Ira Wertenteil chooses to believe the Peabody-Whitehead Mansion has no ghostly grudge against him. Still, he prefers the idea of ghosts terrorizing him to the idea of being punished by God for some crime he’s oblivious to.
“I started this project a healthy human being,” said the 65-year-old developer, also a globe-trotting mountain climber who describes himself as an art- and architecture-school dropout (later attending University of Colorado Business School).
Wertenteil bought and began renovating the Queen Anne-style Victorian mansion at 1128 Grant St., in Denver, with his wife Cindy Powders 12 years ago. Since then, he’s been haunted by health problems.
“My hands and feet started withering away,” he said. “Then we learned my spine had completely fused, although that had been probably been going on for years. Then I started going blind every six months, and right now I’m battling three types of cancer.”
The $3 million project, however, is coming to an end as Wertenteil and Powders finally move into their master condo inside the eight-unit Capitol Hill home. The other seven will be leased publicly. New residents of the luxury condos will find a grand, restored icon that’s one of the last vestiges of Denver’s so-called Millionaires’ Row, but a home with a bold design and eclectic, at times creepy decorating that honors its ghostly reputation.
A restored 1929 Model A car beckons passersby from the front yard — appropriate given one of the house’s boom eras. Peabody-Whitehead was formerly a boarding house, several nightclubs and restaurants, and clerical offices, among other commercial uses, Wertenteil said.
“It’s a huge undertaking that reflects a lot of our background in art and architecture,” said Wertenteil, who officially bought the mansion on Oct. 31, 2013. “But we haven’t quite gone the route of the crazy, crazy people who build these castles and stuff over like 300 years. We’re in training to get to that point.”
As they’ve wound through their maze of permits, designers and stop-start subcontractors, Wertenteil and Powders have had plenty of time to consider the details. The rich wood and thick walls inside the structure have been preserved and updated with a mix of ultra-modern and historic accents. That extends from the light red bathroom tiles that mimic shiny, brick walls to an intertwining, metal branch sculpture canopy that greets visitors.
The aesthetic blends industrial and exposed elements, such as a split black steel stairwell, and adds touches like grated cages with relevant curios, as well as preserved windows and doors that hang like museum pieces (as opposed to functional hardware). Original 2x4s were sliced and used for wall accents. The cross-section approach exposes original electrical work and historic wallpapers in tidy squares.
It’s part museum, part playground and all impressively elaborate. But as difficult as the project has been, Wertenteil and Powders are still sad to see it end.
“In some ways, we’re not willing to let this go,” he said. “It’s like having a really cool car in the garage and never driving it. Except this is a $3 million project that I lose $20,000 per month on by not renting it, and instead showing it off to my friends.”
The 6,600-square-foot, three-story brick house was built in 1889 and designed by Frank Edbrooke, the influential and prolific Colorado architect who also designed the Brown Palace, according to History Colorado. It was first owned by Dr. William Riddick Whitehead, a surgeon at Arapaho County Hospital who went on to lead and co-found other seminal Colorado medical institutions, according to the Denver Public Library. Colorado state archives note that Governor James Peabody, who’s known for putting down a miner’s strike in Cripple Creek in 1903, also inhabited the home.
In 1993 it was declared a historic landmark by the City and County of Denver’s Preservation Commission, which has helped anchor it to Grant Street even as other historic buildings have fallen around it, some replaced with apartment high-rises.
Ghost hunters, tours and TV shows love the mansion because of its deep and haunted lore, Wertenteil said, with decades-old legends telling of “a chandelier that lights up without power; a grouchy, undead bartender; (and) the ghosts of a war long past,” wrote ghost-tour company Denver Terrors on its website.
A dozen-plus books and local guides speak of flying silverware, random sobbing noises and other spooky occurrences. Wertenteil and Powders leaned into that with displays of anatomical models and surgical equipment, amid other densely packed corners of the first floor.
The house’s checkered past is one reason why Wertenteil’s friends speculate he might be cursed. At the moment, he’s just trying to roll with his chemo treatments as the house finally debuts to the public.
But don’t call it a legacy project.
“I grew up in a house with a mother who was an artist, who dragged me to museums, and I’ve been taking things apart since I was a kid,” Wertenteil said, noting the influence of artists Louise Nevelson, Mark di Suvero, Richard Cera, Gordon Matta-Clark and Gaudí on Peabody-Whitehead’s renovations.
“I’ve come down with so many frickin’ diseases since we started, and sometimes I wonder if the ghosts that hunt the place are taking out their aggression and frustration on me,” he added, noting that he and Powders will likely hold an open house at the mansion on Halloween — 12 years to the day that he bought it. “But I tend to believe it’s just fate.”
Denver Post photographer Hyoung Chang contributed to this report.