When Your Home Is A Castle

 

In 1887 William Hockaday Wallace married Mary Chiles and had a new home built for them at 3200 Gladstone Boulevard. Sometime next year ( 2022) this home will be on the market.  No price information yet.   Below are views of the home from the time of its construction.  

                                                           Judge William Hockaday Wallace

                                     Home is center top photo, left bottom photo. 

When R.A. Long, Lumber Baron, decided he wanted the land where the home stood for his new mansion, Long offered to buy the home and move it (and two others) to a new location.  Thus the home's new address was 3200 Norledge.  Below is a picture of the home next door to Wallace, 3218 Gladstone, being moved. 

While the home was being moved, Mrs. Wallace was touring Europe.  When she came home she remarked how wonderful it would be to live in one of the many castles she saw.  Judge Wallace hired architect Grant Middaugh to "convert" the house to what it looks like today.  For seven weeks in the Spring of 1916, the Wallace's moved to Independence and lived with relatives while Evangelist Billy Sunday lived in the Norledge Castle.  Below are Sunday and  the tabernacle erected at Admiral and Lydia for his sermons. 

The Wallaces both passed in 1937 and after that the home became a nursing home for years until purchased by Kansas City.  It became the administration building for the Kansas City Museum.  It the 1990s it was returned to private ownership.  Enjoy these many views :). 

Historic Northeast Homes - Volume 14 - 2821 Independence Boulevard

In 1895 Cattle Baron A.W. Byers moved from Texas to Kansas City and built his new home along with many other wealthy people on Independence Boulevard.    It was constructed in the Long, Croysdale, and Vaughn Subdivision. Above, as the mansion looks today.  Below, the Byers Mansion in 1940.  The house on the left in this image was soon to become C.H Blackman and Son Funeral Home.

 Above.  2821, arrow, is next to a vacant lot with two houses to the east and then the Independence Boulevard Christian Church (IBCC)  constructed in 1905 with help from R.A. Long, lumber baron, who also built what is now the Kansas City Museum.  Below, after 1910 the house next to the church was moved by Long to the other side of 2821 where it is today.  The church's Sunday School building was then constructed on the site. The Byers family attended IBCC along with R.A.Long.

Mrs. A.W. Byers later sold the home to Jerry Mangan, a contractor, who used it in many fashions including renting it out to the Universal Institue, a correspondence business school which had 24 workers in the structure.  Catherine Mangan sold the home in 1986 and it has three owners since. The current owners, Cynthia and Johnny, are restoring this gem and have turned it into a bed and breakfast.

https://abnb.me/5vwz2XmAAY

   or    https://www.facebook.com/byersmansion.kc

 The three-story Victorian has 8 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 4 fireplaces and has retained almost all of its features including mahogany floors, intricate cherry wood and pocket doors.  Cynthia and Johnny bought the home two years ago.

If you'll note in the 1940 Tax photo, there is a porch roof on the east side (left) which is missing today. Due to a failure to maintain the building, the roof collapsed (below). This was well before Cynthia and Johnny owned it. 

The new owners have some of the structure and plan on restoring the side porch in the future. They                      live on the third floor.

Front entry on left which has a "B" etched into the glass for Byers.  

 All of the light fixtures in the home were fitted with both gas and electric when it was constructed.

                                                 All the original pocket doors are intact.

 Above. The original ice box... looking in from the porch on the house... the other side opens into the kitchen area. Below, butlers pantry.    Some of the tubes and other devices for staff communication still exist.

Butler's pantry above. 

                                                         Original bathroom fixtures above.

                                 More original fixtures including a wrap-around shower, below.

                   Above and below.  You can really see both the electrical lights and the gas lights.

                                                      Above, first floor bathroom .