Transcript

0:00:13All right, Commissioners, are you ready? Yes, thank you, Jer. And we are recording. Good morning. Today is September 24th, 2026. This is a meeting of the Board of County Commissioners of Boulder County. Commissioner Stolzman is present in the hearing room. Commissioners Loomin and Levy are joining remotely. And we are here this morning for a public hearing on Community Planning and Permitting Docket HP 26 - 004. And this is a request for landmark designation of the Hummel Farmstead of the Farmsteed, period. So what we will be doing is we'll start with a presentation from our staff planner, Jessica McKinnon about the application and the criteria that the commissioners use to determine whether to designate a landmark. She will have up to 20 minutes to make that presentation. The Commissioner Rose may have some questions at that time. We will then invite the applicant, an owner of the property, which is the City of Boulder to give us any additional information that they would like to present about this application. Again, the Commissioners may have some questions.

1 Call to Order

2 9:00 a.m. Morning Session

2.a Public Hearing on Hummel Farmstead Historic Landmark Designation

0:01:39We will then open it up for public testimony. And after that, we'll again turn back to Jessica for any additional information response to what has been said and allow the applicant and owner to have the last word. And with that, I will ask the commissioners whether there are any disclosures related. I'm Jessica McKinnon, Historic Preservation Planner with Community Planning and Permitting, and I'll be presenting Docket HP - 26 - 004, the Hummel Farmstead. The request is for landmark designation of a site, and it's at 3902 North 63rd Street. It's so in rural residential and its own by the City of Boulder. The Property is located about halfway between Valmont and Gumbarry. And here's a larger aerial. And even closer aerial of the approximately 78 acre parcel with the landmark site proposal on the left within the purple boundary.

0:03:08The landmark proposal is for a 3. 96 acre site shown here with the dashed white line, which includes the Queen An house in the bottom left, eight outbuildings, as well as 21 other features, eight of which are non - contributing, and those are in the green areas. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 as the Boulder County Poor Farm, though, has had several names over the last 160 years, including the Fort Chambers property, the Chambers homestead, the Hummel Farm, and the Wells House property. The National Register nomination and this landmark application largely line up with the main differences being that the National Landmarking was for 40 acre area, which included a few different resources, and its period of significance was from 1897 to 1951, while this application's period of significances from 1870 to 1951. The National Landmarks 1897 significant start aligns with the constriction of the Queen An addition on the farmhouse. While this application uses the approximate date of construction of the original part of the house first built by George Chambers. The extensive history of the farm is well established and is reflected in the landmark packet, which was shared before the meeting. With details on George Chambers, Fort Chambers and its association with the Sand Creek Massacre, the Queen An addition, the farm's use as Boulder

0:04:47County Poor Farm, and the Long Ownership of the Hummel family and everything in between. The decision to name the landmark, the Homo Farmstead, is based on what resources remain, as well as the length of time, the Homo family owned and occupied the farm, which was from 1920 to 2018 when the estate of Mary Hummelwell sold the property to the City of Boulder. Almost no resources exist on the Farmsteed from the time of ownership by George Chambers. Fort Chambers would have been further east on the property, and the only known building to have been built for the poor farm, the dormitory was torn down several years after the Hummels took ownership. And here's a photo of George and Eliza Chambers. And here's one of Mary Hummelwell's. And the farmstead as she knew it. And so now we'll talk about the contributing resources. We'll start with the farmhouse. The prominent Queen An addition was built by the Williams family. On the right in the red oval, you can see the original part of the house that was built by chambers. On the left photo, notice the octagonal roof of the turret and the conical roof of the porch pavilion that nearly match the two addict level crass cable roofs, echoed in the conical roof of the smokehouse on the far right. And with less commentary, we have

0:06:29the milkhouse. That's mock house that I just talked about. The carriage house and the crib barn. The cattle shed. The seed clean shed, the log shed. The main barn, which is cloud with decorative stamped metal panels. And the silo. The feed troughs. The courtyard. The dormitory foundation and the ash dump. The brick cistern and the scale station, which is mostly covered with gravel now. The main yard. The stock loading ramp. And the feedlot. Additionally, some of the contributing archaeological features have not been shown for their protection. Coming to the significance is the resources qualify for landmark designation under criteria 146 of Article 15 of the Land Juice Code. Criterion 1, the farm set is significant for its association with four chambers, and the Boulder County poor farm. It is also significant as an example of how a mid - 19th, the mid - 20th century cattle farm in Boulder County made the necessary changes that farmers needed. For their operations to remain economically viable into the 20th century. Criterion 4, the farmhouse is significant as an example of a two and a half - story break, queen and style residence. And criteria M6, the site is significant for its potential to provide further information about the agricultural and social history of the site. And with that, the historic preservation advisory board reviewed the application at

0:08:30their August 6, 2026 meeting and voted unanimously to recommend approval. Therefore, staff and HPAB recommend that the Boarda County Commissioners approved. - get HP - 26 - 004. The Hummel Farmstead under Criteria 14 and 6, and subject to the two standard conditions in the staff report. And that concludes my presentations. Any questions. Okay, thank you very much, Christian. Sorry for the interruption. Um, commissioners, any questions? I don't have any questions, thank you. Thank you, good morning. I appreciate the presentation. I think my question may just a little bit of a curiosity and appreciate the packet. It sounded like there might be some. I'm just trying to figure out this, I think it's a 3. 96 portion of that bigger parcel sounded like there was some connection to the Sand Creek massacre, but then maybe not in this portion of the parcel. So it's just curious around, um, what piece of that might be part of the recognition or the designation, if at all. Right, we don't have any resources that are associated with the Sand Creek Massacre or with it, the Fort Chambers. But, um, yes, the overall property, the parcel was the location of the fort. However, the landmark area is not directly associated with it. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, thank you, Kristen.

