The Hill Top Motel, Englewood, CO
One of my favorite landmarks in Englewood has always been the Hill Top Motel. A long abandoned motel, set up decades ago to catch travelers arriving or departing the south side of Denver.
The Hill Top was anything but flashy, just a plain wood and cinder block six room motel. Even in it's peak day, it was serviceable, but far from luxurious. The Hill Top pre-dates the more travel-centric motels along south Broadway, such as the Wright, 4U, Holiday and Lucky U, that were all built in the 1950's.
Those Hill Top letters are made of red brick protruding from the white cinder block walls. White paint is pealing away in places to reveal both a dirty red and dingy green paint, from a color scheme long ago.
The Hill Top was one of the featured stories in Wasted Quarter 70; Abandoned Englewood.
It's appearance was such a contrast to the surrounding neighborhood, and it's real time decay was a huge attraction to me. Plus, it's high profile location made it a landmark that I saw daily. But when I wrote my story on the motel, I didn't have an end for it. Abandoned Englewood was printed in August of 2015. At that point, Hill Top's future was still very much up in the air.
So today, I'm going to re-write that story, with additional information and images blended in. Both very new and very, very old...
For nearly 75 years, the Hill Top Motel sat on the southeast corner of Broadway and Lehigh Avenue. Named for it's location, coincidentally at the top of the hill, just south of downtown Englewood. Over the years that hill has been somewhat smoothed out, especially once the Hampden Avenue bypass was built in the 1970's.
Built in 1942, it operated as a motel until the early 1980's. Rooms were then rented out as small apartments, until the Hill Top closed for good in 2006(?). I'm not certain on those dates, but they are what I found during my initial research some five years ago.
I took my first round of Hill Top Motel pictures on June 29th, 2013. An incomplete series of shots from different angles, but not including some more detailed ones that I took on subsequent visits. Not even getting a shot of the full property until later. Photoshopping these two pictures together was the best I came up with from this set. The sign on the corner was for EOG Commercial Real Estate, would sometime post updates of reductions in asking price. For years it just sat decaying.
The motel wraps the south and east edges of the property, with a small building in the middle. At the time when the Hill Top finally closed, it was just used as another room. The Honeymoon Suite?
While I was researching the motel online for Abandoned Englewood, I came across an old photo of a little girl standing by some gas pumps. The photo was tagged as Hill Top, Englewood CO. But that could have been taken at any gas station anywhere. Plus the photo was very small and blurry, which would have reproduced very poorly in the final printed book. I decided to just mention the possibility the Hill Top may have had a gas station at some point, but not print the picture of it. I couldn't re-find it anyway if I wanted to use it
Photobucket had the photo I was looking for. It was uploaded by a user named Inzannedee, but gave no further info on the image. However, their folder had a few other pictures from the same time (likely some point in the 1940's), leaving no question in my mind that this was the Hill Top Motel.
The garage door on the west end of the motel suggests it's previous usage for auto service. The motel office was next door to the garage.
Hill Top featured a very simple motel layout, but with a car port for each of the rooms. I'd never seen that in a motel. Odd construction in that so much space would be taken up by these car ports, that could have been used for additional rooms, you'd think. Room entrances were inside each car port. Most of those doors were removed and now covered by plywood, with a few original doors still in place. The windows had awnings above them made of a rust colored aluminum sheeting. Most of them were sliding apart and falling off the brackets holding them in place.
Exception to this simple room layout comes with this corner apartment. I'm not sure, but I think this was a two bedroom. (These suspicions will be discussed later...) Trees in that same corner have grown to a pretty decent height, as their habitat falls deeper into disrepair from neglect.
The last room on the northeast corner. The mystery little girl from the 1940's would have been standing in front of this room.
And that concluded the June 2013 initial photograph tour. What I took was a good start, but I didn't get a good full property shot, nor did I get any interior pictures despite easily accessible uncovered windows. I'd do better next time...
