Sunday, May 23, 2010

Only Surviving Images of the Scarritt Home

The Reverend Nathan Scarritt owned a home in Westport (still standing) where he resided until the Civil War threatened the peace of that small burg... he then moved to property he owned in what is now the Historic Northeast part of Kansas City where he built a log cabin. His property then was outside the city limits of the young town and in the early 1870's he desired a better place to live and commissioned the building of a home at what is now the Northeast corner of Sunrise Drive and Gladstone Boulevard. Behind the home down the hill was a pond and springs dotting the area across from the home (still exist) were used by the family to keep butter and some other perishables cool. The picture above is an architects watercolor painting of what the finished house would look like... it's dated June 20th, 1872. Below is the only known photograph of the house dated somewhere in the 1870s. Only one mantelpiece was salvaged from the mansion and it is currently in the Scarritt/Royster home, built 1897, just two blocks west of this site. The name of the architect is in the lower right corner but can't be read.... need CSI to do their thing.
Looks like the carriage house is in the rear attached to the main building and there appears to be a hot house on the side. It's impossible to say for sure which way the home faced... although, IF that is present day Gladstone Boulevard in the foreground the house faced either west or north... I'd bet on west...

There are no visible remains of this home now.... it would be fun to do amateur archeology on the site but I think the present occupants of the three homes there now would probably object.

2 comments:

  1. No doubt. Kansas City is loaded with history; it's a shame so much of that history has gone down the drain.

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  2. Excellent write-up, David. I'd surely love to know more about this home as its history surfaces . . . .

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