Cherry Hills Village

Cherry Hills Village is its own home rule city in Arapahoe County, just south of Denver. Denver is to the north and east, with Hampden Avenue the main road along the north side, Greenwood Village is to the south, and Englewood is to the west. The city covers about 6.2 square miles of land.

Cherry trees and an airport plan

The name comes from a grove of cherry trees near the original town site. By 1938 a neighborhood improvement association was working to keep out filling stations, stores and small plants. In 1945 Denver's parks manager bought several hundred acres south of the Cherry Hills schoolhouse, at Quincy and University, for a freight and small-plane airport, and neighbors didn't want planes flying low overhead. They incorporated that July, largely in response.

Early zoning put about 60 percent of the area under a two-and-a-half-acre minimum, partly because many homes ran on wells and many people kept horses or other animals. The trustees also decided against a commercial center, and the city has stuck with that.

Lots measured in acres

About 77 percent of the city's acreage is zoned for houses on lots of one acre or more. R-1 requires two and a half acres, R-2 an acre and a quarter, and R-3 an acre. A few districts go smaller, down to half an acre in R-4 and 16,000 square feet in R-5. There's no zoning for apartments, townhomes or patio homes, so every home here is a single-family house.

If you're picturing a teardown, ask the city what applies to the specific lot before you price it. Most districts cap a new house's floor area at 23 to 30 percent of the lot, taking out trees inside the setbacks needs a tree survey and protection plan, and a new house or major addition needs a neighborhood input meeting before the permit application.

The High Line Canal and Quincy Farm

The High Line Canal trail runs through the city and past Quincy Farm, 17.5 acres on both banks at 4400 and 4450 E. Quincy Ave. The farm is on the National Register of Historic Places, Cat Anderson gave it to the city under a conservation easement, and the grounds are open sunrise to sunset. Dogs aren't allowed and the east side has one accessible parking space and nothing else, so come in on the canal trail or the bike path along Quincy Avenue.

The city keeps up more than 25 miles of trails. John Meade Park, next to the Village Center at 2450 E. Quincy Ave., is the largest and most central park, with ponds and equestrian facilities.

Cherry Hills Country Club

The country club dates to 1922, with a William Flynn course and its entrance on University Boulevard. It has hosted three U.S. Opens. In 1960 Arnold Palmer drove the 346-yard first green in the final round and finished two strokes ahead of an amateur named Jack Nicklaus.

Eating and errands

Plan on Englewood or Denver for groceries and errands. The one spot to know is Cherry Hills Sushi Co., in a small center at 1400 E. Hampden Ave. It serves only hand rolls and sashimi, has been open since the mid-2010s, and the bar seats about 20, so seats go fast. In the same center, Pino's Place is an Italian spot with close to 25 pizzas on the menu, plus pasta and a long Italian wine list.

Roads, light rail and water

University Boulevard runs north-south through the city, widened to four lanes in 1963, and Quincy Avenue runs east-west past the Village Center. For the train, RTD's Southmoor station at 3737 S. Monaco Parkway in Denver serves the E and T Lines and has 788 parking spaces.

In May 1973 a flood put Quincy and University under four feet of water, and the High Line Canal failed at nearly fifty points. Building next to a waterway or floodplain brings a stormwater permit, so look up whether a lot is in a mapped floodplain while you're still deciding.