The Splash Swim School may be a brand new addition to Fort Collins, but Splash Pool Services has been serving Northern Colorado for 16 years, and the building that the new swim facility is in goes back way further than that!

Fort Collins has changed a lot over the last 100 years, but much of the character of the once largely agricultural town has been maintained. From ghost signs in Old Town, to “The A” which sits in the foothills visible from the Colorado State University campus, the turning of time has not erased Fort Collins’ more humble roots.

Still, not many among us would be able to remember a time before Horsetooth Reservoir. That’s right – before Horsetooth!

Before Horsetooth was a reservoir, it was a town called Stout, Colorado.

Stout, Colorado was established in the 1860’s as a town where workers from the nearby quarries could live. In 1949, the town was abandoned to make way for the new Horsetooth reservoir, as a part of the Colorado-Big Thompson project.  

Many of the buildings in Stout were disassembled or destroyed, but some buildings were relocated to Fort Collins to help with a housing shortage that the small town was facing.

Originally built in 1911, the building that is now home to the new Splash Swim School was moved to it’s current location in the mid 1940s. It is thought to have originally been the “Green Gables,” home to the Francis Gooddell family. The article below describes briefly the relocation of the building to the corner of Prospect and South Shields in Fort Collins.

The Green Gables was a stone-over-frame house, and as the article describes, the stone was removed and the frame relocated to Fort Collins. A typical stone-over-frame home from Stout, Colorado is shown below next to a photo of the current building at the corner of Prospect and South Shields street.

  

Most recently, the building was home to Alpine Scuba, and we acquired it February of 2016. We spent all summer renovating the building, and making some changes to the pool.

Most notably, we added bathrooms with changing areas and showers, and added windows into the pool to create a viewing area. We also did some more technical work, like upgrading plumbing and heating, upgrading the pool chlorination and filtration systems, and adding a new UV-sanitation system to the pool.

Even with the upgrades, the old Green Gable building maintains a unique character. The house still has a working fireplace, a full attic, and the original hardwood floors from all the way back in Stout.

Celebrating the unique history of our building, and the way it contributes to the Fort Collins community has been a tremendous joy. We are very excited about the new Splash Swim School, and about the story that comes with our old building.

Below are some photos from the recent construction:

    

Come by to see the results of the remodel!