Next time was early in the morning on April 20, 2014. The Hill Top Motel made my photo tour checklist, amongst the other local targets I was taking pictures of that holiday. Parking the car down the block and walking up from the east side, I felt a little nervous walking around the place. Technically trespassing of course, but I didn't cross any sort of barricade to be here. So there's my answer to the technicality!
Good thing the 420 holiday traffic was so light that morning, as I easily snapped the missing and greatly desired full motel property shot, from the northwest. Although I had to stand in the middle of northbound Broadway in order to get it. The sky couldn't have been better that day either. A cloudy backdrop gives these pictures a lot more impact.
Unfortunately the windows were all covered up, with the exception of a small sliver of an opening of the left window. What you can see inside was clearly enthralling...
The Mystery Little Girl from the 1940's, and her mother (I'm assuming) hanging out at a picnic table, placed next to the gas station. Who proudly served Quaker State Motor Oil!
Going back to the northeast edge of the Motel. I was going to try to get interior photographs through the dirty and mostly covered windows. None were boarded up, but most had the interior drapes pulled closed to prevent my looking inside.
As I was researching Englewood history for Wasted Quarter #70, I found a valuable source in the weekly city council newsletters, picked from the city's website. Many issues would include a summary of current commercial projects going on in the city. Going over the past few years worth of summaries while writing about the Hill Top, I saw speculation and many possible plans over the property's fate. These reports helped me write a great deal of the issue.
The edition dated May 1, 2014 offered some hope that the Hill Top would be saved and converted into something useful for today. I was kind of excited to see what this place could become. As bland as it looked, this place had character. And could become something really cool...
I delivered a pizza here once in the late 1990's. I distinctly remember seeing the delivery ticket with the address of Hill Top, and being surprised there was someone actually staying there. (And that they could afford Pizza Hut...) As bad of condition the buildings look to be in these pictures, they were not all that much better then.
From what I could see from the few open windows, the rooms were small, and not all shared the same layout. Each had a large front room, with two smaller rooms (a kitchenette and bathroom) behind. Some of which can be seen through the filthy glass. A few rooms had ceiling fans in them.
The carports varied from empty and fairly clean, to having a lot of random junk in them. This one had little inside it other than some white powder on the ground. Probably not meth...
The room on the left looks to be a small closet before going into the bathroom. I could not see in that window.
A broken mirror had conveniently been placed on the far wall, showing the ceiling fan hung above. If you look very close, you'd still probably not able to see the sliver of some awesome wood panelling. This wood be clearly seen from the open back kitchen window. Which I found later in my little trespassing endeavor. You can also see the ugly carpet better.
Someone dumped a hefty pile of wood chips in this carport. Which had an access hole to the roof, cut into the ceiling. And a boarded up back door. And small bookshelf nailed to the ceiling. And some other garbage on the floor...
This would have been the carport next door to the office. I'd made my way around the property, so it was time to go back towards the alley. See what kind of pictures could be had from back there...
The last car port on the northeast corner had an older style WalMart shopping cart. Must have been here for several years. It was being kept company by a BFI garbage can and some other random things.
Around back of the Hill Top. Most of the windows were covered from the inside, so I couldn't see what those rooms looked like, with a few exceptions. None of the open windows showed the Hill Top's bathrooms, which I guessed were the smaller windows higher up from the others. This wall seemed to be a favorite of local taggers, but their markings have been covered over somewhat...
By the time the May 29, 2014 Englewood City Council Newsletter was out, the good news about Hill Top had been yanked. There seemed to be no shortage of interest in the place, but when it came time to act on that interest, cold feet prevailed.
No matter what was or wasn't going on behind the scenes, there was even less going on at the property.
Going back to the back of the motel, I found a kitchenette window broken open. People had crawled through and gone inside. Broken pieces of wood lay inside a sink with the plumbing removed, across a small countertop maybe four feet long.
Footprints could be seen on the kitchen counter and in the dirt on the very ugly and dusty linoleum floor. Next level trespassers walking into the front room from here. Leaving indented footprints in well worn tan carpet. I'd hoped to not run into any violent squatters while taking these pictures...
