Q: Where in the World is the Front Range?

A: The Colorado Front Range is an informal, colloquial term for Colorado’s most populated region.  It’s just east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and contains the state’s largest cities and suburbs.

From north to south, Colorado Front Range communities include:

As well as:

Centennial, Larkspur, Greenwood Village, Lone Tree, Colorado Springs, Fountain, Pueblo, Estes Park, and others.  View a complete list of cities Colorado HomeFinder serves.

Consider the vast area of Colorado: Colorado bears the distinction of being the highest low point of any U.S. state. The Colorado Mineral Belt, stretching from the San Juan Mountains in the southwest to Boulder and Central City on the front range, contains most of the historic gold- and silver-mining districts of Colorado.

At the southwest corner of the state, in an intersection commonly called the Four Corners, it is possible to stand in four states at once: Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado.  And then there are the “fourteeners”–peaks that rise to or above 14,000 feet above sea level.

To look for the property that’s right for you in this vast expanse that attracts national attention with its natural and man-made offerings, turn to our maps, complete with Google’s satellite imagery and detail, and explore:

• Map the 100 Newest Colorado listings
• Map Colorado houses
• Map Colorado condos
• Map Colorado land
• Map Colorado farms and ranches
• Map Colorado income property

Between Denver and its suburbs and Colorado Springs and its suburbs is an hour-long stretch of the I-25 highway that is booming with new and existing populations. Once considered “the boonies” or “no man’s land,” this corridor joining two of Colorado’s largest cities is now known as a collection of individual communities with lives and personalities of their own. Here are a few of the recognizable ones with an active roster of home listings:

• Centennial–As the closest community to Denver, Centennial is big with commuters who work somewhere within the Denver metro area, or the Denver Tech Center. Centennial is growing such that its municipal airport is the 3rd busiest general aviation airport and among the top 25 busiest of all types of airports.
• Castle Rock–A long-loved suburb of Denver, it’s the sister city to Highlands Ranch and Parker, CO. Castle Rock is the home to Denver Metro’s most-visited collection of outlet shops, but remains a place where scenic and natural beauty reigns. It’s quiet, prairie landscape with spectacular mountain views is hard to beat.
• Larkspur–A quiet country respite, where Renaissance Fair lovers flock to in the summer months. Just 30 minutes to Denver, Larkspur is the place where accessible amenities and the country life are not necessarily mutually exclusive, although they could be if privacy and solitude were your priority.
• Palmer Lake–The last cluster of homes before entering Pike National Forest. Did someone say scenic? Palmer Lake neighborhoods are all within reach of its namesake body of water, and views to die for.
• Monument–The hill that divides the north end of Colorado Springs and the Air Force Academy from the rest of the stretch. Just outside the Gleneagle community, Monument is a little town of its own served by the Lewis-Palmer school system, which serves Palmer Lake, Monument, Woodmoor and the northern part of the Black Forest area of Colorado Springs.

One (or more) Step(s) Beyond:

Manitou 4 listings today (check in for up-to-date data). Just up the canyon that winds a few miles west up the mountain that abuts Colorado Springs.

Fountain 8 listings today. Just ten minutes south of Colorado Springs.

Pueblo 23 listings today. The next major town between Colorado Springs and the New Mexico border.

Colorado City (which is not to be confused with the sensationalist news from Colorado City, Arizona) 2 listings today.

Walsenburg 9 listings today. Isolated and wide-open, Walsenburg is where you’ll find plenty of acreage. A tiny little town that serves as the gateway to the San Luis Valley by way of La Veta Pass.

Trinidad 4 listings today. A “last chance” town before entering New Mexico. Trinidad is a charming little town that has worked hard to retain vestiges of its Old West roots.

Fair Bear Warning

This isn’t one of those jokes that starts with a rabbi, a priest, and a minister walking into a bar. It does involve bears, however.

Into the Wild (Kind of)
When relocating to Estes Park, Boulder, Evergreen, Lyons, and other towns with lots of lurking wildlife, new residents find themselves charged with the task of making slight lifestyle changes to accommodate their more rugged environment.

To wit…
The Bear Wagon recently made the rounds in the South Boulder neighborhood, or SoBo as we’ve been known to call it. It’s mission: educate residents and renters on what kinds of attractants can lure bears and other wildlife, such as mountain lions, into the neighborhood, thus endangering people and the bears themselves.

Why?
Bears who are found making a nuisance of themselves in residential areas are transported back into the wilderness, unless they become repeat offenders, in which case they are eventually destroyed. To prevent such a lose-lose situation, residents in areas with high wildlife populations are encouraged to leave their trash containers inside garages and sheds, or to bear-proof them.

The Bear Basics
Leaving food out is always a no-no, and in towns farther into the mountains, such as Nederland, it’s recommended that residents take extra precautions to protect not only their disposables, but their domestic animals and livestock as well.

Photo by Flickr–Creative Commons, by ground.zero

View of Estes Park looking west

In the spring of 2008 Estes Park homes and property owners were thrilled to learn that the town had won four different and important honors as a top place to spend a day or a vacation. They were: The Weather Channel, Kids Pages, the Greeley Tribune and TripAdvisor.com, all of which touted Estes as a top travel destination. It would stand to reason, then, that Estes Park is a pretty nice place to live, too. (Here’s a map of where the 100 newest Estes Park home listings are.)

