Evergreen

Evergreen sits in the foothills of western Jefferson County, about 19 miles west of Denver and 7,162 feet up. It isn't a city. It's an unincorporated census-designated place, so Jefferson County handles zoning, roads and permits. Highway 74 is the spine: it climbs south from I-70 through Bergen Park to downtown, then bends east down Bear Creek Canyon toward Red Rocks. County Road 73 heads south from downtown to US 285 at Conifer.

From a way station to Denver's summer place

Thomas C. Bergen had a house and a way station for Clear Creek miners going by 1859, and his son-in-law opened a general store on Bear Creek, right where downtown is now. Ranching and sawmills kept the valley going into the 1950s. Jock Spence, a local carpenter, turned a hay barn into a cabin in 1893 and later enlarged it into a 17-room log house with two octagonal towers and seven stone fireplaces, finished in 1918. It's now the Hiwan Homestead Museum. For about 40 years the summer population ran ten times the year-round one. I-70, built in 1969, made the daily drive to Denver realistic.

Cabin lots, Hiwan Hills and acreage

The houses tell that story. In the 1920s, developers carved out small lots for weekend cabins and tent sites in places like Wah Keeney Park and Apache Springs. Some plats were drawn by engineers who never saw the land, so lot lines can ignore the slope. After the war, D. E. Buchanan started Hiwan Hills in 1947, and a local firm, the Woodpeckers, built custom homes in its first plats. The 1960s boom brought a sewer district and a bigger water district.

Many houses are on those districts, but plenty run on a private well and septic, and steep ground, shallow rock and coarse soil make septic hard in a lot of spots. Ask on day one which one a house has, and put both on your inspection list. County planning calls for lots to stay the same size or grow, at one house per 1 to 10 acres depending on the area, so the land around you is unlikely to be carved into smaller pieces.

Evergreen Lake and the parks around it

Denver dammed Bear Creek in 1927 and flooded a hay meadow to make Evergreen Lake, 55 acres inside the 420-acre Dedisse Park, one of Denver's Mountain Parks. Its Evergreen Golf Course, from 1925, was Colorado's first mountain course. A 1.25-mile trail circles the lake. Winter brings a groomed skating rink, and summer brings paddleboard, canoe, kayak and pedal boat rentals.

Downtown along Highway 74

Downtown is a short stretch of older buildings on Bear Creek below the dam, with a wooden boardwalk out front. Muddy Buck roasts its own coffee inside the Evergreen Hotel, a building that dates to 1896. A few doors down, the Little Bear Saloon has been the town's live-music room for more than 40 years. The Wildflower Cafe, a pick in 5280's 2026 Evergreen guide, does hearty breakfast and lunch.

Bear Creek floods and the wildfire code

Much of downtown Evergreen and Kittredge was built in the floodplain. On the night of June 24 to 25, 2026, a storm pushed Bear Creek in Kittredge to about 1,890 cubic feet per second, leaving water lines two to three feet up on homes along the creek and shutting down boating on the lake for a few days. If a house is near the creek or a gulch, check the flood map and price flood insurance before you offer.

Fire is the other big one. Jefferson County's Wildfire Resiliency Code took effect July 1, 2026, in mapped wildland-urban interface areas. It isn't retroactive, but it covers new construction and bigger exterior jobs: replacing 25 percent or more of a roof or siding, or rebuilding a deck, means ignition-resistant materials. On new work, the first five feet around the house can't have plants (other than mature trees), wood mulch or firewood.

Getting to Denver

By car, Highway 74 takes you up to I-70. RTD's EV bus runs weekdays from the Evergreen Park-n-Ride through Bergen Park and Genesee to Federal Center Station and Civic Center Station downtown, with a few early-morning departures.