I'm not sure, but I think this room on the was a rare Hill Top second bedroom. I say this because it had no kitchen features, nor and bathroom fixtures. The closet seems to suggest bedroom as well. It's also another one of my patented cheesy homemade panoramas. Needed as I couldn't get both the ceiling fan and crusty disgusting floor in the same shot.
The south side of the motel presented a new challenge. In order to get to the open windows, I'd have to cross a fenced off area. But I was this far into my project, so I couldn't give it up on it here because of some easily hurdled wire fence!
Because one of those open windows belongs to the kitchen for the room I looked in the front window of earlier! Remember, the one with the broken mirror reflection of the ceiling fan? I needed completion! This kitchenette is a little more deluxe for this room, with additional built-in shelving. Sink has also been removed, leaving just an empty hole in the counter. With tan, pastel pink and yellow tiles lining the walls.
Through the doorway you can see the front room. With it's green, tan and red carpet, stovepipe from a long gone wood stove, and that awesome fake wood wall panelling I was so excited about earlier!
I was very happy with what I got from this photo tour of the Hill Top Motel. The window shots turned out far better than expected, giving me an accurate representation of what I thought the Hill Top had to offer. Rooms were tiny, with narrow doorways and lacking all but the most basic amenities. For example, I saw very few electrical outlets in each of the front rooms. Fine for a TV.. But a TV and a VCR? Out of the question!
The interior was intact for the most part, not gutted for copper, and with little vandalism or tagging. On the whole, the Hill Top was in far better shape than The London Motel a mile or so west of here. (Another long abandoned Englewood landmark that was also on my "watch closely" list.) Any possible renovation would definitely be expensive, but with the right tenant, could be worth it.
A few weeks later, the EOG Commercial Real Estate sign was covered over with a plain white one. The new sign featured a simple question mark, with an email address underneath. Curiosity was killing me, so I contacted Sazi Properties about plans for the motel.
After a couple weeks, they replied:
He offered to put me in contact with the daughter of the previous owner, but she never replied back.
Which sucks... I really wanted to hear her story...
If you had significant knowledge of a property, and knew of someone that wanted to help document the history of it, to not cooperate seems all sorts of wrong. Granted, it's entirely her right to do this. But all the details she knows of this building and what went on here, will end with her. Instead of being shared with my relatively few readers of my crappy book (and now website). Seems kind of sad to me...
And despite further research, I never found anything out about a Zombie file that was shot there. I would so love to see it!
During the months of July and August 2014, the motel buildings and property were slowly being cleaned out.
The EOG Commercial Real Estate sign was moved, in order to lean it against the wall between the garage door and office.
Overgrown former motel was now set to live it's next chapter under a question mark. Which wasn't new, but at least it was somewhat defined.
This picture from August 3, 2014 shows the Hill Top in a slightly neater state. The property got a mow, and was looking like it was getting ready for something...
Less than two weeks later (August 16th), this picture showed the Hill Top looking a lot sadder. The motel property was closed off by chain link fence, on August 10th, 2014.
By early September 2014, all of the trees inside the motel were cut down. Sazi also cleaned up the large weeds growing in the lot. I'm assuming more pre-demo work is going on inside the motel, as another identifying piece of Broadway takes a hit...
At the December 2, 2014 Englewood City DRT meeting, the new owners proposed a project to refurbish the existing building into mixed office & retail, which would include an indoor/outdoor coffee shop.
On April 19, 2015 (Almost the one year anniversary of my second photo tour) the Hill Top Motel still looked like this. No work had been started on that proposal. I was beginning to wonder if the Hill Top could be saved at all...
At least instead of looking to flatten immediately, then sell the vacant land, Sazi is showing some appreciation for the history of the property, it's uniqueness and it potential for re-use.
However, In March 2015, Sazi told the city council they were taking a wait and see approach until the effects of opening Alta Cherry Hills can be analyzed. (Alta Cherry Hills is the massive apartment complex built a block to the north, where Flood Middle School used to stand. You can read all about that here and here!)
Until then, the Hill Top sits like a death row convict behind it's fenced in barrier, waiting for a pardon.
