On a lot along Corona Street in Denver’s West Wash Park, a 100-year-old brick bungalow is in the middle of a transformation.
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By the time crews are finished in September, the 1924 brick home at 1211 S. Corona St. will have grown into a 5,100-square-foot house with six bedrooms, two offices, a basement theater room, and a rooftop deck with mountain and Wash Park views.
What makes the project notable isn’t just its size — it’s the decision behind it. The homeowners could have torn the house down and built new after they bought the property for just over $1 million in May 2023. Instead, they chose to keep it.
“It would have been far easier to scrape the lot and start from scratch,” said Matt Plowman, general manager of Able Construction & Remodeling, the Denver firm managing the build for his use.
But easier, he said, isn’t the same as better — or cheaper. The project illustrates how “grandfathered” code rules can save homeowners time and money, along with a piece of history.
The reason comes down to Denver’s building code, which treats remodels and additions different from new construction.
Under the city’s rules, an addition or renovation generally only has to bring the new or altered portions of a house up to current code, according to Mikaela Firnhaber, residential plan review supervisor for Denver’s Community Planning and Development.
The existing structure — foundation, framing, room dimensions, ceiling heights, setbacks — is allowed to remain as is, even if it wouldn’t meet today’s standards if built from scratch.
A full teardown and rebuild, by contrast, must comply with the current code in its entirety, which covers everything from energy efficiency to stairs, and structural engineering to height limits.
Plowman has led Able, which does both additions and new construction, since 2018. He said new builds also trigger more than a dozen inspections along the way, from foundation to final energy testing, compared with just a handful for a typical remodel.
“Renovation versus new construction runs about 15% to 20% less,” Plowman said, pointing to the Corona Street project as an example.
Retaining the existing foundation and expanding the basement down rather than pouring a new one, he said, was one of the biggest savings. It still allowed for 9.5-foot ceilings, replacing the roughly 7-foot ceiling of the century-old basement.
The original front porch on the Corona Street house is staying put. What was once a one-story ranch has been “popped” into a two-story home, plus the expanded basement.
Crews also preserved the home’s 100-year-old brick and salvaged matching brick to extend a new wall on the back of the house so the addition blends with the original structure.
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Engineered trusses let Able remove interior walls from the original house without compromising the structure.
The new rooftop deck, meanwhile, needed extra structural support to meet snow-load requirements and to accommodate a hot tub — a reminder that even in a remodel, new additions must still meet current code.
Similar projects have popped up across Denver.
Tectonic Design Build of Boulder nearly doubled the size of a 1930s brick Tudor near City Park, connecting the original house with its former stand-alone garage.
The renovation expanded the home from 2,550 to 5,000 square feet, adding a new kitchen, dining area, primary suite, pool lounge, gym and outdoor pool.
Classic features like the iron stair railings and arched doorways were preserved. The whitewashed brick façade and larger windows combine vintage charm with modern design.
Tectonic CEO Dylan Ochala and design director Kate King sought to honor the home’s history by reusing as much of the existing structure as possible.
“Renovating is about preserving character and story,” King said, adding that the process is more unpredictable than building new.
In LoHi, architect Steve Lubowicki and the Lawrence Argent transformed a 1905 single-family home into a unique duplex at 3645 and 3647 Lipan St.
Denver’s review timelines are similar regardless of project type — about two weeks for additions and new construction, Firnhaber said — while interior remodels that don’t expand a home’s footprint typically move faster, often within two days.
Even so, she said, the code offers no guarantees against surprises.
Homeowners often don’t discover certain requirements — for retaining walls, rooftop decks, window wells, drainage and lot grading — until they’re deep into permit review, and those items are frequently where unexpected costs creep into custom projects.
For homeowners weighing a teardown against a renovation, the calculus in Denver increasingly comes down to a simple trade-off: A scrape-and-build offers a blank slate, but a remodel can offer a financial benefit, provided the existing structure has good bones to build on.
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