JESSUP FARM HISTORY

Back around the turn of the century when Fort Collins was a sleepy little agricultural town and Timberline was nothing but a farm road, Joseph and Mary Jessup bought property from Joseph’s uncle that was east of town on the bluff above the Poudre River. Joseph built the brick farmhouse, then the barn and other outbuildings and turned the property into a proper farmstead.

The Jessups and their sons worked the farm and owned the property into the mid 1950s. In 1963, members of the Johnson family, who were prominent landowners in the area and had the farm “next door” on Drake, just east of Timberline, purchased the farmstead. The Jessup Farm was incorporated into the Johnson Farm and the whole property became Spring Creek Farms. 

As Fort Collins grew, like many farm properties in the area, Spring Creek Farms was eventually sold for development. In 2011, new owners, the Campana family of Bellisimo Inc. created an innovative, adaptive reuse plan to preserve, restore, and rehabilitate the historic integrity of the Jessup’s farmstead.

Combining elements of New Urbanist planning with concepts drawn from the farm-to-table and farmer’s market movements, Bellisimo’s plan incorporates the Artisan Village into a broader residential neighborhood that encompasses much of the historic Jessup and Johnson family farmlands.

While Joseph and Mary Jessup may have trouble recognizing their farmstead today, it still sits high on the bluff to welcome neighbors and anyone else who wants to drop by for visit.