This would have been the last update I made to the Hill Top Motel story before Wasted Quarter #70 Abandoned Englewood was printed. So that story ended here. In real life the Hill Top continued to sit untouched for many more months. The only thing that changed was the height of the weeds out front. I kept an eye on it for any signs of action, as I drove by it several times a day, but nothing new was ever happening...
The April 7, 2016 Englewood City Council update brought the news I'd expected, but it still saddened me deeply to read it...
Second bedroom was a little cleaner than it was two years earlier, and had shrunk enough in size that I could fit it all into one photo!
Another freshly uncovered window revealed another bathroom! This picture had to be taken through a dingy screen, but I think that adds to it's effect.
Well, at least the signs of a squatter... Looks like a recent trek to Safeway (couple blocks to the north) brought a bounty of bread and Rice a Roni! The San Francisco Treat! Doubt they got any water out of the sink, but it may not have been shut off yet. But if it was still on, would you want to make Rice a Roni with it?
The former gas pump island turned flower bed, has been chopped up and removed from in front of the gas station.
Unfortunately Hill Top, you are being prepped for demolition, not rehabilitation. Your market has spoken. They are not interested in the making the investments necessary to make you viable again.
But hey, there's some newly opened windows in the garage that I've not yet checked out... Guess I'll just have to help myself around these difficult barricades and have a look!
Over the next few months, action at the Hill Top was non existent. Assuming that pre-demo work was going on, there were no obvious signs that it was.
I made it up to the Hill Top property to photograph the blank slate on December 12, 2016, after a light dusting of snow. The corner lot looks so empty after all those years of an abandoned motel occupying the land.
All that remained was this unearthed oil drum, which may actually date back to the gas station that was once here.
That and about five plastic buckets of whatever that were placed under the Sazi Properties sign. Just five days after it's demolition, this was all that was left of the motel.
This picture from March 27, 2017 showed that no new building had started. Not even the oil drum or plastic buckets of whatever had been moved.
However, they were gone by June 10th, when I took my next photo of the vacant Hill Top property. The grass and weeds had started taking over, but the question mark on Sazi's sign now read: "Build to Suit".
Englewood's City Council Newsletters had spun off into a separate monthly newsletter dedicated to construction projects, titled the "Community Development Newsletter". The August 2017 edition provided this new update on the property.
A three story brick building was coming to the Hill Top property, at the corner of Broadway and Lehigh. With a first floor dedicated to retail or restaurant, and two levels of apartments located above it. The name of the new building would be: The Hill Top.
Ground for the new Hill Top was broken in early April 2018. I stopped to take a series of pictures on April 5th. Showing that a big hole was dug...
Laura and I moved away from Englewood and Colorado, four days later. Work hadn't progressed much in the last two months, and I would have to rely on updates from the Englewood Community Development Newsletter, just to see what was going on. I'd no longer be driving by it multiple times a day...
Nearly a year later, the April 2019 edition of the Englewood Community Development Newsletter provided this update on the new Hill Top project.
That much time has passed and all that is done is the foundation nearing completion. Very disappointing. I was hoping for walls, and new floors, and to see that new Hill Top sign all lit up with a clock underneath...
I'll give Sazi all the credit in the world for this project. They stuck by the old place for quite a while longer than they needed to. Trying what they could to save the old buildings. Once it became obvious there just wasn't enough serious interest in renovating the small outdated motel, they developed a new idea that keeps the spirit of the old Hill Top, while making it look not so gross. Love that they are keeping the name, with a clock tower and the city name featured on the new structure.
Even Mystery Little Girl from the 1940's is excited about the all new Hill Top. While standing in front of the traditional one, three quarters of a century ago...
The same edition of the Englewood Community Development Newsletter that provided that update on the Hill Top, had some distressing info on a non-demolition rebuild. The iconic Englewood Kmart building (which closed in November, 2018), will be renovated and converted into multiple stores, anchored by Chuze Fitness.
