Martin Acres
Martin Acres is a residential neighborhood located in Boulder, Colorado, recognized as one of the city's most historically significant post-World War II suburban developments. Often compared to the nationally known Levittown communities built across the United States during the mid-twentieth century, Martin Acres stands as Boulder's own version of the mass-produced, affordable American suburb — a place where modest ranch-style homes were constructed rapidly to meet the demands of a growing population in the postwar era. By 1960, the neighborhood had grown to encompass 1,200 houses, making it the largest residential subdivision in Boulder's history up to that point.[1] Today, Martin Acres endures as a distinct community within Boulder, a city that has otherwise seen sweeping transformation across many of its residential areas.
Historical Background
The development of Martin Acres took place during a period of extraordinary suburban expansion across the United States, driven by returning veterans, federally backed home loans, and the widespread cultural aspiration of homeownership. Boulder, like many American cities, experienced significant population pressure in the late 1940s and 1950s, and the construction of large-scale, standardized subdivisions offered a practical solution to the housing demand.
Martin Acres emerged from this context as a neighborhood of modestly priced homes intended for working- and middle-class families. The development followed the general design philosophy associated with Levittown communities — rows of similar or identical homes built efficiently on a grid, prioritizing affordability and speed of construction over architectural variety. The neighborhood's streets were laid out in a pattern that would have been immediately familiar to anyone who had seen suburban developments elsewhere in the country during the same era.
The comparison to Levittown is not merely informal. Writing in 2006, journalist Allison Arieff noted in The New York Times that Boulder "preserves its Levittown, known as Martin Acres," placing the neighborhood in direct conversation with the most iconic examples of mid-century American suburban planning.[2] The same article also drew a contrast between Martin Acres and Boulder's more affluent Frasier Meadows neighborhood, describing the latter as an "up-scale ranch house suburb" — a distinction that highlights the economic stratification present even within Boulder's postwar residential landscape.[3]
Growth and Development
The construction of Martin Acres proceeded steadily through the 1950s, and by the close of that decade the neighborhood had achieved a scale that set it apart from every other residential subdivision Boulder had seen. The milestone of 1,200 houses by 1960 was not simply a matter of quantity; it represented the full realization of a planning vision that prioritized density, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness over the kind of individualized design that characterized more expensive neighborhoods.[4]
The early 1960s also saw the construction of model homes in Martin Acres, a marketing technique common to large-scale residential developments of the era. These model homes served as showpieces, allowing prospective buyers to walk through a finished version of the homes they were being invited to purchase. The use of model homes was a standard feature of postwar suburban marketing and reflected the commercial sophistication of the development enterprise behind Martin Acres.
The neighborhood's growth was not without its critics, even in subsequent decades. As Boulder evolved into a city with a strong identity tied to environmental consciousness, open space preservation, and architectural quality, neighborhoods like Martin Acres occupied a complicated position. They were at once a record of an earlier era's values — practicality, mass production, economic accessibility — and a potential target for redevelopment pressures that would have erased their historical character. The fact that Martin Acres survived largely intact into the twenty-first century is itself a notable aspect of the neighborhood's story.
The Levittown Comparison
The label "Levittown" applied to Martin Acres carries significant cultural weight. The original Levittown, New York, developed by William Levitt beginning in 1947, became the definitive symbol of postwar American suburbia — celebrated by some as a democratic achievement that brought homeownership within reach of ordinary families, and criticized by others as a monument to conformity, racial exclusion, and the erosion of urban vitality. Suburbs modeled on the Levittown approach appeared across the country during the late 1940s and 1950s, and Martin Acres belongs to this broader national phenomenon.
In Boulder's specific context, the Levittown comparison underscores the degree to which Martin Acres was designed for a particular economic stratum of the population. The homes were smaller, simpler, and less expensive than those found in neighborhoods like Frasier Meadows. This economic accessibility made Martin Acres a point of entry into Boulder homeownership for families who could not have afforded the city's more prestigious addresses. Over the decades, as Boulder's real estate market became among the most expensive in Colorado, the original affordability rationale of Martin Acres became increasingly historical rather than current.
