Side Streets   Neighborhoods, people and issues

The house located on the grounds of the “Saint Rose Arveson Shrine” at 36th Street and West Pikes Peak Ave. was declared uninhabitable Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Officers from the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak region including Sgt. Ryan McFadden, right, and Ben Schar wore hazard gear when going in the house. Photo by Carol Lawrence / The Gazette

Rose Arveson

On this day of love, happiness and bouquets of roses, there is none at the west side shrine once world famous for sending blessed miracle healing roses to the faithful.

Rather than the scent of roses, the over-powering stench of human waste and death permeates the “Saint Rose E. Arveson Shrine” at 36th Street and West Pikes Peak Avenue.

No longer do desperate people seeking cures wander the hillside shrine offering prayers at the statue of Christ or before the large etched mural of Rose Arveson, who died in August 1963, giving birth to a legend.

Her daughters, Dorothy and Pauline, claimed a miracle occurred after her funeral when six roses placed on her casket wilted, died and were resurrected. They said the roses bloomed 10 days later.

Then, they claimed, a petal from one of the roses cured a severely arthritic friend.

Dorothy and Pauline spent the rest of their lives erecting the shrine and campaigning for the Catholic Church to declare her a saint due to her healing powers.

The story of Rose was spread by tabloid newspapers, triggering pilgrimages from folks hoping to be healed of various diseases and afflictions.

This etching of Rose Arveson was a centerpiece of a shrine built by her daughters, Dorothy and Pauline, who spent their lives trying to win sainthood for their mother.

Over the years, the sisters claimed the spirit of “Little Saint Rose” had cured people of cancer, heart disease, AIDS and blindness.

For those who couldn’t make the trip to Colorado Springs, the sisters shipped out roses blessed in their mother’s name. Roses went out by the tens of thousands to people around the world.

But sainthood never came, officially, to Rose. Dorothy worked as an accountant from the modest family home she shared with Pauline.

And as the sisters aged, their efforts to promote their mother and the shrine faded.

The Shrine of Saint Rose E. Arveson was a mess on Feb. 13, 2013, and the stench was overwhelming near the house. Photo by Cary Leider Vogrin.

The shrine took on a spooky quality in recent years. Weeds grew unchecked. The statues decayed. The elderly sisters were seldom seen by neighbors who  grew concerned as a stranger appeared. It was a man no one recognized, and he moved in with the women.

Police were called to check the welfare of the women, but they were never allowed in the house. Same for Code Enforcement and Adult Protective Services.

Readers called me in 2010 and I tried to talk to the sisters and the man, but they wouldn’t open the door.

The Shrine of Saint Rose E. Arverson was not a welcoming place on Feb. 13, 2013. Beyond the “Beware of Dog” sign was a notice on the door declaring it unfit for human habitation. Photo by Cary Leider Vogrin.

When officials finally did get inside recently, they were shocked at what they found. The house had become a toxic waste site, according to Ken Lewis, code enforcement administrator.

His officers were with police Jan. 28 when, in response to neighbor complaints, they went to investigate horrible odors wafting from the house.

Lewis said officers decided the overwhelming smell of death gave them probable cause to enter the house. So they crawled in a window and were stunned.

“There were dead animals and human waste everywhere,” Lewis said. “The place was filthy. It’s one of the worst we’ve ever seen.”

Officers from The Humane Society of the Pikes Peak region and code enforcement officials wore hazard suits as they cleared dead animals from a house located on the property of the Saint Rose Arveson Shrine at 36th St. and West Pikes Peak Avenuen on Jan. 28, 2013. Photo by Carol Lawrence / The Gazette

Inside, they found 69-year-old William E. Schwartz, who appeared to be suffering a leg infection and had to be carried out, Lewis said.

Then officers of the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region went in, wearing hazard suits and facemasks, to rescue some cats living inside and clear out the carcasses of dead animals, Lewis said.

Turns out, Pauline Arveson died in April 2008 at age 82 and Dorothy died in March 2011 at age 81 leaving Schwartz alone in the house.

Statues on the grounds of the Shrine of Saint Rose E. Arveson are crumbling from neglect.

“We’d been trying for a long time to get in the house,” Lewis said. “Dorothy almost let us in one time but she said she didn’t want to anger (Schwartz).”

When Dorothy died, Lewis said, the first responders found her body on the porch because Schwartz didn’t want anyone in the house.

I wondered what would become of the house and shrine and Schwartz.

Lewis said his officers went back on Friday and condemned the place.

“It’s a health hazard,” he said. “We put it on the dilapidated building list.”

It’s so bad, he doesn’t believe the house can be saved.