The Hill Top was anything but flashy, just a plain wood and cinder block six room motel. Even in it's peak day, it was serviceable, but far from luxurious. The Hill Top pre-dates the more travel-centric motels along south Broadway, such as the Wright, 4U, Holiday and Lucky U, that were all built in the 1950's.
Those Hill Top letters are made of red brick protruding from the white cinder block walls. White paint is pealing away in places to reveal both a dirty red and dingy green paint, from a color scheme long ago.
The Hill Top was one of the featured stories in Wasted Quarter 70; Abandoned Englewood.
It's appearance was such a contrast to the surrounding neighborhood, and it's real time decay was a huge attraction to me. Plus, it's high profile location made it a landmark that I saw daily. But when I wrote my story on the motel, I didn't have an end for it. Abandoned Englewood was printed in August of 2015. At that point, Hill Top's future was still very much up in the air.
So today, I'm going to re-write that story, with additional information and images blended in. Both very new and very, very old...
For nearly 75 years, the Hill Top Motel sat on the southeast corner of Broadway and Lehigh Avenue. Named for it's location, coincidentally at the top of the hill, just south of downtown Englewood. Over the years that hill has been somewhat smoothed out, especially once the Hampden Avenue bypass was built in the 1970's.
Built in 1942, it operated as a motel until the early 1980's. Rooms were then rented out as small apartments, until the Hill Top closed for good in 2006(?). I'm not certain on those dates, but they are what I found during my initial research some five years ago.
I took my first round of Hill Top Motel pictures on June 29th, 2013. An incomplete series of shots from different angles, but not including some more detailed ones that I took on subsequent visits. Not even getting a shot of the full property until later. Photoshopping these two pictures together was the best I came up with from this set. The sign on the corner was for EOG Commercial Real Estate, would sometime post updates of reductions in asking price. For years it just sat decaying.
The motel wraps the south and east edges of the property, with a small building in the middle. At the time when the Hill Top finally closed, it was just used as another room. The Honeymoon Suite?
While I was researching the motel online for Abandoned Englewood, I came across an old photo of a little girl standing by some gas pumps. The photo was tagged as Hill Top, Englewood CO. But that could have been taken at any gas station anywhere. Plus the photo was very small and blurry, which would have reproduced very poorly in the final printed book. I decided to just mention the possibility the Hill Top may have had a gas station at some point, but not print the picture of it. I couldn't re-find it anyway if I wanted to use it
When I decided to re-write this story a week ago, I set out to find that photo...
And I did!
A much clearer scan of it too!
Which indeed had a gas station in front!
Here's it's backside in 2013.
Hill Top featured a very simple motel layout, but with a car port for each of the rooms. I'd never seen that in a motel. Odd construction in that so much space would be taken up by these car ports, that could have been used for additional rooms, you'd think. Room entrances were inside each car port. Most of those doors were removed and now covered by plywood, with a few original doors still in place. The windows had awnings above them made of a rust colored aluminum sheeting. Most of them were sliding apart and falling off the brackets holding them in place.
Exception to this simple room layout comes with this corner apartment. I'm not sure, but I think this was a two bedroom. (These suspicions will be discussed later...) Trees in that same corner have grown to a pretty decent height, as their habitat falls deeper into disrepair from neglect.
Mystery little girl from the 1940's stands in front off the Hill Top Motel rooms in the 1940's.
And that concluded the June 2013 initial photograph tour. What I took was a good start, but I didn't get a good full property shot, nor did I get any interior pictures despite easily accessible uncovered windows. I'd do better next time...
Next time was early in the morning on April 20, 2014. The Hill Top Motel made my photo tour checklist, amongst the other local targets I was taking pictures of that holiday. Parking the car down the block and walking up from the east side, I felt a little nervous walking around the place. Technically trespassing of course, but I didn't cross any sort of barricade to be here. So there's my answer to the technicality!
Good thing the 420 holiday traffic was so light that morning, as I easily snapped the missing and greatly desired full motel property shot, from the northwest. Although I had to stand in the middle of northbound Broadway in order to get it. The sky couldn't have been better that day either. A cloudy backdrop gives these pictures a lot more impact.