0:10:13Um, my question is about, I think it's condition number two about, where is it? There it is. No. Oh, number one, um, construction within the site area will require review and approval of a certificate of appropriateness. Um, you know, I understand, uh, you know, the city is going through a process to figure out how to recognize the role of this property in the infamous Sand Creek Massacre. And I assume that is going to entail erecting some, you know, signage interpretive materials that I don't know what else might be entailed in that, but would that kind of thing, um, have to then come back and be considered for a certificate of appropriateness? If it's located, if the proposal is the located within the landmark area, then yes, it would need to go to HPAD for their approval, um, with a certificate of appropriateness. But that is something that they often approve at other landmark areas as interpretive signs. Okay, thank you. That was my only question.

0:11:33So we will now turn to, um, representatives from the City of Boulder. Is that you, Julie. Um, it is me. I'm also my colleague, Christian driver is on the line. He, um, did most of the, well, really all of the work of the research on the application did a pretty fabulous job and it's really interesting reading. Um, but yeah, I am the cultural stewardship senior manager that's generally in charge of historic preservation. So this is really exciting to me. Um, my colleague, Christian is an archaeologist. And so he's been very busy on this project for quite some time. Um, so, uh, we're really, really excited about this. This is, um, people keep telling me it's such a, such an important historic spot. But then they, um, they switch over to, Oh, and I've heard it's the most haunted place and Boulder. And, and that's great.

0:12:33I love Halloween. I love ghost stories. But, you know, I'd really like, um, one of the things that I'm so excited about this designation is that Chris did such a great job of documenting the actual history. And I would like this so that we can go on record, um, this house has a lot to be proud of this site has been through a lot through the last hundred years. And I would really like it to be known and respected for the history that it is, the beautiful house that it is, the people that built it, how difficult life was, um, for agriculture and for early settlers. I just, um, I think that's really important to get the, to, I know it won't put the ghost stories to rest, but, um, I, I would really like for this to be documented. Like I said, Chris did an amazing job. And if you have any questions about the history of it, I'll let him answer. Okay. Thank you, Julie. Uh, commissioner's questions. I don't have any questions.

0:13:34Thank you. I don't have questions, but appreciate you both being available. Yeah. I, I don't either, uh, just, um, I'm glad that this city is going to landmark it. And, um, you know, I understand there's a lot of points of view about how to tell the story of this site and especially it's relationship to the Sam Creek massacre. You highlighted its history as a working farm. And Kristen highlighted a lot about the architecture and, um, you know, in the agricultural buildings on site, uh, we don't have a say official say in what stories the City chooses to tell and how they choose to tell the story. Just hope that you'll, uh, really listen to community and put on that, um, which is totally extraneous to the decision that's in front of us. So we will take some public testimony on this if we have anybody signed up to speak. And nobody has signed up to speak to us. I can see whether the one in the hearing home. Um, there are a few business law students in the room, but they don't have any interest in commenting on the docket. Okay. Thank you for that.

0:15:05All right. So we will close the public hearing portion of this hearing. And I'll invite Jessica to wrap up if the you would like to share with us. I don't have anything else. Thank you. Okay. And Julie or Christian, either one of you. No, just thank you for your time this morning. We very much appreciate it. Great. Okay. Well, thank you. So then we will close the public hearing and the commissioners will deliberate and make a decision on whether to grant this landmark designation application. Who would like to start off. I'm happy to start us off. Thank you. Thanks to the applicants and stuff. Of course, bring in the information and being able for questions for me when I'm looking at the criteria, I am in agreement with what staff has presented and it's helpful also to know the HBO had a unanimous decision and just to get a little bit more background from you, Julie is helpful, um, understanding some of the goals of the project. So I'm happy to support the recommendation that's presented. Commissioner Stolzman. Thank you. Yes. I also agree, criteria one, four and six of Article 15 of the Land Use Code are satisfied. And I'm grateful that the City brought forward this landmark opportunity for the community so that we would be able to recognize this today. And I

0:16:29have nothing to add. I am in agreement with both of my colleagues on this. So I think we're ready for a motion. I would move approval of Dot - Hp26 - 004 Hummel Farmstead as written by staff with the conditions that are in there. Second. Great. We have a motion and a second, all in favor, say aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. All right. Thank you Kristen. Thank you, Christian and Julie. This is the last, the only item that we had on our official agenda for the day. So the Board of County Commissioners will be adjourned. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Thank you.