Molly Brown House Unveils Stunning Restoration After 3 Years Of Work

Margaret Tobin Brown became famous as a heroic survivor of the Titanic shipwreck that killed 1,500, but her spirit + aspirations were "unsinkable" throughout her colorful career as a leading philanthropist, activist and socialite. At age eighteen, Miss Tobin came to Colorado during the Gold Rush at her brother's suggestion to find adventure, greatness, and fortune. The tour leaves off where Margaret returns from the Titanic. As you might expect, the Molly Brown House is hosting a number of events tied to the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster (see sidebar below).

The docent who guided us throughout the Molly Brown House Museum was knowledgeable and shared lots of fun yet random details of Margaret's life and the history (and conservation of her home). Socialite, philanthropist and activist, she even became the subject of a 1960s Broadway show, The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

My project was originally intended to explore the Gilded Age homes of Mining Age Colorado but, as I visited Denver in the summer of 2013, I was intrigued by the various levels of preservation in different houses and noticed a connection that the best preserved ones were those related to Margaret Brown.

Margaret Brown lived an interesting social and political life, but not all of the stories about the Titanic survivor are true. In eighteen eighty-six Maggie Tobin married James Joseph Brown, J.J. for short. While her steady climb up Denver's social ladder made Molly Brown well-known at home, her journey onboard the Titanic secured her place in history.

Not only is there a complete tour of the house and an opportunity to walk in the footsteps of Molly Brown, (no pun intended, but it is a walking tour through the house, and there are stairs), but they even have an event room that you can rent out. For 85 years the Titanic, too, has been memorialized in many Colorado ways, perhaps none so opulent as the latest motion picture, in which Kathy Bates portrays Molly Brown.

She became a national heroine, which inspired a Broadway show in the 1960s, The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” This show jogged the memories of the people in Denver about all the accomplishments of this amazing woman and created a desire to save this home from the wrecking ball.

But as one of the city's first and most behemoth monuments to wealth, it's also been treated badly over the years: hollowed out, subdivided, turned into a boarding house — you name it. It wasn't until Historic Denver snatched it up from demolition (for a planned parking lot, no less) in 1970 that any historical-minded restoration began.