Historic Hudson Building Turns 75 Years Old

By Corey Christiansen, Denver Metro Area News Media Specialist

When approaching Denver’s East Hilltop neighborhood, it’s impossible to not immediately feel a sense of history in the area. Just a few minutes southeast of Denver’s City Park, these streets have been home to generations of families. And tucked along an aged, but well-loved residential stretch of Hudson Street is a beautiful and unique red-brick church that has now stood for 75 years in the Mile High City.

 The “Hudson Building” is the oldest operating chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Denver Metro Area. For all 75 years of its existence, it’s been the home of the Crestmoor Ward–the name given to the congregation of people who live near the building and attend worship services there.

For members of the Crestmoor Ward, there’s no forgetting the first time they saw the Hudson Building. Garth Jensen grew up in Idaho, but moved to Colorado as a young adult and has attended church at the Hudson Building for nearly 40 years. “It just feels kind of cathedral-like just driving through the trees–those big elms and everything on your way to the church,” he said. “So it’s a beautiful neighborhood.”

Stake President Justin Matthews oversees multiple wards, including the Crestmoor Ward, which are all part of the Aurora South Stake. In the Church of Jesus Christ, a stake is a geographical group of local congregations called wards or branches. A stake is similar to a Catholic diocese. President Matthews is from Arizona, but moved to Colorado in 2009. Recalling his first time visiting the Hudson Building, he said, “It was the most unique church building I’d ever been in, from the architecture of it to the design. Seeing the mural and the fireplace was just unique, but you could also feel that there was something powerful about that building. There’s personality and there’s history to it.”

Wait–a mural AND a fireplace?!? Those are definitely not common features found in the normally minimalistic chapels of the Church of Jesus Christ. More on the mural in a moment, but first some history about the creation of the Hudson Building.

Sacrifice of the Saints

The first formal organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Colorado occurred on January 3, 1897 with the creation of a branch in Denver. A branch is the smallest unit of the Church and typically comprises a few dozen members. All members of the Church are referred to as “saints” which is in keeping with the biblical sense of the word–referring to all baptized members who have been sanctified through Christ. Members of the modern Church are called “Latter-day Saints” to distinguish them from the early Christians.

In just over four decades after the creation of the Denver Branch, church membership grew to more than 2,200 in the Denver area. On June 30, 1940, the Denver Stake was organized as the first stake in Colorado’s Front Range and the 132nd stake in the world (for comparison, there are currently 3,608 stakes worldwide). 

After the new stake was created, the Denver Branch was reorganized the following month as the Denver First Ward. Members met at a small chapel at the corner of 7th Avenue and Pearl Street in Denver. As membership continued to grow, the Denver First Ward knew it needed to start working on plans for a new and much larger building.

In the 1940s, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints only had enough funds to pay for half of the cost of any new buildings around the world. Local members had to come up with the other half for any new construction. Members of the Denver First Ward started saving and raising funds for a new chapel in 1942.

By 1945, the Denver First Ward had grown so much that it needed to be divided into two congregations. The division took place on June 24, 1945 with more than 300 members forming the new Crestmoor Ward. The two wards shared the building at 7th and Pearl and had to meet at separate times to not overwhelm the building’s capacity.

The same month the Crestmoor Ward was created, church leaders were able to purchase the site for the new Hudson Building for $19,000. Located at 740 Hudson Street, the new chapel would be located just north of 6th Avenue between Hudson and Holly Streets.

Over the next few years, plans for the new church building came together under the leadership of architect Lorenzo Young from Salt Lake City who was a grandson of former Church President Brigham Young. Denver church members excitedly participated in a groundbreaking ceremony on March 5, 1949 and then placed the building’s cornerstone in the northwest corner of the chapel on July 22, 1949.

Professional builders were hired to do some of the work on the new Hudson Building, but local members also donated and sacrificed a significant amount of time to help build the church. In addition to becoming the new weekly home for the Crestmoor Ward, the Hudson Building would also serve as a “stake center” and host occasional meetings for the entire Denver Stake which stretched from Pueblo, Colo. to Cheyenne, Wyo.

For more than a year, church members came from Cheyenne plus nearby Laramie, Wyo. and Fort Collins, Colo. to assist members in the Denver area with the construction. In total, members of the Denver Stake donated an incredible 18,000 hours of labor to help build the Hudson Building.

When the new chapel was finally completed in 1950, then-Church President George Albert Smith traveled from Salt Lake City to dedicate the building. The dedication took place on October 15, 1950.

At the time of the dedication, Bishop Joseph C. Frost, who was the first leader of the Crestmoor Ward, said, “The real measure of our success as a Ward and Stake will be the use to which we put the building now that it is completed. If all of us unite in an effort to build men and women who love God and their neighbors, if we make the chapel a spiritual sanctuary where we can truly worship God and find peace in a troubled world, then our material work will be rewarded.”

