Upstairs at the Longs

The grand staircase in Corinthian Hall takes one to the second floor the third floor was accessed by staircases of lesser grandeur but still beautiful. An elevator was also installed in the 1910 mansion. The home has 70 rooms and when the Longs lived there a staff of 24... mostly Scandinavian and German servants. When the building was converted to a public space as a museum, much of the interior was gutted.... walls removed.... for exhibit space. The process has begun to restore it to pre-museum condition.
The house sits on limestone bedrock with a steel beam and concrete foundation. In one-hundred years there has been no settling. Interior walls are 18-24 inches thick throughout the house. Note the walls below are three courses of bricks thick.

Interior walls were removed and where they used to be can still be seen on the floors. New HVAC and electrical is being installed now. All new windows went in over the summer.



Looking north the Carriage House is visible through the windows. The door opens out on a balcony.

One of the new doors that opens onto the front balcony of the house.
Most of the fireplace mantels are gone.... either taken by the family for use elsewhere or sold and cut out during a two-day auction after Mr. Longs' death in 1934.


A large bathroom on the second floor... only the tiled walls give the use of the space away.
Above, one of the few surviving mantels in the upstairs.
View out of the front bedroom windows. Shown is the Edward Steven's home, built in 1902. Mrs. Stevens was the only person R.A. Long approached about buying her property who refused to sell. He wanted to either move the house or remove the house to improve the view.
Above... old time visitors to the Museum will remember the Igloo. You can see a outline of where is was in this room. It was very popular amongst young visitors (older ones too) because it was interesting and because it was the only air-conditioned room in the Museum.
Not a bad view. Looking west over Cliff Drive during last Sundays' snow.
Above, remnants of another bathroom.

Above... an original elevator that operated from the third floor to the attic... for hauling up of items for storage or furniture.... still works.
Above, the Carriage House in back with the servants quarters on the right. The William Chick Scarritt House can be seen behind the Carriage House... itself in the process of renovation.

Guest rooms were on the third floor... above... and an iron stairway to the attic, below. Thursday I will have views of the attic and some shots from the roof.
This house cost 1.5 million dollars.... including land acquisition, clearance and construction.

Mr. Long was worth roughly 40 million dollars in 1920... equivalent to 500 million today.

Side stairway looking down from the third floor to the first.

Excellent hard hat tours of the building are given each month.... google "Friends of the Kansas City Museum" for more information on those.

Headhunting at Corinthian Hall

Sunday was the monthly Hard Hat Tour at Corinthian Hall aka/Kansas City Museum. This tour date also saw the release of the latest Exhibit-in-Print by the Museum. "Faces" written by Elizabeth Rosin and Rachel Nugent, details the elaborate facial and figure ornamentation of the exterior and interior of the R.A. Long Mansion. I will show a few of them in this post... but be sure to stop by the Visitor's Center at the Museum to get your own copy.

This year Corinthian Hall is celebrating it's 100th birthday.... monetary gifts toward restoration are appreciated.
Above one-half of the north side of the mansion.... it was lightly snowing when we took the tour.
Christopher Leitch, right, and Elizabeth Rosin were our tour guides. We began at the rear of the Carriage House. Built in 1907 it was the first of the complex of buildings to be built at the site.... and, ironically, it will probably be the first to be restored.
Above, all new doors and windows have been installed already and match the originals perfectly.... except they will last a lot longer. This shows the view of the back of the main house showing the columned servants porch and the stained glass window.

The main area of the Carriage House where tack was kept and the hundreds of ribbons and trophies were exhibited. The large hole in the ceiling was used by an elevator which could raise and lower carriages as needed.
Many pictures still exist of the interiors of the building including the Carriage House. The only original interior parts that still exist from the Long's days are the ceiling in this portion and part of the floor in the area to the right. Portions of this building will be restored completely and will include showing 6 or more of the actual carriages the Longs used.
Taking in the view from the porch behind the servants quarters.
Above, the front (south) side of the Carriage House.. You can see the new doors and windows and where the entrance to the Natural History Hall was (green paint).
Above. Servants quarters... sans interior walls which were removed when this area was used for exhibit space. I covered the first floor renovation extensively in an earlier post: http://hyperblogal.blogspot.com/2009/05/corinthian-hall-restoration.html
Above, view out of the servants' window toward the south... below, looking at the skeleton of the servants quarters ceiling where HVAC and electrical are being completely redone.

