1129 E 17th Ave
Denver, CO, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Dow-Rosenzweig House (Rosenzweig House)

Statement of Significant:

The Dow-Rosenzweig home is significant for several reasons. It is an excellent example of a carpenter-built, vernacular home of the Victorian period, exhibiting the skill of its first owner and builder, Charles L. Dow. It is also significant for its connection with the Rosenzweig family, who occupied the house for over eighty years, and for their famous daughter, Frances Rose, who lived there in her retirement. The structure is also an important visual landmark along Denver's Park Avenue, one of the last Victorians left along this once fashionable street, and its best preserved. The house has already been designated a Denver Landmark.

The house was built in 1882 by Charles L. Dow for his own family. An early Denver history lists him as a mechanic who also was trained in the furniture business. He arrived in Denver in 1879 and established himself in his father's wall paper and paint business. He also speculated extensively in real estate and his own home was one of 25 or 30 that he erected in the city.

Dow sold the home in 1887 to a realtor by the name of Ernest Thomas, who lived in the house for only two years before moving into the home next door at 1133 E. 17th Avenue, one of the two homes which once stood where there is now a parking lot.

Thomas sold the home in 1888 to the Leopold Rosenzweig family, who occupied the house until the family's last member passed away in 1970. After purchasing the home, the Rosenzweigs remodeled it. They had the frame addition added with a bedroom upstairs and moved the kitchen to the back of the house, leaving more space for a large dining room and a fashionable front and back parlor. There is documentation which suggests that the renowned Denver architect, William Lang supervised the remodeling. The elaborate side porch may have been added at this time. The carriage house was built in the late 1890's to replace a less imposing stable which had housed the family's cow and three horses.

Leopold Rosenzweig and his wife Berthat had seven daughters and two sons, some grown and married, when they moved to Denver. Their last child, Daniel, was born in the house in 1888. Denver became the family's permanent home only after many previous stops. Leopold Rosenzweig was born into a Jewish family with the surname Juii who lived in Russian-occupied Poland. At eighteen he was drafted into the Russian army, which demanded twenty-five years of service in those days. During the Crimean War in 1855, he deserted and made his way across Europe with a fake passport which gave his name as Leopold Rosenzweig. He ended up in friendly Sweden where he met and married his wife, a Swedish Jew, and fathered the first three of his daughters. He moved his family to England and then in 1869 emigrated to America with the family following in 1872.

The Rosenzweigs lived in towns in New York and Pennsylvania before moving to Cleveland. Leopold spent several years in Texas in the business of buying horses from Mexico to be sold in the Kansas City markets. Then, crippled with rheumatism, he moved to Denver in 1887 for his health, with the family following soon after. His health recovered, he made a living in Denver in the hauling business and in real estate speculation.

The most famous member of the Rosenzweig family was the daughter Frances, who under the name of Frances Rose, became one of the world's leading Wagnerian sopranos. She studied in Cleveland and then Vienna where she received the offer of prima donna of the Breslau Opera. In America she had refused a handsome offer from the Metropolitan Opera because she wished to be with her husband, Theodore Konrad, who was a tenor with the Swedish Royal Opera Company. She was first soprano for the Royal Opera in Berlin for seven years, traveled with Richard Strauss throughout Europe, and sang before the King and Queen of England, Prince Henry of Prussia, and other crowned heads. World War I interrupted her career in Europe and she sang for a time with the Chicago Grand Opera Company. Her husband died in 1921. When she retired in 1936, she moved back to Denver and lived in the family home until her death in 1956.

Leopold Rosenzweig died in 1923, his wife predeceasing him by fourteen years. Two unmarried daughters, Josie and Sadie, and Daniel, except for the few years of his marriage, continued to occupy the house. The sisters died in the 1960's and Dan in 1970, after which the house was bought and remodeled for offices.