RH Denver In Cherry Creek Mall Has Spectacular Gala Opening

by John T. Edwards

   There has never been a department store opening in Denver quite like that RH Denver (f/n/a Restoration Hardware) had on the evening October 15. Getting an invitation to the event was the hottest ticket in town and the elaborate and costly invitation itself made it clear that the “invitation was nontransferable.” There were doormen and others outside who made sure that no gatecrashers were permitted into the festivities.

All of Denver’s “A” listers and others were there including Hockey Hall of Fame member Wayne Gretzky; Westword’s Patty Calhoun; Barry Hirschfeld Jr. and his wife Arlene fresh from a talk by former MSNBC host Soledad O’Brien at a Women’s Foundation of Colorado event; former Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown and his wife Suzanne, senior features editor for The Denver Post; Babs Bosworth and her husband attorney Arthur Bosworth, a former Assistant United States Attorney who is with the law firm of Dill Dill Carr Stonbraker & Hutchings; Justin Joseph of Fox 31 News; Brian Maass of CBS4; and, of course, attorney and lobbyist Steve Farber of the firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

Mr. Farber, called Denver’s own “Prince of Darkness” for his perceived baneful influence on the municipality, did not inter mix with the hoi polloi at the event but instead, as is his modus operandi, stood at a prominent place (in this case in front of the bandstand on the first floor) and waited for others to come to him; and they did so in scores.

RH Denver store at 2900 East 1st Avenue was constructed to look like an enormous four story mansion. As is all the rage in Denver, and permitted by a Planning Board and City Council where anything goes, the building is built only a few feet from 1st Avenue and is part of the ongoing canonization of Cherry Creek and Cherry Creek North. The building is an enormous 70,000 square feet and replaces the old Saks Fifth Avenue store which closed in 2011 and subsequently was torn down in 2014.

Music was supplied by the DJ Collective, elegant hors d’oeuvres by the Epicurean Group and first class wines by Ma(i)sonry. On the top floor is a rooftop park and conservatory which should become a hot spot in the not too distant future. RH hired good looking models as greeters. Also attending the event were wealthy, single (or soon to be single) businessmen who were escorted by highly attractive females half their age who were sometimes introduced as “nieces” or “friends of their daughters.”

It seemed appropriate as the company’s Chairman and CEO Gary Friedman had been fired in 2012 for an affair with a female employee less than half his age, but was reappointed in July 2013, even though he continued the relationship with the woman.

Nick LeMasters, the manager of the Cherry Creek Shopping Center, told Fox 31 News that, “This is the kind of store that people will get in their car to come visit. They’ll come from the mountain communities, from the north suburbs, certainly from the southern suburbs and on a larger scale; they’ll be coming from a six-state region.”

RH Denver is owned by Restoration Hardware Holdings Inc. based in Corte Madera, California, which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RH. RH Denver is the company’s 7th full line design gallery and it also has 59 smaller galleries as well as 18 outlet stores in the United States and Canada, including one in the Outlets at Castle Rock.