Doorways open up to 130-year-old corridors, where ghosts mingle with cannabis smoke. Bookcases pull you into secret rooms. Light moves as capriciously as the spirits themselves, flickering through Romanesque stained-glass windows.
If these walls could talk, they’d give you a contact high.
Welcome to the Marijuana Mansion.
A Spirited Past
The 4,200-square-foot sandstone mansion at 1244 Grant Street is considered one of Denver’s best examples of “high Victorian” architecture, blending Richardsonian Romanesque Revival with ornate Queen Anne design.
Built for Joseph Creswell and his family in 1889, it was known as the Creswell Mansion until recently, when it got a new nickname. Creswell was a prominent Denver businessman, president of the Colorado Marble & Mining Company as well as president of the Manufacturers Exchange, working with the chamber of commerce to push the city as a manufacturing hub.
The building was constructed by John J. Huddart, one of the premier architects…