Another shot of the former gas station.
Can't get enough of that 1940's gas station!
Well, I do need service, so let's see if there's anyone home...
Oh, that's right...
No sign of life here. Sealed tight with boards and drapes pulled over the windows, so I couldn't look inside of either room.
As I was researching Englewood history for Wasted Quarter #70, I found a valuable source in the weekly city council newsletters, picked from the city's website. Many issues would include a summary of current commercial projects going on in the city. Going over the past few years worth of summaries while writing about the Hill Top, I saw speculation and many possible plans over the property's fate. These reports helped me write a great deal of the issue.
The edition dated May 1, 2014 offered some hope that the Hill Top would be saved and converted into something useful for today. I was kind of excited to see what this place could become. As bland as it looked, this place had character. And could become something really cool...
With a great deal of rehab work...
I delivered a pizza here once in the late 1990's. I distinctly remember seeing the delivery ticket with the address of Hill Top, and being surprised there was someone actually staying there. (And that they could afford Pizza Hut...) As bad of condition the buildings look to be in these pictures, they were not all that much better then.
From what I could see from the few open windows, the rooms were small, and not all shared the same layout. Each had a large front room, with two smaller rooms (a kitchenette and bathroom) behind. Some of which can be seen through the filthy glass. A few rooms had ceiling fans in them.
The carports varied from empty and fairly clean, to having a lot of random junk in them. This one had little inside it other than some white powder on the ground. Probably not meth...
The room on the left looks to be a small closet before going into the bathroom. I could not see in that window.
Another fairly clean car port. With darker cinder blocks than most of the others.
This picture didn't turn out. But you can kinda see some tacky carpet...
The typical room entrance looked like this. A door stepping up to the right or left side. Some had mailboxes, some had light fixtures, and all of them had brick chimneys leading out of the front room. In it's earlier days, each room had a wood stove.
A broken mirror had conveniently been placed on the far wall, showing the ceiling fan hung above. If you look very close, you'd still probably not able to see the sliver of some awesome wood panelling. This wood be clearly seen from the open back kitchen window. Which I found later in my little trespassing endeavor. You can also see the ugly carpet better.
Someone dumped a hefty pile of wood chips in this carport. Which had an access hole to the roof, cut into the ceiling. And a boarded up back door. And small bookshelf nailed to the ceiling. And some other garbage on the floor...
This would have been the carport next door to the office. I'd made my way around the property, so it was time to go back towards the alley. See what kind of pictures could be had from back there...
The last car port on the northeast corner had an older style WalMart shopping cart. Must have been here for several years. It was being kept company by a BFI garbage can and some other random things.
Let's go to the alley and see what the back of the Hill Top has to say...
Around back of the Hill Top. Most of the windows were covered from the inside, so I couldn't see what those rooms looked like, with a few exceptions. None of the open windows showed the Hill Top's bathrooms, which I guessed were the smaller windows higher up from the others. This wall seemed to be a favorite of local taggers, but their markings have been covered over somewhat...
By the time the May 29, 2014 Englewood City Council Newsletter was out, the good news about Hill Top had been yanked. There seemed to be no shortage of interest in the place, but when it came time to act on that interest, cold feet prevailed.
No matter what was or wasn't going on behind the scenes, there was even less going on at the property.
Going back to the back of the motel, I found a kitchenette window broken open. People had crawled through and gone inside. Broken pieces of wood lay inside a sink with the plumbing removed, across a small countertop maybe four feet long.
Footprints could be seen on the kitchen counter and in the dirt on the very ugly and dusty linoleum floor. Next level trespassers walking into the front room from here. Leaving indented footprints in well worn tan carpet. I'd hoped to not run into any violent squatters while taking these pictures...
I'm not sure, but I think this room on the was a rare Hill Top second bedroom. I say this because it had no kitchen features, nor and bathroom fixtures. The closet seems to suggest bedroom as well. It's also another one of my patented cheesy homemade panoramas. Needed as I couldn't get both the ceiling fan and crusty disgusting floor in the same shot.
