W hen Stephan Zweifler first laid eyes on the house at 425 Glad- stone Blvd., he didn’t see decay – he saw potential. The Queen Anne-style house needed new plumbing and new electric- ity, a new roof. The entire front porch had started separating from the house itself. Not that any of it mattered to Zweifler during his first visit. “I was madly in love with it, and I had on two-inch-thick rose-col- ored glasses,” he jokes. “All I could see was the beauty, not the carnage.” Zweifler and his husband, Carl Markus Jr., had renovated an esti- mated 20 houses between them throughout their adult lives, but both men knew that this one was going to be different. Zweifler knew from the beginning that it wasn’t just going to be a new home for the two; it would eventually become The Inn at 425, a beacon of Midwestern warmth and charm for countless visitors and guests, some of whom they would eventually call friends. AN HISTORIC PLACE FROZEN IN TIME The first inhabitants of the house, built in 1888, were Kansas City Judge Stephen Twiss and his wife, Emeline. In 1910, shortly after the turn of the century and after the death of Judge and Mrs. Twiss, investors bought the house and set up partition walls within it, cre- ating multiple apartments but maintaining the lush garden around the house’s grounds. Over the course of the next 70 years, appreciation for the stately old house grew, and by the 1980s, shortly after the house had been
TOP: Many of the inn’s furnishings come from owner Stephan Zweifler’s personal collection. Zweifler says he has collected antiques his entire life. BOTTOM: The inn’s front parlor provides a cozy place where guests can stretch out and relax.
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