“It would require a biohazard cleanup,” he said.

Lewis knows neighbors don’t want to be stuck with a rancid building, so he intends to start the process of asking the city attorney to go to court and ask for a receiver for the property, assuming there are no heirs to take control.

“Somebody has to take responsibility for the property and take the house down,” Lewis said.

It could take months, but Lewis said it will be a priority for his office because not much can happen until a receiver is appointed.

As for Schwartz, Lewis said he remains hospitalized. And once healthy, he is facing three counts of misdemeanor cruelty to animals, filed last week in El Paso County District Court, according to court documents.

Looks like it will take another miracle to save Little Saint Rose’s shrine.

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Ivywild is a neighborhood south of downtown Colorado Springs and northeast of the Broadmoor area.

Ivywild is a hard-luck neighborhood south of downtown Colorado Springs where folks have been struggling to combat encroaching blight and crime.

It’s been a working-class neighborhood for years. But recently it has suffered as a home to drug dealers, prostitutes, other criminals and homeless people.

It’s elementary school has closed and businesses have left as the neighborhood deteriorated.

In recent weeks, Ivywild has been declared blighted and qualified for an urban renewal designation, which would help spur economic revitalization by allowing tax revenue from future development to be used for public improvements.

One improvement residents want is the elimination of homeless camps like this one at South Cascade and St. Elmo avenues.

This pretty little creekside meadow actually is a homeless camp at South Cascade and St. Elmo avenues in Ivywild, south of downtown Colorado Springs.

The property is among 25 or so owned by On the Ivy, a company founded by developer Mark Morley, downtown club owner Sam Guadagnoli and real estate broker Robert Aertker.

On the Ivy amassed about 12 acres of land in Ivywild along Cheyenne Creek in 2007 with plans to develop an upscale urban region similar to Cherry Creek in Denver.

A closer look at a homeless camp in Ivywild, on property owned by On the Ivy development group. City code enforcement officers have been trying to close the camp since February.

But the economy went bust and all the big plans were shelved. Meanwhile, On the Ivy’s property in Ivywild continued to deteriorate.

Neighbors are upset because the homeless have dragged a lot of trash to the site and build fires in the brush.

Colorado Springs Code Enforcement officers have tried to clean up homeless camps in Ivywild, but Administrator Ken Lewis said On the Ivy has not cooperated with his team’s efforts.

In fact, Lewis said On the Ivy mostly ignores requests to cooperate.

Now, a small group of business owners including Martin Harper, a certified public accountant, is taking action. They are planning to clean up the worst of On the Ivy’s overgrown lots and try to keep the homeless from flopping there.

Neighbors are tired of the trash dragged to the area by homeless and they fear the fires they build at the camp.

And Lewis said he’s going to dedicate a couple of his team to working with Ivywild to address the blight.

Here's a view of On the Ivy's vacant lot at South Cascade and St. Elmo avenues in Ivywild. The photo is from FlashEarth.com.

I’ve written about Ivywild a couple times in recent years. Here’s a piece I wrote in 2009 after the Ivywild school closed. And this is the blog that accompanied the column.

A more controversial column was related to racist covenants filed with the original Ivywild development plans and attached to every property. Here’s the blog for that column with photos of the covenants.

For an in-depth story about developer plans for Ivywild, I recommend this excellent piece, published Aug. 3, 2008, by Gazette business writer extraodinaire Rich Laden.

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How would you like to live across the street from this house?  

Joseph O'Brien's family home at 715 N. 24th St. has been condemned since 1973. Neighbors are sick of looking at it and suffering depressed property values due to it.

This house at 715 N. 24th St., on the corner of Dale Street on Colorado Springs‘ west side is owned by Joseph O’Brien of O’Brien Printing. It has been sitting and rotting since it was condemned since 1973.  

You read that correctly. The house was condemned when Richard Nixon was still in the White House. It has been a blight on the neighborhood ever since. That’s 37 years and counting.  

It was built in 1905 by O’Brien’s grandmother. His son, Glen, has promised the city repeatedly to repair the house. And he has done considerable work, at times, on the structure.  

In this photo, you can see the concrete basement he poured after jacking the structure up. Then he built a large addition on the back with the long, slanting roof that overhangs the original peak of the house.  

You can also see, through the shoulder-high weeds, the rusting scaffolding that has stood for a decade or more since activity lurched to a halt.  

For the past three years, neighbor Kevin Sutherland has had a front-porch view of the mess. He’s called the city, like many neighbors, wondering why something isn’t done to enforce the city’s 2006 blight ordinance and require O’Brien to repair the house.   