The south side of the motel presented a new challenge. In order to get to the open windows, I'd have to cross a fenced off area. But I was this far into my project, so I couldn't give it up on it here because of some easily hurdled wire fence!
Because one of those open windows belongs to the kitchen for the room I looked in the front window of earlier! Remember, the one with the broken mirror reflection of the ceiling fan? I needed completion! This kitchenette is a little more deluxe for this room, with additional built-in shelving. Sink has also been removed, leaving just an empty hole in the counter. With tan, pastel pink and yellow tiles lining the walls.
Through the doorway you can see the front room. With it's green, tan and red carpet, stovepipe from a long gone wood stove, and that awesome fake wood wall panelling I was so excited about earlier!
My 420 mission was accomplished!
The interior was intact for the most part, not gutted for copper, and with little vandalism or tagging. On the whole, the Hill Top was in far better shape than The London Motel a mile or so west of here. (Another long abandoned Englewood landmark that was also on my "watch closely" list.) Any possible renovation would definitely be expensive, but with the right tenant, could be worth it.
Enter Sazi Properties!
On June 21, 2014, the sign in front of the motel was changed to from Price Reduced to SOLD.
The latest city council update included the following note on the property:
Now the watch was on to see what would happen here next.
After a couple weeks, they replied:
He offered to put me in contact with the daughter of the previous owner, but she never replied back.
Which sucks... I really wanted to hear her story...
If you had significant knowledge of a property, and knew of someone that wanted to help document the history of it, to not cooperate seems all sorts of wrong. Granted, it's entirely her right to do this. But all the details she knows of this building and what went on here, will end with her. Instead of being shared with my relatively few readers of my crappy book (and now website). Seems kind of sad to me...
And despite further research, I never found anything out about a Zombie file that was shot there. I would so love to see it!
During the months of July and August 2014, the motel buildings and property were slowly being cleaned out.
Meanwhile.. Back in the 1940's...
That Mystery Little Girl played outside the rooms at the Hill Top Motel.
Anyone know what year that car would have been?
Summer weeds were getting taller on the property, July 13, 2014.
Tagging was still covered up in the alley, but the broken open windows were still not closed up...
Overgrown former motel was now set to live it's next chapter under a question mark. Which wasn't new, but at least it was somewhat defined.
This picture from August 3, 2014 shows the Hill Top in a slightly neater state. The property got a mow, and was looking like it was getting ready for something...
Like a security fence...
Less than two weeks later (August 16th), this picture showed the Hill Top looking a lot sadder. The motel property was closed off by chain link fence, on August 10th, 2014.
Not even given the dignity of a fully surrounded fence. Sazi got lazi and stopped between the O & P.
A supply trailer was now parked in front of the gas station...
The office remained closed...
Pieces of concrete pavement were being uprooted...
The gas station looked so sad...
Anything left inside the motel rooms were moved to the car ports...
Then taken off the property through the back driveway gate...
Work continued through October, 2014...
At the December 2, 2014 Englewood City DRT meeting, the new owners proposed a project to refurbish the existing building into mixed office & retail, which would include an indoor/outdoor coffee shop.
Sounded like a great plan, but that was it...
(April 19, 2015)
(May 31, 2015)
However, In March 2015, Sazi told the city council they were taking a wait and see approach until the effects of opening Alta Cherry Hills can be analyzed. (Alta Cherry Hills is the massive apartment complex built a block to the north, where Flood Middle School used to stand. You can read all about that here and here!)
(July 18, 2015)
This would have been the last update I made to the Hill Top Motel story before Wasted Quarter #70 Abandoned Englewood was printed. So that story ended here. In real life the Hill Top continued to sit untouched for many more months. The only thing that changed was the height of the weeds out front. I kept an eye on it for any signs of action, as I drove by it several times a day, but nothing new was ever happening...
The April 7, 2016 Englewood City Council update brought the news I'd expected, but it still saddened me deeply to read it...
The Hill Top was officially doomed.
July 3, 2016 would be my last specific photo mission at the Hill Top.