Geographically, it’s not far from Fort Collins, which was named as one of Money Magazine’s best places to live in 2006. And with the Estes Park climate, amenities, and accessibility to Boulder to the south, Fort Collins and Windsor to the north, and Loveland and Greeley to the east, Estes Park lives at the residential intersection of outdoor recreation, the arts, and business. By the way, how many towns can say they’re home to a 14-thousand-foot-peak and a national park (Rocky Mountain National Park) full of the flora and fauna Colorado is known for?

Take a spin by some Estes Park homes and real estate, and see its surrounding areas for a virtual taste of what the press and visitors have known since before the (in)famous Stanley Hotel broke ground: that when it comes to accessible mountain living, Estes Park marks the spot.

Photo by –Creative Commons, by rjones0856

An aerial view of the 80108 zip code with active listings

Today there are over one hundred listings in Castle Pines Village for sale, which makes it one of Colorado’s most active neighborhoods; it’s a top Colorado neighborhood with land offerings, single-family homes, patio homes, and condos/townhomes galore in sub-neighborhoods including Castle Pines North Castle Pines Village Filing, Castle Pines Village proper, and more. Priced higher than the Colorado median, the median price here is $1.2 M, the minimum price is in the high 400s, and the maximum price is up over $6M.

Castle Pines Village is known for its natural scenery, its access to both Denver and Colorado Springs via I-25, and its wide-open spaces. Looking for a gigantic custom home with acreage? You’ll find it in Castle Pines Village. Looking for horse property large enough for multiple barns, dwellings, and income facilities? Ditto. Single-family homes the size of small hotels are fairly common here, but you’ll also find more traditional smaller homes that boast spectacular mountain views from every window. Luxury is the watchword here, in all sizes and configurations.

For numerous other hot offerings in areas near and around Castle Pines Village:

• Castle Rock
• 80108 zip code
• Larkspur and Perry Park
• Sedalia
• The Pinery
• Lonetree
• Highlands Ranch
• Parker

Near Pike National Forest is a beautiful out-of-the-way place between Denver and Colorado Springs that bursts wide open with activity every summer. It’s as pleasant as it sounds: Larkspur, Colorado. It’s a place as quaint as its name, and is home to the Colorado Renaissance Festival during the summer months, and also the full-time wildlife and human residents who adore their privacy, quiet, and mountain views.

Larkspur is the common name for plants in the genus Delphinium
Photo by Flickr–Creative Commons

Along the I-25 corridor between Denver and Colorado Springs is where you’ll find this quiet, small, and intimate community of about 400 full-time residents called Larkspur. Never been? It’s not too late. Take this virtual, pre-tour of what’s at Larkspur before you go.

Larkspur Colorado Neighborhoods
Perry Park– Gorgeous, huge custom homes with spectacular views and stunning natural surroundings in the 80118 zip code. Land from the low-to-mid 100s; single-family homes in the $6M range. To learn more about what’s where, map Perry Park neighborhood

Sage Port– Newer custom homes with lots of surrounding space. Land priced from the ’60s; single-family homes from $250,000 and up. Map the Sage Port neighborhood.

Sage Port, The Hidden Forest– Near the grounds of the Golf Club at Bear Dance, there are fewer homes for sale here, with some homes scheduled for completion this year. Easy access to I-25, Hidden Forest is ten minutes from schools and Castle Rock. Map the Hidden Forest neighborhood.

Metes And Bounds– Between I-25 and highway 83 are stunning custom homes with acreage, and multi-million dollar price tags. On the west side of I-25, you’ll find horse properties in the 400-500s. Map the Metes and Bounds neighborhood.

Of course that’s not all; there are more than 300 active Larkspur real estate listings today, which you can easily browse and sort through at COhomefinder any time you like.

The Petroleum Club on 17th Street in downtown Denver was a private club for those in Colorado’s oil industry, and was the place to be if you were a Colorado oilman in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. Then in the ’70s and ’80s…not so much. Its home, the 37th and 38th floors of 555 17th Street, became Qwest Tower after having been Anaconda Tower.

In the ’90s, along with the transformation of Petroleum to Pinnacle, came a new kind of oil rush: The dot-com era. With the new economy rearing its silicon head, all kinds of businesses and people were flocking to homes in Denver, homes in Boulder, and the towns in between, a region some called The Wired West, and others called the Silicon Summit. The US-36 corridor and the towns of Westminster, Louisville, Lafayette, Longmont, and Broomfield were bustling with business venture funding and real estate activity. The Petroleum Club became the Pinnacle Club, a private social club and facility for businesspeople and entrepreneurs. And then…not so much. The Pinnacle Club closed its doors in 2005.

That brings us to today, where we’re seeing a kind of convergence of the old and new. With what some call the Web 2.0 movement, a lot of the same high-tech conversations are picking up where they left off. ConocoPhillips is opening a new global technology center and corporate learning center at the Sun Microsystems/StorageTek site in Louisville. The learning center will handle research and development of renewable energy and high tech carbon fuels recovery. Grand Hyatt renovated the Pinnacle Club and opened it to the public.

And the old Petroleum Club is now the new Petroleum Club, and moved down the street, to 1325 Glenarm Place, downtown Denver.