The south side of the house is not much different. A hand-built ladder leans against the wall.  

Inside the house, Glen O’Brien has amassed building materials such as doors and wood for his project. But mostly they’ve just sat, gathering dust. O’Brien did upgrade the electrical service to the house. But much more work remains.  

In 2005, the O’Brien house became “exhibit A” in efforts to get a blight ordinance written into city codes. Those efforts finally succeeded in 2006. 

 But Ken Lewis, code enforcement administrator, said he’s been frustrated in his efforts to get the courts to take seriously the criminal summons his officers write for blight violations. 

Lewis vows the O’Brien house is going to be repaired now, or else. He has given O’Brien until Friday to start actively repairing it or face a summons, fine and more aggressive action. 

The O’Briens are an old Colorado Springs family. Joseph O’Brien’s father,  William P. O’Brien, operated O’Brien Typesetting and Printing and amassed many properties in the city. 

His holdings included a 10-acre parcel he bought in 1962 on South 21st Street now known as the Gold Hill Mesa subdivision.

 The property included the old Golden Cycle Mill office building, the mill smokestack – a westside landmark – and a crusher building. 

The printing business is on 19th Street, not far from Uintah Gardens Shopping Center. It has suffered the same fate at the house on 24th Street. It is overgrown with weeds and its 10 acres or so includes a collection of junk cars and other things. 

If this house sounds familiar, you are a longtime Side Streets reader.

In fact, I featured this house in my very first Side Streets column on July 18, 2002. And I wrote about it again in 2006 as pressure mounted on the city to combat blight in neighborhoods.

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Fred Van Antwerp wants to walk his neighborhood in peace and out of the way of traffic.

In the Broadmoor area of Colorado Springs where he lives, that’s a trick because there are no sidewalks and few curbs and gutters.

Fred Van Antwerp stands on the spot where his property ends and the city's 9-foot public right-of-way begins outside his Broadmoor neighborhood home.

So Fred walks on the grass along the streets. Lots of people in his neighborhood do the same thing.

In many places, as on Oak Avenue in the photo above, folks respect the public 9-foot right-of-way that runs along every street in Colorado Springs. Their landscaping and fences set back from the road.

But more and more homeowners are laying claim to the right-of-way, Fred says.

It’s getting hard to stay out of the street because he encounters so many fences, or large boulders or hysterical homeowners all intent on shooing him off “their” property.

Some even erect walls and thick shrubs to keep people off the right-of-way.

Often, the landscaping looks very nice. But is it legal for homeowners to take control of the right-of-way?

No, says Ken Lewis, city code enforcement administrator.

He said the adjacent property owners are responsible for maintaining the adjacent right-of-way in what the city code calls an “aesthetically pleasing” manner. But they don’t own it and can’t keep people off it.

Some even try to control the street in front of their homes. They put up fences to discourage walkers from straying on the grass and motorists from parking on the streets.

Nice try. But definitely not legal.

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Residents of the tidy Golf Course Acres neighborhood are fed up with Fire Hendricks and all her excuses for not fixing up her house, which was condemned by the Colodrado Springs Code Enforcement officers in 1998.

The house is owned by Fire Hendricks, 72, who says she bought it in 1965. It was condemned after emergency crews responding to a call for help were shocked at what they saw inside.

Ken Lewis, city code enforcement administrator, said Hendricks is a hoarder who filled the house with junk. Standing water in the basement led to a dangerous mold problem throughout the house.

Over the years, the house has deteriorated from neglect. Windows are broken allowing tree limbs to grow into the house.

 The roof is collapsing, holes are covered with plastic. But they can’t keep the squirrels, raccoons and other wildlife out of the house.

Neighbors want the city to force Hendricks to do something with the house. Those who have been inside say it’s too far gone to repair. They say it should be razed. They’ve even offered to buy it from Hendricks, but she refuses to sell. Here’s a view of the neighborhood from FlashEarth.com.

The El Paso County Assessor’s Office values the house at about $57,000.

Hendricks said she has volunteers lined up to roof and paint the house if she can get materials.

She also needs to empty the house to allow for repairs. But she said she has no where to put all the stuff inside. Hendricks said she recently downsized her possessions from 11 storage lockers to 9 lockers. She said her belongs are too valuable just to give away.

Hendricks said she makes $238 a month in Social Security as well as some unemployment benefits.

Lewis said his officers have done everything they can to help her. But he said she refuses to cooperate. The city’s blight ordinance calls for his agency to start fining her $500 every three months until she comes into compliance.

If she still refuses to comply, she could face criminal charges and eventually the city could raze the structure.

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