The yard was mowed again, with some newer holes dug up to remove items long buried under it's soil. On the positive side, the grass has never been thicker!
The motel looked tired and accepting of it's fate.
No longer the place where happy Mystery Little Girl played nearly 75 years earlier...
The front door was now left open in broken kitchen sink room...
South side still boarded up in the exact same places...
A recently uncovered bathroom window allowed me to see into a new room!
Squatter found!
Well, at least the signs of a squatter... Looks like a recent trek to Safeway (couple blocks to the north) brought a bounty of bread and Rice a Roni! The San Francisco Treat! Doubt they got any water out of the sink, but it may not have been shut off yet. But if it was still on, would you want to make Rice a Roni with it?
The former gas pump island turned flower bed, has been chopped up and removed from in front of the gas station.
Along with it's cement pad that cars used to park on.
That eerie 1940's ghost man stood on while taking this over-exposed photo...
They tried... You are just plain obsolete...
But hey, there's some newly opened windows in the garage that I've not yet checked out... Guess I'll just have to help myself around these difficult barricades and have a look!
Including this broken open window... Which for some reason I don't have a better photo of...
Now I finally know what was behind that garage door after all those years... Nothing!!!
Yup... Pretty sad end for the Hill Top...
My last photo of the intact Hill Top Motel, taken July 3, 2016.
Right on Mystery Little Girl from the 1940's!
The Hill Top Motel was finally demolished on December 7, 2016.
This notice in the December 20th Englewood City Council newsletter is my only record of the demolition. By the time I drove by it that day, it was gone. Just a few chunks of concrete that hadn't yet been hauled away, littered the grounds.
I made it up to the Hill Top property to photograph the blank slate on December 12, 2016, after a light dusting of snow. The corner lot looks so empty after all those years of an abandoned motel occupying the land.
All that remained was this unearthed oil drum, which may actually date back to the gas station that was once here.
That and about five plastic buckets of whatever that were placed under the Sazi Properties sign. Just five days after it's demolition, this was all that was left of the motel.
And then...
Nothing happened...
However, they were gone by June 10th, when I took my next photo of the vacant Hill Top property. The grass and weeds had started taking over, but the question mark on Sazi's sign now read: "Build to Suit".
Englewood's City Council Newsletters had spun off into a separate monthly newsletter dedicated to construction projects, titled the "Community Development Newsletter". The August 2017 edition provided this new update on the property.
A three story brick building was coming to the Hill Top property, at the corner of Broadway and Lehigh. With a first floor dedicated to retail or restaurant, and two levels of apartments located above it. The name of the new building would be: The Hill Top.
I liked this idea. The old place had to go, and the new one looks pretty cool for what it is.
Then time stood still for 2 and a half weeks, and some snow fell on the 21st...
Back to April 5th... An updated drawing of the planned new Hill Top building was placed on the security fence. Minor changes were made to the signage on the clock tower, with the words Englewood and Hill Top changing places. I liked what was in the Community Development Newsletter. And this one is better...
That's a pretty big hill...
Lotsa dirt...
On May 27th, 2018, I took my last photograph of the Hill Top property.
Laura and I moved away from Englewood and Colorado, four days later. Work hadn't progressed much in the last two months, and I would have to rely on updates from the Englewood Community Development Newsletter, just to see what was going on. I'd no longer be driving by it multiple times a day...
Nearly a year later, the April 2019 edition of the Englewood Community Development Newsletter provided this update on the new Hill Top project.
That much time has passed and all that is done is the foundation nearing completion. Very disappointing. I was hoping for walls, and new floors, and to see that new Hill Top sign all lit up with a clock underneath...
Well, maybe in another year...
Seems like an appropriate tribute to it's past life
Even Mystery Little Girl from the 1940's is excited about the all new Hill Top. While standing in front of the traditional one, three quarters of a century ago...
******
And it will look like this...
Sigh...
Thanks so much for chronicling this weird place I had wondered about for so many years!
ReplyDeleteIt looks like a great motel for travellers. The post is quite informative and thanks for sharing it.
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