By the front door the light stanchions feature rams heads under the light bulbs. At the time these were installed, 1910, electricity was just coming into it's own so this would have been "bragging" in a minor but showy way.
Plenty of detail in the carved limestone....below, a different head displayed under each of the second floor windows.

Elaborately carved urns celebrate 100 years of stair-step decoration.
The Salon has much in the way of mythological ornamentation in the walls and the ceiling... as shown below.




The Library is probably the most intact room in the house. The English design of the room is accented by the beautifully carved fire place with more of the Corinthian faces.
Below, a view from the west doors of the library out over the bluffs and Cliff Drive.

Marvelous detail above and below in the mantel.. This room will be a reading room when the restoration is complete.

Above and below... we went down to the Billiard Room which, for those of you familiar with past Museum exhibits, is where the model trains were. Surprisingly large area with the original floor and fireplace. This will be a meeting room when the building is completed.

Below, not to hard to determine the room's purpose with the crossed billiard sticks on the mantel.

Dining area with beautiful stained glass windows. The ceiling, below, has quite intricate designs which are slowly being uncovered as layers of paint are carefully removed.
Below, a view down the hall toward a front window...
The windows in the dining area feature ( it is thought ) Apollo.. below
Aphrodite
Hera
Athena
And Zeus
And in the lower sections.... full length figures of mythical magic.




On Wednesday I'll have more photos of the renovation that's underway on the second and third floors.

Take A Hike

The Cliff Drive Scenic Byway has lots of opportunities to get some good exercise by walking the Drive or by hiking the Indian Mound Trail. I've created maps that show both the human hiking trails (red) and the routes the animals use (green) which are oftentimes usable by us as well. Blue represents water in either spring or pool form. The top map shows the Byway from Elmwood Ave. and Gladstone Boulevard east to Indian Mound and Belmont Ave. The bottom shows the Byway from Elmwood and Gladstone west to Scarritt Point and the midpoint access to the Drive. HyperHouse is indicated by a red dot on the top map.

Cliff Drive is closed each weekend to motorized traffic so it's a great time for a family hike. The Trail is moderate in difficulty but make sure footwear is waterproof.

Click on the images below to make them larger. These are stolen from Google Maps and marked up in Photoshop. The top map shows the Indian Mound portion of the Byway, the bottom shows the Scarritt Renaissance section.

Cliff Drive was created between 1890 and 1910. It was designed by George Kessler for whom the surrounding parkland is now named. Originally called North Terrace Park it was complemented by West Terrace Park which was adjacent to what is now Case Park by Quality Hill.

Spring Year-round...

Hope springs eternal along Cliff Drive in the winter as springs constantly flow from the hillsides. The three below are just west of the waterfall by the eastern most entrance to the drive. Since the water flows from underground it is always around 60 degrees and doesn't freeze. Once it contacts the Drive it does though and this area is pretty much a skating rink until spring. The proliferation of springs along the bluffs... there are at least 12 from this point east to Indian Mound... is why the area was home to several Indian villages. The Natives were also fond of the plentiful game and high land... bluffs that allowed them to see who was coming. Also close to the Missouri and Blue Rivers.

It is my uninformed opinion that this hillside is probably home to multiple caves as the waters have been carving the limestone for hundreds of years.
Sometime I will go cave hunting.... several reliable neighbors have seen flocks/herds/covens of bats flying up from the bluff face in the evening as they start out on their hunt for insects. That's a sure sign of some bat condo... also known as "cave."
Above the Carl DiCapo Fountain ( i.e. The Waterfall ) lies dry in wait for spring that has never seemed further off to me.

Happy Valentines Day