A quiet man dies in Niwot

Boulder County Sheriffs were summoned to 364 Franklin Street in Niwot to conduct a welfare check on Monday morning, Sept. 27. According to Sgt. Bill Crist, the official who first entered the house, the body of Steve Tubbs, age 70, was discovered.

"We are not investigating for foul play," Crist said because the death appeared to be from natural causes. The Boulder County coroner's office is conducting an autopsy to confirm the cause of death and that process may take up to 10 or 12 weeks.

Many of Tubbs' neighbors said he lived a very solitary life and they'd had minimal conversations with him over the past 37 years.

A neighbor (who requested to remain anonymous) noticed there was a branch behind Tubbs' car and realized they had not seen the vehicle move in what was a longer period than usual. After the neighbor knocked on Tubbs' door and there was no answer, they called the authorities for a welfare check.

Crist estimated that Tubbs had probably been dead for 2 to 3 weeks. Until the neighbor phoned, no one had reported Tubbs as missing.

"He was a little bit of a recluse, kind of a hermit," Crist said, "and he doesn't have any local family. We had to do some research to find some family members down in the Georgia area."

It's standard procedure to do a next of kin notification Crist said, in order to move ahead with arrangements for the body, in addition to taking care of the steps involved with property inheritance.

Crist mentioned it took longer than normal to find a family contact - nearly a day - and they had exhausted normal procedures.

"That process came to a screeching halt because Steve didn't leave a lot of footprints behind," Crist said. "The help that I got was really from local neighbors who really reached out and into the depths of friendships 20...30 years ago."

Tubbs' stepfather called Crist, because he'd heard "fifth-hand that the authorities were looking for someone related to Steve." Crist was able to reach Tubbs' brother after speaking with the stepfather.

Crist said he learned that Tubbs and his family didn't speak often. His brother said they'd last spoken in March of this year and prior to that it had been a few years. Crist said his description of the situation was that "he was estranged from family and he just didn't really reach out and talk."

Tubbs' house is next to the Left Hand Animal Hospital, previously occupied by the Niwot Neighborhood Learning Center, which was owned by Kim and Alan Schwarz. The Schwarzes sold Tubbs his house when they moved into the learning center in 1984.

Kim Schwarz said she knew Tubbs before he purchased the house, because they had socialized together on many occasions with mutual Niwotian friends.

Schwarz said, "Steve used to be...well, he's always been an introvert, but he used to be a little more outgoing when we had that group of friends." She remembers him as being "a very mellow, introverted person who kept his life private." He played guitar and, with a few friends, had an informal band they dubbed the Niwot Nitwits.

Attempts to speak with Tubbs' family have not been successful at the time of publication. Tubbs' Facebook page says he's from Atlanta, Ga. Several sources said he was a Vietnam vet, had been a test technician at IBM at the time he purchased his house, but was laid off in the late 1980's. He later went to work for Lexmark and retired in the last four years, Schwarz said.

Multiple sources reported Tubbs had a daily routine of going to the Niwot Market for coffee and a breakfast sandwich, and he'd occasionally go to the liquor store for cigarettes. At both stores, people who interacted with him said Tubbs was very quiet, polite, and there was minimal conversation.

Over the years after Tubbs purchased the property, the condition of the house and the yard has deteriorated. Crist and Schwarz said there was a large hole in the roof. Schwarz said from the vantage point of their second floor deck facing Tubbs' house, she could see the hole and a raccoon would come out of the house every day around sunset.

"He just never did anything to keep it up," Schwarz said of the three-bedroom, one-bath home built in 1925. "It's needed to be leveled for about 10 years."

The Schwarzes moved from Niwot in 2018, but previous to that Kim Schwarz said she "tried to keep an eye on him, and talk to him" when she'd see him outside. When the learning center building was sold, she reached out to let him know it was possible that if the new building owners noticed the hole in the roof they might report it.

Her hopes were that he wouldn't "lose his ability to live there," and she recommended he have the roof patched. A few weeks later Tubbs told Schwarz he'd had roofers look at the hole, but they would not do the patch job, because the entire roof needed replacing.

Tubbs and the neighbor who placed the call to the sheriff's office had been neighbors for more than 30 years and would exchange friendly waves. But over that time they chatted for a total of 10 minutes the neighbor estimated. Once Tubbs asked to use their phone and on another occasion Tubbs asked to borrow some water because his well water had run out. The neighbor obliged both times.

Other than those two exchanges, "I knew where his boundaries were, and I let him be," Tubb's neighbor said.

Nearby resident Victoria Keen wrote, "Steve was able to live out the life he chose in peace. Someone said that the health of a community is measured by how well they tolerate eccentricity. I think Niwot passed that test well. I doubt the condition of his home would pass muster in Boulder, or even his peculiarity and wish to be left alone. All lives are important and deserve respect."