA convention) and that she used to work for a company that did printing of publications for conventions. Judy was very friendly and easy to talk to.

The tour began right on time, if not a few minutes early (oopps, sorry if anyone came a little late).  Our tour group was only a total of five people, including Judy and myself, two young girls and their grandmother (whose name I have forgotten.  Sorry, nice lady with the two well-behaved girls).  Judy included these young girls (ages around 8 and 4) in the entire tour.  At the beginning she added that the 8 year old (let's call her Dimples) had been on the tour previously with her school and was going to be helping out.  Of course, this made Dimples all excited and proud yet a bit embarrassed.  It was super cute.

The rules on this tour are simple: no touching or sitting on anything and no flash photography although pictures without flash are allowed (excellent!).  We got to the second room of the tour when another group joined us (a 20-something girl and 4 young boys, ages 8, 9, and two were 10).  Judy quickly caught them up on where we were with the information given so far, with our permission, and then we set on our way.  Again, Judy incorporated all of the children into the conversation and tour as much as possible.  She let them ask any questions they wanted (the first question one of the boys asked was if the house was haunted - sadly, no, it is not), she even let them touch certain objects that were, apparently, not on the "no touching" rule list.  There was a working Victrola which the kids took turns winding up. We got to listen to the music there which was fantastic.  They also had an Edison but we were not allowed to use that - disappointing but I imagine it does not work.

The best part of this house?  The fact that almost everything (I believe she said 90% of it) is authentic / original form the time of at least the Evans family.  The Byers family lived there just before the Evans' and there is not a lot left from their time in the house although the family did donate a few items.  Most of the belongings are from donations of the Evans family.  The youngest daughter, Katherine, was apparently her own episode of Hoarders and kept everything.  This meant that when the state of Colorado took it over, there were thousands of pieces intact and set up so that they were easily able to piece together life at the house.  Thanks Katherine!

I highly recommend this tour to anyone coming to Denver.  The entire area in which the house sits is beautiful and full of other things to do.  Plus, for USD 6.00 it is a damn great deal!



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