Adaptation and Innovation: Tour of the Boiler House (Members Only)

This is a members only tour. DAF Membership will be verified upon ticket purchase. Click here to become a DAF member.

About the tour: Join us for a rare opportunity to tour inside one of Denver’s most innovative single-family residential adaptive reuse projects. This tour will be jointly led by the homeowners and architect. Learn about how the historic structure was renovated and adapted to include custom features such as a viewing room for art and artifacts collections, extensive solar panels, uplighting on interior roof trusses, a bedroom and library in the farmer coal silo, and a sunken garden. The Boiler House incorporates the original smokestack, coal silo, and fly-ash building into a unique home which celebrates its original industrial volumes and materials while managing to be a warm, family home. This property won a Mayor’s Design Award in 2021.

About the building: The Boiler House is a 7,500 square foot single-family home in Denver’s Clayton neighborhood. Designed by Temple Hoyne Buell, the Boiler House originally contained three coal-fired boilers which provided steam heat to the other buildings on the campus. Together, they comprised the Denver Army Medical Depot, all built in 1942 to support the war effort. Constructed from unreinforced masonry and heavy timbers in a Neo-Colonial style, the building at one time housed four coal-fired steam boilers serving the 30-acre campus before being decommissioned mid-century.

About the tour guides: Donna Bryson and Fred Glick re-imagined and moved into The Boiler House in 2019 and worked with architect Collin Kemberlin on the extensive renovation. The project received a Mayor’s Design Award in 2021.

Donna Bryson is a National Affairs Editor for Reuters. This summer she received the 2025 Communicator of Achievement Award from the National Federation of Press Women (NFPW). She previously covered housing and hunger for Denverite, an online newsmagazine that is part of Colorado Public Radio. Her work for Denverite earned her the Journalist of the Year honor from the Colorado Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Donna has been a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press, based in Johannesburg, New Delhi, Cairo and London. She has freelanced for such publications as The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Donna is the author of two books. Home of the Brave, recounts how Montrose, Colorado took on the challenge of helping military veterans reintegrate into civilian life.  It’s a Black White Thing explores young South Africans attitudes about race. Its a Black White Thing was shortlisted, in 2012, for the inaugural City Press Tafelberg Nonfiction Award, a national South African prize.

Fred Glick is a commercial real estate developer and urban planner working primarily on adaptive reuse projects in Denver’s urban core. Fred is the vice-chair of the Denver Planning Board and a past member of the Lower Downtown Design Review Commission. Fred serves on the boards of the Denver Health Foundation and the Downtown Denver Partnership’s Denver Civic Ventures board, Planning and Urban Impact Committee and Urban Exploration Steering Committee. A Denver native, Fred spent twenty years abroad in Swaziland, South Africa, India, Egypt and the United Kingdom. Before leaving the U.S., Fred was an arts administrator for modern dance companies in New York City.

Collin Kemberlin has over 25 years’ experience in architecture and design encompassing a great diversity of completed projects, including historic renovation and preservation, mixed-use, single and multi-family residential, hotel and retail and site planning. The common thread in his work is an admiration for Denver and the Rocky Mountain West and the pursuit of design that is environmentally and contextually responsible. He was born in Houston, raised in suburban London and Denver, and earned his Bachelor Degree in Architecture at Rice University and worked with the firms of Pelli Clarke Pelli (formerly Cesar Pelli & Associates), Pierce Goodwin Alexander and Linville (PGAL) and Tryba Architects before founding Kemberlin Architecture on a desire to offer clients extensive experience in many project types combined with an ethic of service and personal attention.

Accessibility: Please be aware that much of the house is accessible only via stairs, and ADA accommodations are limited.

Refund policy: The Denver Architecture Foundation is a nonprofit educational organization. Ticket sales support the Foundation in continuing to provide quality events to the public. We are unable to provide refunds or credits for any reason less than 48 days prior to the event.

Please note that DAF tours take place rain, snow or shine. If your tour includes an outdoor portion, please dress for the weather. DAF staff will contact all attendees directly should a tour be cancelled for any reason.

Photo provided courtesy of Collin Kemberlin.