While in Colorado, I blitzed through Fort Collins, about an hour north of Boulder. There’s a beautiful, historic downtown, including the Avery House, a beautifully-kept private home from 1879.
Fort Collins
First, a word about Fort Collins, Colorado. Fort Collins is very pretty, with lots of historic buildings and a pedestrian-friendly town square. It’s a great place to wander around to shop and eat. I enjoyed the smaller food stalls at The Exchange with ice cream, burgers, wings, tacos, wine & beer, and even a barber and putt-putt golf. Just walking around town is nice. I particularly enjoyed visiting Old Firehouse Books. Make sure to stick around until evening, when all the string lights around town come on.
Slightly away from the historic downtown, I visited the New Belgium Brewing Company for a $10 tour, which I’ll talk about in the next post. And a little farther out, there is the rad Totally 80’s Pizza & Museum, whose wall-to-wall pop culture decor and ’80s arcade games warm the cockles of my gen-x heart.
There is far, far more to Fort Collins, including loads of parks and natural areas for hiking, biking, and more. And in the warmer months, there’s even more going on, like flowering gardens, open galleries, and a trolly car.
Avery House
The Avery House presents a slice of early Fort Collins history. Built by Franklin Avery in 1879, he was actually the one to plan out the city’s wide streets, giving it the picturesque look it still has today. He then went on to establish the local bank and served as a prominent member of the city during his lifetime.
The house was kept in the family until 1962 and acquired by the Poudre Landmarks Foundation in 1974, so the Avery House has kept almost all of its original layout, if not original furnishings. Some items were donated back to the foundation by the family – which get pointed out on the tour. Most of what’s there is representative of what it would have been like. All the same, it’s a fantastic collection of day-in-the-life antiques, from a massive iron wood stove to several musical instruments, and even old phonographs and wax cylinders.
Tours & Hours
Your experience on the tour may vary, depending on your volunteer tour guide. I had a kiddo in our group so a lot of our tour was geared toward her. A group behind us talked more about the architectural styles and changes, which I was far more interested in. Oh well, reason enough to take the tour again, if I wanted.
Tours only cost $6 per adult and $4 per child (though no specifications on age limits.) Tours only happen on weekends. Saturday it’s 11-2, with the last tour at 1:00. Sundays tours occur 1-4 pm, with the last tour at 3:00. The website says tours start every 30 minutes, though when I walked in, I was set for a private tour right away until another family joined us. So maybe that 30-minute time frame isn’t absolute. The tour itself took about an hour.
I visited in February, and the Avery House was only open on Sundays, which put me at odds for visiting any other museums, which are all closed on Sundays. Visit on Saturday if you plan to make a day of Fort Collins history.
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