On the occasion of its 40th birthday, folks who appreciate Evergreen’s abundant green spaces should raise a celebratory glass to little Heritage Grove.
Though small of stature, that tidy slice of alpine Eden alongside Meadow Drive stands tall in the history of Colorado conservation, and its towering pines cast shadows that reach across Jefferson County from Pine Grove to Coal Creek Canyon. It’s the pioneering legacy of pioneers, and the seed from which a stronger, happier and lovelier community has grown. It’s a quiet place to relax and reflect, a welcoming place for neighbors to gather, and an ancient place where brightest flower of Evergreen’s past remains forever in bloom. And, happily, we have mostly ourselves to thank for it.
Heritage Grove hasn’t change a whole lot since Mary Neosho Williams and her daughter, Josepha, purchased it in 1893 and commissioned Scottish mason and carpenter John ‘Jock’ Spence to expand a rustic hay barn on the property into a magnificent 17-room log mansion. The grove was their front yard, and the Jefferson County Historical Society (JCHS) possesses antique photographs of large, white tents pitched everywhere beneath the pines for the camping comfort of the Williams and their frequent downstream guests. “Heritage Grove is part of the original Camp Neosho property,” says the Hiwan Museum’s program coordinator and curator, Meghan Vickers. “It goes back to the beginning of this property’s history.”
With Mary’s death in 1938, her husband, the Rev. Charles Douglas, began renting house and grove to Darst Buchanan as his family’s private summer retreat. Delighted with the accommodations, the Buchanans soon purchased the property, which became first the stately seat of Darst’s sprawling Hiwan Ranch, and, for a very brief period, the therapeutic facility and restful grounds of the Evergreen Sanitarium and Lodge. In 1954 the Buchanans formed the Hiwan Development Company and began gradually subdividing their extensive holdings, in 1974, selling Mary’s mansion and Josepha’s playground to a developer who quickly platted the proto-park for 12 residential units.
Providentially for posterity, that same year the folks at Jefferson County Historical Society had the mansion officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places and persuaded then-two-year-old Jefferson County Open Space (JCOS) to buy the 1.2-acre plot containing the grand cabin and its several outbuildings before they could be turned into condominiums. One year later JCHS began operating the Hiwan Homestead Museum as the county’s very first Open Space park. The fate of the adjacent grove, however, still hung very much in the balance, and local historians rolled up their sleeves.
“The grove was essential to the site’s historical integrity,” explains current JCHS president Elaine Hayden. “It provides context and an authentic setting.”
If that sounds obvious enough now, back in 1974 it wasn’t necessarily an easy sell.
“At the time there were no other community parks in Evergreen, and no sense of urgency to establish any,” Hayden says. “If we were going to save the grove, we’d have to get the community involved.”
Enter “Save the Grove,” a scrappy band of grassroots preservationists led by JCHS and community firebrand Sheila Clarke that, in 1977, convinced the developer to part with the prime 3.2-acre parcel nestled between the museum and Lutheran Church of the Cross for the then-daunting sum of $158,000. Described at the time as an “impossible dream,” Clarke and her dreamers took their vision public.
“Many, many parties contributed to the effort,” says Vickers. “One of the more popular fundraising events was the sale of Heritage Grove ‘stock certificates’. The Society even asked John Denver if he would perform a benefit concert. He declined.”
But even without celebrity support, by the end of the year JCHS and “Save the Grove” had achieved the impossible, raising $112.000 – enough to nail down the sale – in just eight weeks. The balance wouldn’t be paid off for another three years, but the Evergreen community entered 1978 with a fresh outlook on natural and cultural preservation, a new appreciation of what motivated neighbors can accomplish, and Heritage Grove Park.
As a team, the museum and Heritage Grove are 4.4 acres of trees, grass and history that have figured prominently in local history for the last 40 years. Memorable events held upon its shady lawn include the Rocky Mountain Indian Festival, a well-attended series of Mountain Rendezvous, a short spate of Evergreen’s answer al fresco to the Antiques Roadshow, a popular quilt show, a couple of chamber of commerce business expositions and the Chow Down Doggy Olympics. Today the Grove is perhaps best known as the perfect canvas for Evergreens annual Fine Arts Festival.
Heritage Grove is less well known, but no less well attended, as an ideal site for family, church and business gatherings. An even dozen private groups rented the bandstand-equipped park in 2017, which can be reserved at will by groups up to 50 people for $50.00, and by groups up to 100 for a C-note. And with 75 ready parking spaces to choose from and more available by amiable arrangement with Church of the Cross, the Grove frequently serves as a convenient shuttle stop for large events occurring elsewhere in town. Add in picnickers, dog-walkers, adventurous tots and casual strollers, and Heritage Grove’s yearly guest list numbers something in the neighborhood of 12,000 very satisfied stakeholders.
For 40 years the site has been a cooperative effort of the historical society and Open Space, with JCSO maintaining the physical assets and JCHS maintaining the cultural ones. Since the Society formally deeded the museum to the county in 2009, Open Space now owns all of the park’s structures and all the ground beneath them, while JCHS owns most of its priceless resident collections and runs most of its artistic and scholarly programs.
In a broader sense, though, Heritage Grove remains very much a grassroots venture. Local volunteers from 18 to 80 guide visitors through the site, tend its exhibits, organize and staff seasonal events that entertain as they edify, and escort eager young naturalists on explorations of the Grove’s short, but nature-packed, Adventure Trail. Indeed, the same community spirit that rescued Heritage Grove from the bulldozer’s blade in 1977 sustains it today.
Evergreen’s original community park remains a work in progress, although occasional adjustments are always undertaken with cautious eye and subtle hand. Just now, the most obvious change that residents will notice is the name. Re-christened just in time for its 40th birthday, Mary’s alpine estate now answers to “Hiwan Heritage Park.”
“The name was changed to be more historically accurate, and to better fit within Jeffco Open Space’s parks system,” Vickers explains. “The property was never actually a ‘homestead,’ and the name Hiwan Heritage Park encompasses both Hiwan Museum and Heritage Grove.”
It’s a good name, paying due homage to both important halves of a single important whole.
“I don’t think a lot of people understand what an amazing achievement Heritage Grove is, or how lucky we are to have it,” Hayden says. “This was an important place in historical times, and I think it’s just as important today.”
