Historic Colorado Mansions & Castles, by Linda Wommack, The History Press, Charleston, S.C., 2014, $21.99
Mr. Large seems a fitting name for the wealthy silver-mining investor who had a home built in the 1880s in Denver’s Capital Hill Area. Isaac Large’s mansion was grand enough (built in Queen Anne style of rough-cut pink and gray stone), but, according to author Linda Wommack,
it was also relatively “modest” (three stories, four fireplaces). The Large family moved into the home—one of the first Denver abodes to include electricity, hot and cold running water and a hand-crank phone—in 1890.
Ruined by the silver crash of 1893, Isaac sold it to J.J. Brown, whose wife Maggie later became a celebrated Titanic survivor and the subject of the 1960 play The Unsinkable Molly Brown. The mansion came to be known as the Molly Brown House.
It and eight other impressive homes, all built between 1878 and 1908, are featured in Wommack’s Colorado house tour. They’re all large (the Large/Brown house being the smallest) and all open to the public.
—Editor
Originally published in the October 2015 issue of Wild West.