Decades of Growth

When the Crestmoor Ward started meeting at the Hudson Building in 1950, it had already more than doubled in size with 644 members. As the ward continued to grow, the Hudson Building grew with it. Originally, the building had a large chapel and several smaller rooms used as offices for church leaders and classrooms for the general ward membership.

During the back half of the 20th century, several additions were made to add more office and classroom space to the Hudson Building. As new walls went up, an inner courtyard was created which is a very unique feature in a Church of Jesus Christ chapel. Bishop Michael Gabel is the current leader of the Crestmoor Ward and said the courtyard has been an invaluable resource for his congregation.

In the midst of the Covid pandemic, the courtyard gave the ward a safer outdoor option for Sunday services. It’s also typically the main gathering place for ward activities like summer potlucks or the annual Fall Festival. “If you think about a ward activity where you have all the kids running around, it’s the perfect place to corral them in,” said Bishop Gabel. “So when the weather is good, we try to do as many activities as possible in the courtyard. It kind of keeps everyone together and it’s fantastic.”

Unique Features & Uses

Okay, so how about that mural? It dominates the front wall of the chapel and is easily the most talked-about feature of the Hudson Building. “It’s the mural for sure,” said Bishop Gabel. “You don’t see that anywhere else.”

The mural is an original painting from 1956 by LeConte Stewart who depicted Jesus Christ instructing his Apostles. Stewart is a famous artist in the Church of Jesus Christ community and also painted murals in the Laie, Hawaii, Mesa, Ariz. and Cardston, Alberta Temples. The Church’s temples do tend to be more ornate so a mural is not an unusual thing to see there. But in chapels where members meet for Sunday worship, a mural is practically unheard of.

Lisa Jensen, a professional interior designer and Garth Jensen’s wife, said she has a deep appreciation for the Hudson Building’s architecture and the focal point of its historic chapel. “The mural is an unusual feature of the building that makes it very special,” she said. “Whenever we have anyone visiting, they always comment on the mural.”

In addition to the mural, the Hudson Building is well known in this eastern part of Denver for its decorative stone and woodwork, its majestic steeple and its well-manicured grounds complete with multiple mature trees. Even for people who are not members of the same faith, the Hudson Building has become a sought-after location for weddings, receptions and funerals.

Here are some of the Hudson Building’s other unique features:

• Brick fireplace (still functional, but no longer used)
• An Opus 987 Reuter pipe organ with 8 ranks, 17 stops and 543 pipes (currently played by a professional organist who praises the organ’s amazing quality)
• Stage with dressing rooms for Christmas pageants and other productions
• Gymnasium (aka the cultural hall) that can be used for sporting activities, dances or as a dining space
• Solarium with nearly floor-to-ceiling windows

A Legacy of Service and Love

When the Hudson Building is not being used for worship services, there’s still plenty of activity inside its walls. For the past year, the Crestmoor Ward has shared the building with the Monaco Ward, a Spanish-speaking congregation. In the chapel, both English and Spanish versions of the Church’s hymnal can be found on the backs of the pews.

The two wards utilize the church building as a central hub for multiple service projects for the surrounding community. In 2025, the Hudson Building hosted a blood drive and a drive for new and used baby/toddler gear. It hosts weekly English Connect classes where anyone in the community can learn English for free. It also hosts daily seminary classes (M-F) during the school year where local high school students study the scriptures for an hour prior to the start of their school day.

Each Saturday, members from either the Crestmoor or Monaco Wards volunteer their time to clean and maintain the old building. “I don’t think there’s another building that’s as loved,” said Bishop Gabel. As the Hudson Building has aged, it stopped serving as a stake center and the Crestmoor congregation became part of the Aurora South Stake rather than the original Denver Stake. Still, it’s a vibrant part of the Denver community.

“It’s been a well-used building and it’s touched a lot of people over the years,” said Garth Jensen. “I think it has been a place where community is built with people coming to try and serve the Lord, to try and improve their lives and to try and live the lives that they would like to be. And it has been the place where so many have felt of the Spirit and felt the love of others around them.”

The Jensens raised their now adult son, Owen, in the Crestmoor Ward and have volunteered in many leadership positions. Garth previously served as Crestmoor’s Bishop and currently serves as the Patriarch for the Aurora South Stake. A patriarch is a priesthood holder and spiritual leader who gives special blessings to church members.

Lisa’s volunteer roles in the Crestmoor Ward have ranged from teaching seminary to serving as the president of the ward’s Relief Society (the Church of Jesus Christ’s service-oriented organization for women). Through almost four decades of service and shared history with the Hudson Building, she said it has been a wonderful place to raise her family. Looking back on all of the memories that the building holds for her, she said she’s grateful to be part of the legacy of service and love at the Hudson Building. “It’s got such a rich history of people who’ve been here,” she said. “After 75 years, people love that it’s still here. It’s a special place.”