Polo Club

On Denver's official map, Polo Club is the northern corner of Belcaro. It was platted as Polo Club Place, a rectangle with University Boulevard on its west side, Steele Street on its east, Alameda Avenue across the top and Exposition Avenue along the bottom. Cherry Creek Shopping Center sits just north, across the creek, and Bonnie Brae picks up south of Exposition.

Polo fields first, houses after

The Denver Country Club formed a polo team called the Freebooters in 1909, and in 1921 Lafayette Hughes, Lawrence C. Phipps and Albert Humphreys incorporated the Polo Club and bought 160 acres to play on. In July 1927 the Denver Polo Club played a Houston club for the Phipps Cup on the field that's now Polo Club North.

The club shut down in 1936 and much of the land was sold. Hughes set up a homeowners association in 1946, and in 1947 the remaining owners signed a written plan to keep the rest as a high-end residential district.

Three subdivisions, three kinds of houses

Polo Club Place was split into three subdivisions, and they still look different from each other. Subdivision A came first, around 1952, and it was limited to private homes. Subdivision C followed around 1960, built out by the Falkenberg Construction Company, which buried the electric and phone lines to save the trees Hughes had planted. Its entrance gate at Polo Club Circle and Exposition went up in 1961 and still stands, with a second way in off Steele. Falkenberg designed and built ranch-style houses here in the late 1950s.

Subdivision B, now called Polo Club North, was the last piece, around 1977. When a 1960s plan to rezone it for apartments met opposition, Falkenberg proposed duplexes, four-plexes and row houses made to look like single-family homes, set among gardens. It ended up denser than the other two. If you want the address with less house and less yard to keep up, look at Polo Club North first.

The gates, the HOA and the name

Polo Club is a gated community, and its homeowners association dates to 1946. Ask for the association's documents and recorded covenants before you write an offer, since they govern what can go on a lot and whether dues come with the house. One more wrinkle: the Polo Club Condominiums at 3131 E. Alameda use the same name, so a listing that says Polo Club may mean a condo in that building.

The creek trail and the tennis courts

The Cherry Creek Trail runs along the creek just north of Alameda. Close by at 3300 E. Bayaud, Gates Tennis Center sits inside Pulaski Park. The public courts opened in 1975 and got a $4.7 million rebuild in 2008, and you can rent tennis and pickleball courts there.

Dinner and coffee across the creek

For dinner, you cross into Cherry Creek North. Cherry Creek Grill, at 184 Steele, is a popular Hillstone restaurant with a wood-fired rotisserie, ribs and steaks, a patio and a horseshoe-shaped bar. Aviano Coffee has shops on Detroit Street and St. Paul Street, and Westword put it on its 2013 list of the ten best Cherry Creek restaurants.

Getting around, and the build to the north

The gates open onto Exposition and Steele, and University runs along the west edge, where RTD's 24 bus heads south to DU's light rail stop. Just north of the creek, Cherry Creek West is going up on a four-block site that stretches from University over to Clayton Lane, south of 1st. Phase one includes two 13-story rental buildings, with roughly 840 residences once it's all done. Road, utility and creek work runs into late 2027, and the first building is due in summer 2029. If you drive University toward 1st, expect construction around the site for the next few years.