Historic Northeast Mansions, Volume 2, The Stevens' Home

This home was built in 1902 for Edward A. Stevens a Kansas City Lawyer who dabbled in real estate. The entire cost was $25,000 including the land which was purchased from the Nathan Scarritt family. It was just announced that the owners, Jeff Zumsteg and Bob Robinson, are to receive the 2008 Restoration Award from the Historic Kansas City Foundation. The Award will be presented in a ceremony on May 26th at the Kansas City location of the National Archives as a part of National Preservation Month.

At a little under 8,000 square feet this three story, colonial revival contains seven bedrooms, three and a half baths, eight fireplaces and a ballroom on the third floor.

After living in the home for only six months Mr. Stevens passed away. His funeral was held in the house with the casket at the foot of the staircase. Stevens' widow, son and daughter continued living in the home after his death. His daughter Aileen married Herbert James, grandson of T.M. James, and after her mothers death continued to live in the house until 1925. The home has passed through many hands since that time but much of the interior was safely preserved.

The side entrance where carriages would pull up to allow passengers to disembark.

View from the east showing part of the porch that wraps around to cover the entire back of the house.

Looking east. The doors on the left wall open into the dining room.

The main entrance facing Gladstone Boulevard.

Looking back across Gladstone to Corinthian Hall currently under renovation of it's own. Scenes of that interior renovation coming soon in a post.

Walking in the front door one is greeted with a grand stairway and entry hall.

Looking west toward the formal living room.

The furniture dates from the mid 1800s.

Looking east into the music room and dining room.

The music room.

Jeff's Grandfather's picture in his World War I uniform overlooks a cactus plant that was a gift to him and his new wife on their wedding day in 1921. (I can't keep a plant alive more than a week!)

Looking back into the music room from the dining room. All pocket doors and hardware are original.

The dining room with doors leading to the wrap-around porch on the left.

The house was wired and piped for both gas and electric when it was built.

The kitchen remodeling was only recently completed and the design by Jeff and Bob mirrors details found throughout the house. The wood for the floor came from an old gymnasium and was found in the West Bottoms.

Breakfast nook.... the smaller window on the back wall was for ice delivery.

Hallway leading back to the main staircase.

The stained glass window is original. Mr. Stevens' daughter Aileen is represented in four panels of the window as a goddess showing she was well rounded in arts, literature, music and sports. There's a detail from the window below.

Looking down toward the main entrance and up to the second floor.

Ante room to the master bedroom with the door to the balcony.

Overlooking Gladstone Boulevard and featuring Loula the cat at the railing.

Ante room looking east into the master bedroom.

The master bedroom including Polar the cat. He was very cooperative and remained still through five exposures.

The master bath with the original bathtub.

Guest bedroom (Aileens' originally)

Mr. Steven's office now Bob Robinsons .

Originally Mr. Stevens' bedroom.

Renovation of the third floor is still underway. This is a view of the ballroom. Notice the raised floor in the background for the musicians.

Behind the home is a three-story carriage house. The basement housed the Stevens' Steamer Car with the main floor having two horse stalls, one remains below, and room for a carriage.

The third floor was for hay storage and had a room, shown below, for the chauffeur.

At Christmas the home is the picture of holiday spirit! The house is listed on the Kansas City Register of Historical Places as a part of the Scarritt Renaissance Historical District. It is protected by an advanced alarm system, two giant schnauzers and three cats.

Sunset, Cliff Drive

Coming tomorrow, Volume Two of Northeast Mansions... the Steven's House.

A Walk Along The Drive

Took a walk along Cliff Drive today. Needed to get out.... needed exercise. Walked along the Drive to the lake and back. The bush honeysuckle is in full bloom. An invasive plant it was brought into Missouri as an ornamental garden inhabitant and then escaped. It is fast growing, beautiful when it flowers, smells wonderful... but has no natural enemies except a flame thrower.

Scarritt Point from the Drive... fully engulfed by leafy life.... excellent view from its edge.
Up top by Scarritt Point the skyline is slowly sinking behind the trees.... probably another couple of summers, at least from this point, it will only be visible in the winter.

As with other parts of the hood the little darlin's like to mark their territory with their little gang signs.... I know its territorial but really... do you want to lay claim to a storm drain???

Parks and Rec regularly cleans the stuff off...
The population of geese at the lake has increased to 13 and ducks to 4. The goslings have really grown since the last post.

There were a couple of adorable little kids with their grandmother watching the goslings. The grandmother told me that the oldest little girl had named all of them. I said, "well how do you know which one is which?" She (probably 7) said, "I don't have to, they know who they are."

Good answer.
The green herons are back and seem less skittish this year than last... I'd like to see the male and female together but they won't cooperate.

Historic Northeast Mansions: Volume 1, Garfield Heights

Welcome to Garfield Heights the home of Kent T. Dicus and Michael G. Ohlson, Sr. Located in the Pendleton Heights Neighborhood of Historic Northeast Kansas City this 1887 mansion has 7,000 square feet of living space filled with artistic and historic treasures. It was built by Charles Leach, a lumber baron, who spared no expense on design or in the use of many wonderful woods throughout his home. It remained a private home until 1915 when the Helping Hand Institute moved into it and the Jefferson Home for Women then used the space

and built a 32 room dormitory onto the back of the house. This actually helped save the home from being subdivided into small apartments. William Volker had purchased the home in 1921 for $12,000 and donated it to the Helping Hand. Later the house was a retirement home until the 1990s. The dormitory structure was torn down after the home returned to private hands. One of the great things about living in Northeast is the devotion to history shown in the loving preservation of historic structures. Thanks to Kent and Michael who let me photograph their wonderful home.

Entering through the front door the visitor to Garfield Heights sees very much the same interior that Charles Leach saw in 1887. Note the first of eight fireplaces on the far wall and the staircase made of white oak.

To your immediate right is one of many curved spaces at the end of a short hallway... allowed by the towers, a prominent part of Queen Anne architecture.

Looking toward the front of the house the curtained doorway to the formal living room is visible.

In both the architecture of the house and the interior design, it's the attention to detail that is noticeable. There are 23 stained glass windows in the home.

The formal living room walls are hung with portraits of family members of both Michael and Kent. Many of the furnishings throughout the house have been handed down from generation to generation in both families. None of the rooms in the house are perfectly square or rectangular owing to the towers placed along the outer walls. This creates many a warm nook.

Right off the living room is the music room.

Incidentally, the globe ceiling lights in the music room came from Annie Chambers "house". For those of you not familiar with Kansas City history Annie ran one of the most famous bordellos in KC for years.

View toward the formal dining room and hallway. Note the portrait over the mantel. It is of Kent's great-great grandmother and her daughter. The mantel is made of satinwood. There are nine kinds of wood used throughout the home.

Looking across into the formal living room the entryway visible on the left.

Looking north through the door of the music room into the formal dining area.

Luckily almost all doors and pocket doors and their hardware were intact when the house was returned to private hands.

The side entrance where carriages used to pull up is still in place.. This view greets one as he enters from the side of the house.

This is the library top photo looking toward the front of the house, bottom photo toward the rear.

All along the staircase to the second floor are paintings of family members done in oil from photographs. The lady in red on the right is the grown-up child from the picture of mother and daughter over the mantel in the music room.

Michael is a collector of masks... and the result decorates the wall at the top of the stairs to the second floor.

By the way.... in case there are any bad surfers out there... the house is fully alarmed and, more importantly, is protected by two cats... Tommy and Boots .

West Bottoms After Dark II

Two more shots, one of the "green door building" and one of the 12th Street Viaduct which is undergoing deck repair even as I blog.