For two years, the wooden footbridge over the High Line Canal at East Quincy Avenue led to a construction site with a view. Fencing around the barnyard. A contractor's truck parked where the goats usually stand. Anyone walking or riding the Canal trail past Quincy Farm got used to reading progress updates instead of visiting.
That phase is over. The Big Barn reopened in 2025. The pond, dredged and replanted, finished its restoration this spring. What's left on the 2026 punch list is a single building study, not a construction zone. For residents who have watched this 17.5-acre farm cycle through grant applications, contractor mobilizations, and City Council votes since 2021, this fall is the first season where the answer to "what's happening at the farm" is simply: it's open, go see it.
How a Private Gift Became the City's Biggest Shared Asset
Quincy Farm predates the neighborhood's current shape by more than a century. The farmhouse, known as the Hopkins House, was built in 1898 by James C. and Grace M. Hopkins and remains the only 19th-century farmhouse still standing in Cherry Hills Village. The barn came later, raised in the 1930s under owner Myron Blackmer, and eventually became the centerpiece structure everyone now calls the Big Barn.
Catherine "Cat" Anderson owned the property for decades before she placed it under a conservation easement, administered by Colorado Open Lands, that permanently limits development on the site. She listed the Hopkins House on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. When Cat died in 2016, the farm transferred to the City of Cherry Hills Village, fulfilling her intent that it become a shared amenity rather than another private parcel. She once described what she wanted for the land in plain terms: "I would like children to come out here and learn about nature."
For roughly five years after the transfer, the farm sat mostly dormant while the City and a local nonprofit, Cherry Hills Land Preserve, worked out how to activate it. That partnership began in earnest in late 2021, and everything that's finished this year is the result of that multi-year runway.
What Actually Got Built
The Big Barn rehabilitation started in late summer 2024. The barnyard closed for about a week that October so crews could trench in new electrical and water lines. By June 2025, Mayor Brown was reporting to residents in the Village Crier that the barn was structurally complete, its original horse stalls preserved alongside a larger interior gathering space built for programs and events.
The pond told a slower story. The City secured a $241,000 grant from Arapahoe County Open Space to fix a shallow, sediment-choked irrigation pond that had lost most of its habitat value. Western States Reclamation took on the construction work, with ICON Engineering handling design and Matrix Design Group advising on revegetation. The scope wasn't cosmetic: a deeper, resized basin, a clay liner to stop seepage, a solar-powered aeration system, floating islands, amphibian logs, and new bird and bat boxes. Dredging wrapped in fall 2025, and the replanting phase, native seed mixes, wetland plugs, willows, finished this past spring. This is the first fall the pond has looked the way the design intended it to.
Here's how the timeline actually lines up:
| Project | Started | Finished |
|---|---|---|
| Big Barn renovation | Late summer/fall 2024 | 2025 |
| Pond dredging and habitat restoration | Grant awarded, design through 2024 | Dredging fall 2025, planting spring 2026 |
| East Side Farmhouse feasibility study | Budgeted for 2026 | In progress |
The farmhouse study is the one piece still open. The 2026 Quincy Farm Annual Plan, approved by City Council in October 2025, set aside budget for a feasibility study and potential construction on the East Side Farmhouse, including asbestos remediation estimates, kitchen updates, and an ADA-compliant bathroom conversion. That work is planned, not finished, which is the honest way to describe where the property stands right now: two major projects done, one still ahead.
The Turnout Numbers, and What They Actually Mean
Cherry Hills Land Preserve ran 27 educational programs at the farm in 2025 and counted 1,620 visitors across the season. Divide that out and you get roughly 60 people per event, which is a telling number for a city with no downtown and no commercial gathering spot. Quincy Farm isn't drawing crowds the way a festival or a farmers market would. It's running at a scale that matches a handful of neighbors showing up for a bird walk or a kids' craft session, which tracks with what the farm was built to be: a shared backyard, not an attraction.
The scale matters more when you consider what 17.5 acres represents citywide. Quincy Farm accounts for 24 percent of all public open space and parkland in Cherry Hills Village. In a city built almost entirely around large private lots, this one property carries an outsized share of whatever counts as commonly held ground.
What's Actually on the Calendar
Cherry Hills Land Preserve's 2026 Barn Party is set for Friday, September 18, inside the renovated Big Barn. It's the organization's signature fundraiser: live music, barbecue, cocktails, and a silent auction that helps fund the next round of work at the farm, including the farmhouse study still ahead. If you've been meaning to see the inside of the barn since it reopened, this is the event built for exactly that.
Beyond the party, the farm's recurring programming has settled into a rhythm worth knowing about if you live nearby:
- HawkQuest brings live raptor presentations, eagles, hawks, falcons, and owls, along with a rotating cast of farm animals that has included goats, chickens, and a horse named Petey.
- Denver Audubon runs bird walks at the farm's pond, historically led by longtime volunteer Barbara Masoner and naturalist Kate Hogan.
- Young at Art workshops pair kids with Cherry Hills Village Elementary art teachers Julie Bennett and Heather Welsh for seasonal craft projects using materials gathered on-site.
- Gardening and floral workshops bring in Devon Hukill of Deep Rooted Garden and Design and floral designer Cindy Overhardt, working alongside Caroline Rassenfoss.
- A resident Ambassador program, now in its third year, gives volunteers a formal role in raising awareness and staffing events at the farm. Anyone interested can reach CHLP through the farm's program contact.
The Access Rules Nobody Puts on a Flyer
If you haven't been out to the farm yet, a few practical details make the first trip easier. The east side of Quincy Farm is open every day from sunrise to sunset. You get there by crossing the wooden footbridge from the High Line Canal Trail or by walking the bike path along Quincy Avenue. There's exactly one accessible parking space on-site and nothing else, so most visitors park at Kent Denver School and walk in along the Canal. Dogs aren't permitted anywhere on the property. Bicycles aren't ridden on the farm itself, though there's a rack near the entrance. The Big Barn and the Hopkins House stay closed to the public outside of scheduled programs, which is part of why events like the Barn Party matter: they're one of the few chances to actually get inside.
The Ten-Year Version of This Story
Quincy Farm has been a City-owned asset since 2016 and an actively programmed one only since 2021. For most of that stretch, "visiting the farm" meant reading a construction update or attending a groundbreaking. This fall is different. The barn is finished. The pond is finished. The only thing still on the drafting table is a single farmhouse, and even that has a budget and a plan behind it. What Cat Anderson gave the city a decade ago is finally the place she described: somewhere kids can go catch frogs, and everyone else can walk the trail past a working farm instead of a job site.
If you live in Cherry Hills Village and haven't made it out since the Big Barn reopened, the Barn Party on September 18 is as good a reason as any to go. And if you're weighing what a neighborhood like this actually offers day to day, beyond the acreage and the privacy, it's worth knowing the answer includes a 17.5-acre farm that took two years to finish and is finally ready to be used.
Rachel Gallegos and the team at Gallegos Real Estate and Development Group work with owners across Cherry Hills Village who care about the texture of the neighborhood as much as the square footage of the house. If you'd like a standing line to what's coming next, on the farm or on the market, get access to our private listings.