Cableland Official Residence of the Mayor of Denver   

Guide Line Review

Cableland

The October membership meeting was held at Cableland, the official residence of the Mayor of the City of Denver.  Our host was Daniel Beck, the General Manager, and also the only employee of the Cableland Home Foundation.  Daniel’s responsibilities include having Cableland cleaned after an event, coordinating with the caterer, maintaining the calendar; take care of the surrounding landscaping, and anything else that needs to be done.  The City does preventive maintenance and Daniel books the repairs.  For instance, it takes two men two weeks just to check all the boilers at Cableland. 

Bill Daniels, cable television pioneer, gave his residence (Cableland) to the city in 2000 along with an endowment to maintain the residence.  Cableland came to the City upon Bill’s death in 2000.  There are only five mayoral residences in the US – New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Detroit and Denver.  The City pays nothing for the upkeep of the facility.  The Mayor of Denver does not live at Cableland. 

The house was built by in 1987 and has 14,000 square feet of space.  There is the main building, a guest apartment, a swimming pool and cabana.  The main building is now generally used for charity events for which there is a minimal cost (ranging between $100 and $700) for the use of the space.  Additionally, catering costs and valet parking are paid for by the charity.  The facility is limited more by the number of cars that can be parked rather than the number of people attending an event.  Valet parking is limited to 95 cars.  There are six caterers that can be engaged for an event.  The neighborhood is zoned as single family residence so the Zoning Commission has instituted a 10 p.m. curfew, and allows only 50 events per year and mandatory valet parking if there are more cars than can easily park on the property (approximately 20).  There is no water bill and also no city tax on the property.  Only the Mayor and his guests are allowed to use the pool. 

The house was designed by Lawrence Pepper architects and the interior was originally done by Andrew Gerhardt who also designed the interior of Mr. Daniels house in Rancho Santa Fe, California.  Recently a $250,000 remodel has been done to the main building, particularly in the main room to allow more seating space and traffic flow through the area as well as freshen up the decor which was definitely from the 1980s – lots of pink, mauve and purple.  The dining room was also updated so that many more people can be seated and the furniture is more easily moved.  When Bill lived at Cableland, there was only one person who worked there and he was a chef who prepared meals, arranged travel, was a part-time maid, traveled with Bill, and also was his driver. 

Originally Mr. Daniels owned one lot, and combined it with the house next door when he was married to Devra (one of four ex-wives).  One by one, he bought the other lots on the block.  The community swimming pool and its parking lot were behind the lots on Leetsdale and Mr. Daniels finally refused to pay for the water which was on his water tap, and shut off the electricity to the pump, again, on his property, making the pool unusable.  The neighborhood association then gave in and sold him the last two lots which he had been trying to buy for some time.  Ultimately, there were eight lots combined into one property. 

There were at one time many elephants displayed in the main room, many of which were given to Bill as gifts.  All the gifts that Bill had received over the years were cataloged and after his death were returned to the donor or given away if the donor could not be found.  Now some of the elephants reside at the Zoo near the carousel. There is a large screen over the bar in the main room.  This is a closed circuit screen and you will see yourself as you walk across the room.  Bill was hard of hearing and large groups were difficult for him so he often watched employee parties from his private apartment so he could participate without having to deal with the noise. 

Cableland has 97 phone jacks (wireless and cell phones were not common in 1987).  You didn’t need to walk more than 10 feet to find a phone jack. 

We toured Mr. Daniels private apartment where the foyer has cloth walls and a copper ceiling.  The TV on the upper level of the foyer could be turned so that people in the foyer could see it or turned so that Bill could see it in his bedroom.  The TV could rise out of a cabinet and the lift was actually operated by a garage door opener.  When Bill was living here, the bedspread was mink – yes, mink!  Bill also had a fire pole installed in a corner of his bedroom.  The story is that he was giving a speech in a fire station and could not figure out why there was so much laughter in the back of the room.  Discovering that the fire pole was the attraction, he decided to have one installed at Cableland.  In years past, many guests tried out the ride down to the media room on the fire pole.  Many of the TVs have covers so that they are unobtrusive.  There are two bedrooms in the private apartment area as well as two bathrooms, huge closets and a kitchen area. 

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There are also well over 70 television sets in the building – 64 in Bill’s theatre/media room alone – one for each channel that was then offered on Mile High Cablevision (which Mr. Daniels owned).  If a screen went dark, he was instantly on the phone to find out why this channel was out.  He said that his customers paid to see that channel and they weren’t getting their money’s worth.  There is over $100,000 worth of equipment (in 1987 dollars) in this room.  One of his favorite sayings was “The best is good enough for me” and this equipment was absolutely the best there was in 1987.  The walls are covered with cloth which hides the speakers.  Every room has sound built in behind the cloth walls. The house is quiet all the time and not bothered by street traffic.

-- Nancy Brueggeman​

WHAT:        RMGA MEETING

WHERE:      Cableland, 4150 Shangri-La Drive, Denver, CO 80246.  The house is off Leetsdale Drive at Cedar Avenue.

PROGRAM:  Tour of Cableland - official residence of the Mayor of Denver

PARKING:   On the property - DO NOT PARK ON NEIGHBORHOOD STREETS!!!!!!
The Cedar Avenue entrance is the only entrance to use.  Pull up as far as possible, you will  exit onto Leetsdale from the north end of the driveway. ​