The owners of a structure in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood that was once home to a well-known black funeral home are receiving a $50,000 grant could serve as a predicate to future rehabilitation work.
Built in 1892, the Neoclassical-designed building became the Douglass Mortuary in 1915, serving the city’s minority community for decades. Whimsically, what was also known as the Douglass Undertaking Company used to run newspaper ads with the motto: “Remember our services are of the velvet kind.”
The mortuary’s location in the Denver’s Five Points area was particularly relevant to its success, thriving in a part of the city long known as the “Harlem of the West” and populated with minority residences and businesses.
In subsequent decades, the building at 2475 Welton Street has had several owners, before being occupied by the Urban Sanctuary yoga and wellness studio.
Now the state-run agency, History Colorado, has announced that it is awarding the Urban Sanctuary a $50,000 grant in order to create construction documents for planned rehabilitation work.
That work will see the upgrading of the building’s heating system and rehabilitation of the storefront. Additional work will include the replacement of the structure’s roofing system.
The funding is coming through History Colorado’s State Historical Fund and is part of nearly $536,000 in funding awarded this year for projects across the state.
In a press release, Marcie Moore Grantz, director of the State Historical Fund, said that the rehabilitation of such historical structures as the former Douglass Mortuary was important “not just for cultural preservation, but tourism generation, and equitable access to opportunities for Colorado’s diverse communities.”
By Garry Boulard
