Louviers Luxury Living!

A little over two years ago, we bought a used car in Colorado Springs. During the buying process, we made multiple drives south to a mini-city that I've never really liked. Speaking of things I've never liked, there's also taking I-25 to get there... While where's not always an accident blocking things up, there are always delays driving south of Denver... However, there's a nice scenic alternate route into Castle Rock, via US 85 south.

You don't have to get very far south of C-470 to hit desolation, which is really nice...

Louviers is located about 20 miles south of where I live. But It's not even a town, only a "census designated place". It was founded in 1908, as a company town for DuPont, who ran a dynamite factory on the hill. DuPont left in the early 1960's, and the town stayed pretty much as it was. Just 1.6 square miles in area, only 269 people living in Louviers as of 2010.

It's probably less now, especially considering why I came here...

This cluster of buildings demanded my attention as soon as I first saw them, and knew they would have to be photographed soon. The second time we drove by on the way to Colorado Springs, I scouted the area for parking. It would draw too much attention to simply park in the lot out front. A better plan would be to park in Louviers and walk across the highway...

A few mornings later, on June 13, 2015, I set course for Louviers. As I approached the abandoned residential property, I turned off the highway and crossed over to the other side of the tracks. I drove into town to look for an inconspicuous parking space (ending up parking under a tree in front of Ace Storage), to then walk over to the apartment ruins.

On my walk across the highway, a cute and fuzzy bunny rabbit crossed my path. Considered that to be good luck...

100 yards or so north of the place I was exploring, was another larger house and garage. This one also looked abandoned, but I wasn't sure. I didn't walk down to it, though I probably should have. As of four days ago, this house was still standing... However, it's now sealed up with plywood covering all windows and doors, well hidden from highway view by overgrown trees.

This is the main house on the property, built in the same style of red brick as the strip of apartments next door. It was also left wide open... Even though I had no idea who or what I could find inside, I chose to go for broke and see what I could see. But fast... It could easily be highly methy or very stabby inside...

The garage looks like it was once well organized, and surprisingly intact for sitting open... 

The entrance from the garage into the house was blocked by box spring.

But there was a wide open door around the west side...

I regret not taking a second to set the camera correctly, but I was getting some seriously creepy vibes from inside the house and wanted to get in and out quick! Plus, I certainly didn't need flashes going off in the dimly lit house, attracting attention from the busy highway...

 Entering into the living room, you can see the front door on the floor. The kitchen entrance is on the left.

Going into the kitchen, with a separate mud-room before the garage entrance. I liked the sliding glass display case on the wall.

A very plain and dated kitchen. No dishwasher option available here, but there's some cute sunflowers above the cupboards...

What remains of the bathroom... The pipes have already been yanked from the walls, and the fixtures smashed. The odd blue light was shining across the hallway, from the sun coming up into a side window. Which wasn't tinted blue...

The house had a square floor plan. Enter into the living room, with the kitchen behind. From the living room, you could go back to two back bedrooms, with a bathroom in between. I only got a picture of one bedroom, the other had what appeared to be someone's current stuff on the floor. I quickly left the house...

This rusted metal shed sat about 20 feet from the house, and another 20 feet from the apartments.

Inside the shed was some random junk and a few signs from when they were trying to rent rooms here. I have no idea when these buildings were abandoned, but it appears to have been some time. Everything is smashed and destroyed, but there was no graffiti or tagging. Which was also very strange...

Next door was the 4 unit apartment building, with a single carport on each end. All of the windows had been broken out and the doors kicked in. Taking pictures of the property would be nice and easy, provided I didn't run into any scary surprises.

Now showing apartment #1!  

From the grown over front porch, to the spacious living room... 

That ultra modern kitchen! 

Take a gander at that spacious master bedroom suite and adjacent luxury bathroom! 

As bad as apartment #1 looked, #2 was even more trashed. 

None of the kitchen remained, but a couch was left behind in the living room. The wall between the back bedroom was destroyed, as well as a hole making a convenient passage into apartment #3.

The bathroom in #2 looked like it had been kind of nicely updated.  If you can get past the fact it had been busted apart... But they left a shower curtain!

Breaking down the door to apartment #3! 

Someone should move the couch over from apartment #2 and watch some TV... After all, the beer's already here!

This apartment had the most intact (and dirtiest) kitchen of the four, even though the cabinets had been yanked to the floor.

A bedroom looked fairly decent, but had a rather crappy bathroom. Only a stand up shower in apartments #3 & #4, where the others had full size tubs.

View from inside apartment #3, looking out the front window toward the mountains. 

I love this picture...

The exterior of apartment #4, with the carport on the right side of it.

I did not enter apartment #4 as it was too trashed. Pieces of ceiling had rained down throughout the apartment. I did find it kind of interesting that the drapes were still pulled tight in the back bedroom. Must be a graveyard shift worker...

The bathroom is ironically blocked by it's own door... 

The master bedroom was a lot less intact, but it did have a light bulb! 

The kitchen was destroyed, leaving nothing but the sink. Some weird blue tile left behind, the only apartment with it.

Going around back, here was a shot through the bedroom window, into the kitchen of apartment #4. 

Looking through the bedroom window of apartment #3. The highway and railroad tracks can be seen under the mountains. I like this picture a lot as well...

From the front, I hadn't noticed the back wall had been knocked out of apartment #1. Other than a clean break in the drywall, falling inward under the window. They should really close the blinds to keep the sunlight from getting through...

The ample storage space provided by the master bedroom's walk-by closet...

Because no abandoned building is complete without the token mattress or box spring... Here you go!

*****

My mission was an overwhelming success. Driving by multiple times at 60+ mph, you can't see much detail other than, "that's a really cool building that I want to see close up..." I had no idea what I was going to get if I stopped to look. I was not expecting total access to everything, allowing better pictures than anticipated. The Louviers Apartments have been one of my favorite projects since I found them... 

*****

Curious as to if the apartments were still standing, I made the drive back to Louviers on January 29, 2017.  

Apartments and house are both removed, only a vacant lot was left behind....

This was re-written from a photo album I posted on Facebook, June, 2015.