When former NBA star Jason Richardson and his wife bought their four-bedroom house in upscale Cherry Hills Village three years ago, he had no idea about the neighborhood secret.
The house sits on a quiet, tree-lined street, where million-dollar homes are tastefully set back with trimmed hedges and winding, stone pathways.
What Richardson didn’t know when he signed on the dotted line: His house is one of about 50 in this Denver suburb that still, to this day, goes by a rather unique subdivision name.
Swastika Acres.
To be clear, there are no signs saying “Welcome to Swastika Acres” in Cherry Hills Village. You won’t find it on Google Maps.
But the name still exists on the deeds of several dozen homeowners, a remaining vestige of an old Denver land company from the early 1900s that predated Nazi Germany. Many residents, like Richardson, were not even aware they belonged to this strange relic of the city’s past. Others knew about it, but never felt strongly enough to push for a change.
After decades of red tape dissuaded any action, Cherry Hills Village’s City Council in 2017 cleared the way for homeowners to get the Swastika Acres name changed. Both the outgoing and incoming mayors say it’s time for the name to go.
Now, after years of chatter, there’s a new push to make the change, and city officials hope 2019 is finally the year that Swastika Acres leaves town for good.
The history of Swastika Acres
While the word “swastika” now evokes images of Nazi Germany and Adolph Hitler, it didn’t always have negative connotations.
The name dates almost to Arapahoe County’s origins and is found in its first book of property records, according to a 1997 article in The Denver Post. The subdivision was named by a corporation called the Denver Swastika Land Co. in 1908, 12 years before the founding of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in Germany that forever changed the symbol’s implications.
The swastika symbol has been used by cultures around the globe for thousands of years, appearing on everything from Greek coins to Scandinavian artifacts and catacombs of early Christians. In Indian religions, the swastika was seen as a symbol of divinity and spirituality, as well as prosperity and good luck.
When Swastika Acres was named in 1908, the symbol was common throughout the Southwest, used by American Indians as a symbol of the sun and infinity, The Denver Post article noted. In New Mexico today, swastikas can still be found on pottery and rugs and displayed at a performing arts center in downtown Albuquerque. The New Mexico State University yearbook was called the Swastika until the 1980s. And the state even had a coal-mining town called Swastika until 1940, when it was renamed Brilliant.
Jeremy Shaver, senior associate regional director with the Anti-Defamation League, said the organization hasn’t received any calls or complaints about Swastika Acres recently, but that the issue tends to resurface every once in a while.
“We can absolutely appreciate why it would bother some folks who live there,” Shaver said. “We would certainly support efforts to make a name change.”
“Buried in my deed”
Richardson had never heard of Swastika Acres until late last year, when a Denver Post reporter approached him about the subdivision’s name.
“That’s crazy,” he said. “Maybe it’s buried in my deed somewhere.”
It’s a detail that can be easy to miss. Swastika Acres doesn’t appear anywhere in the neighborhood — just a small line on a dry legal document. It also shows up on some, but not all, online real estate listing sites.
On the Arapahoe County assessor’s website, the name shows up under the “legal description” section. For Richardson’s house, it says “Swastika Acres 1.”
Across the street, Jim Aronstein was bringing trash out to the curb. He first learned about Swastika Acres when he closed on his house in 1988.
“We asked about the name-changing process,” Aronstein said. “But we never made any attempt to do it.”
Aronstein thinks that while residents don’t support the name, it’s something that’s simply not at the top of people’s minds.
“People are lazy,” he said. “That’s probably what it comes down to.”
For some, the Swastika Acres name has caused some pause.
Aronstein’s former neighbors were about to close on their house, he said, when the wife, who is Jewish, noticed the name of the subdivision.
“She did not like the feeling of it,” he said.
But in the end, it wasn’t enough to stop the couple from buying the home.
“There’s no reason to keep the name around”
For years, Cherry Hills Village city regulations made it onerous to get the name changed. Finally, in July 2017, council members Dan Sheldon and Al Blum, along with Mayor Laura Christman, decided to do something about it.
“I first heard about it in 2007 when I was buying my home in Cherry Hills Village,” Sheldon said. A real estate developer himself, he knew to look in the fine print. “I was blown away when I came across a plat that had Swastika Acres on it.”
Sheldon was elected to the City Council in 2017. One of his first acts on the job: proposing a name change for the outdated subdivision.
“The idea was met with great applause from council and staff,” Sheldon said.
Blum quickly hopped on board.
“Personally, I’m very upset it’s still there,” he said of the subdivision’s name. “People are more aware of anti-Semitism now, and that’s one of the reasons we enacted the ordinance. There’s no reason to keep the name around.”
Christman said even though the name doesn’t arise from anti-Semitism, times have changed.
“This type of thing is not acceptable anymore,” she said. “The name has morphed into a symbol we don’t want in our village anymore.”
The new ordinance made it possible for residents to file for a name change. But the city can’t make the change itself. It needs a Swastika Acres resident to champion the bill and file paperwork with the city. City officials will even assist that resident with the application, Sheldon said.
City officials had spoken with one sponsor last year, Sheldon said, before time-sensitive city matters got in the way and the resident stopped responding.
At this week’s City Council meeting, Cherry Hills Village officials redoubled their efforts to wipe Swastika Acres off the map. They identified the 55 lots, plus two potential lots, that make up the subdivision. Everyone on that list would get a self-addressed stamped envelope.
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“All they’d need to do is sign it and send it back,” he said. The ordinance says 30 of the 57 total lot owners in the subdivision would need to sign the petition to approve the renaming. Sheldon said they also are working to identify a new sponsor to file the paperwork.
“It is reasonable to assume that this name change, if passed, could be completed in 2019,” Sheldon said.
New names for the subdivision have been floated by city officials, but none has been selected.
Meanwhile, Richardson said he’s more than happy to see Swastika Acres put to rest.
“Of course it should be changed,” he said. “It’s definitely not cool anymore.”
