Activists Parr, Widener's home up for sale

House purchase to benefit charity

By Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published May 26, 2008 at 11:45 p.m.

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The home of the late John Parr and Sandra Widener will go up for sale this weekend in a sealed-bid event that will also raise money for an annual award in the name of the civic activists.

The 3,000-square-foot house, in the Seventh Avenue Historic District at 720 Franklin St., was built in 1916. It has five bedrooms, three baths and an added family room.

Friends and neighbors of the family are prepping it for an open house Sunday, after which sealed bids will be accepted and given to the family June 4.

"It really is a community activity, which is fitting because that's why they were so famous around town," said Sonja Leonard Leonard, a real estate broker and friend of Widener who is handling the sale.

Leonard is donating her commission and marketing costs to several groups named by the family. One is the Denver Foundation, which plans to award the annual John Parr and Sandy Widener Civic Leadership Award in honor of the couple.

"I'd like this to be a celebration of their lives, and for their lives to continue through this donation," she said.

Parr, Widener and their elder daughter, Chase Parr, 19, were killed in a car crash on a snowy Interstate 80 in Wyoming on Dec. 22 while traveling to visit family in Idaho for the holidays. Daughter Katy Parr, 17, survived the crash.

Parr was a longtime public policy consultant and activist in local and national civic issues. His firm, Civic Results, specialized in collaborative problem-solving.

Widener was a founder of the weekly newspaper Westword, a writer and gourmet cook.

Leonard has listed the house at $950,000, slightly below her estimation of its market value, to attract bids. She sold a house next door a few years ago by the same method when the owner died without heirs and donated the house to the Salvation Army.

flynnk@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5247

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