Mayfair

Mayfair isn't one of Denver's official neighborhoods. It straddles two of them, taking in the east end of Hale and the western part of Montclair, and runs from Colfax Avenue south to 6th Avenue Parkway, between Eudora Street and Monaco Street Parkway. Downtown is about five miles west. Those lines come from Mayfair Neighbors Inc., the registered neighborhood organization, which formed in 1977.

From wagon trail to wartime houses

Before any houses, this was open prairie and then farmland. In the mid-1800s a branch of the Smoky Hill Trail, the gold rush route some travelers called the "Starvation Trail," crossed what's now Mayfair Park. The neighborhood itself took shape mostly during and after World War II, more than half a century after the Montclair town company got its start in 1885.

What the houses look like

Using the Mayfair Neighbors boundary, Denver Assessor records count 1,952 detached houses. Two-thirds, 67 percent, were built between 1940 and 1959. Another 24 percent are older than that, about 1 percent date from 1960 to 1999, and 9 percent have gone up since 2000. The median house is about 1,250 square feet. The 20th-century styles that filled this side of east Denver, bungalows, cottages, Tudor Revivals and ranches, are what you'll mostly be walking through.

That makes Mayfair a place to shop for a 1940s or '50s house on a modest footprint. If you need more space than that, you're either budgeting for an addition or waiting for one of the newer builds, which make up less than a tenth of what's here.

Mayfair Park at 10th and Jersey

Mayfair Park, at 10th Avenue and Jersey Street, is the neighborhood's main green space, and it's newer than you'd guess. Residents pushed for a park for more than 20 years before it opened in the mid-1990s. It has a playground, a basketball hoop and walking paths, plus interpretive markers telling the Smoky Hill Trail story. Every summer it hosts Concert in the Park.

14th and Krameria, and a deli on Colfax

Mayfair Town Center, at 14th Avenue and Krameria Street, is a shopping center that dates to the 1950s, about the same age as most of the houses around it.

Up on Colfax, Tessa Delicatessen, at 5724 E. Colfax, is an all-day deli from chef Vince Howard, who came from Del Rey Deli in Los Angeles. The menu runs to hot and cold sandwiches (the Cuban and the Brisket Dipper are on it), salads and burgers, and the owners are heading into their seventh year.

The parkways and the bus

Monaco Street Parkway, the east edge, was built in 1907 to a design by S.R. DeBoer and runs from 1st Avenue up to Montview Boulevard. It's been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1986 as part of Denver's park and parkway system. 6th Avenue Parkway closes off the south side.

Colfax is where the buses are. RTD's 15 and 15L run along it, and full bus rapid transit is planned for late 2027 or early 2028. If you'd rather leave the car home, the blocks near Colfax put the 15 closest to your door.