The New York Times commentary situating Martin Acres within a national discussion about neighborhood identity and suburban sameness reflects how the neighborhood functions as a case study in broader questions about American planning.[5] The argument made in that 2006 article was that what makes a neighborhood vital is "evidence of continual evolution and reinvention" — a standard against which any area of uniform, mass-produced housing must inevitably be measured.
Martin Acres Within Boulder
Martin Acres is located in south Boulder, a part of the city that retains connections to Boulder's agricultural past even as it has been surrounded by decades of residential and commercial development. The Boulder Daily Camera has documented the farming heritage of the south Boulder area, noting that the land now occupied by residential neighborhoods once supported agricultural activity that predated the city's modern growth.[6] This context helps explain the scale on which a development like Martin Acres could be built — the availability of relatively flat, open land in south Boulder made it well suited for the kind of rapid, grid-based construction that characterized postwar suburban development.
Within the larger fabric of Boulder, Martin Acres occupies a position distinct from both the historic core of the city and from newer developments built after Boulder's growth management policies began to take effect in the 1970s. The neighborhood predates the Boulder Blue Line, the Danish Plan, and the various other land use tools the city adopted to limit sprawl and manage its growth. It is, in a sense, a physical artifact of an earlier and very different approach to urban development — one in which expansion was embraced rather than constrained.
This historical position has given Martin Acres a kind of preservation value that its original developers could not have anticipated. A neighborhood once notable primarily for its affordability and standardization has become, with the passage of time, a record of mid-century American residential planning that no longer exists in the form it once did across much of the country.
Community and Identity
Martin Acres has developed a community identity that distinguishes it from the anonymous suburban tract it might have remained. Residents of the neighborhood have organized around shared interests in the character and preservation of the area, and the community has developed institutions and associations that give it a degree of cohesion uncommon in developments originally designed for individual family consumption rather than collective life.
The neighborhood's relatively modest housing stock has, paradoxically, contributed to its community strength by maintaining a degree of economic accessibility that more expensive Boulder neighborhoods have lost. Homeowners and renters in Martin Acres have tended to stay, building the kinds of long-term relationships that generate neighborhood identity. The mix of longtime residents and newer arrivals has helped sustain the social fabric of the community across generations.
Martin Acres also benefits from its location in south Boulder, which provides residents with access to open space, trails, and natural areas that are among the most valued amenities in the city. The proximity to South Boulder Creek and to Boulder's extensive network of greenways means that despite its origins as a product of mass suburban development, Martin Acres today sits within a landscape that reflects Boulder's later identity as a city committed to environmental quality and outdoor access.
Legacy and Significance
Martin Acres endures in the twenty-first century as a neighborhood with a layered significance. It is at once a product of mid-century American suburban ambition, a record of Boulder's postwar growth, a community with its own identity and social fabric, and a subject of ongoing discussion about what makes neighborhoods valuable and how cities should relate to their own histories.
The comparison to Levittown, while sometimes carrying negative connotations in discussions of architectural uniformity or suburban monotony, also points to something real about the democratizing ambitions behind the development. Martin Acres was built to house people who needed housing, at a price they could afford, at a time when Boulder was growing rapidly. That original purpose shaped everything about the neighborhood — its scale, its design, its location, and its social composition.
As Boulder has evolved into among the most expensive and sought-after cities in Colorado, the existence of a neighborhood like Martin Acres raises questions that the city continues to navigate: how to honor the history embedded in existing residential areas, how to maintain economic diversity in a high-cost real estate market, and how to balance the demands of current residents against the pressures of development and change. Martin Acres, as Boulder's largest residential subdivision at the time of its completion and as a neighborhood that has outlasted many predictions about the durability of postwar suburban housing, occupies a meaningful place in that ongoing conversation.[7][8]