^ vintage spaces
LEFT: The main house and the car- riage house flank the inn’s award-winning garden. RIGHT: The Carriage House Suite, located on the second floor of the building that once housed the family’s carriages, includes a shared bath- room.
ing a bed and breakfast, there’s always the possibility of the occasional highly unique guest. In the case of the Inn at 425, it’s Emeline Twiss, who has been dead for more than a century. Zweifler opens a photo album sitting on the parlor’s coffee table. Nestled between the images of brick work being done is a photo of the silhouette of a woman ascending the staircase. Look at the image hard enough and you’ll see her hair is swept up, and she wears dangling earrings. A shawl is draped around her shoulders. “She is very benevolent. She knocks on doors and wakes people up, or she whispers in their ear,” Zweifler says. “The room upstairs that we call Emeline’s room – that’s the one she focuses on. “One of my friends is terrified at the prospect of meeting Emeline. When she visits, I will go into the room and say, “Emeline, Suzie is coming to visit. Please, please leave her alone. Inevitably, she does, but she will come to the third floor and wake me up,” he chuckles. Any challenges aside, Zweifler says he and Markus are proud that the inn has become a part of the changing face of Gladstone Boulevard and the metro area, too. The inn is but a microcosm of the city itself. “Kansas City is the biggest surprise (our guests) will ever have. The parks, the greenery, the kindness and sophistication of the people who live here,” he says. “We have a lot of guests who call the inn their Kansas City home.” Visit https://innat425.com for more information, or call (913) 579- 5915. ^ Corbin Crable’s love of antiques and vintage decor sometimes makes him feel as if he should have lived during the Victorian period as well. You can email him at ccrable@jccc.edu.
loween” festivities, sponsored by Gladstone’s neighborhood association. “All houses pass out candy to kids who normally don’t have a place to go for Halloween,” Zweifler explains. “We had 8,000 kids last year. They can just walk up to the front doors and get candy, and many people put up huge decorations for Halloween. It’s like a Disneyland for Halloween, and it’s for kids who can’t get this anyplace else.” The Inn at 425 is one of those many houses that one will find fes- tooned with decorations during the fall, of course. “And at Christmas, we have three or four large Christmas trees, and Santas and wreaths everywhere. The outside of the house is lit,” says Zweifler. “But we like to start (decorating) with fall, because that introduces you into Christmas.” Again, Zweifler emphasizes, it took a long time to get the house pre- pared for the transformation from crumbling to cozy. Most people who would buy such a house might be excited to put up wall paper and hang lace curtains – that’s the fun part, after all – but few may realize the elbow grease and determination that one must invest in such a venture. And then there’s the money. “The biggest mistake that people make is, they find a beautiful old house that needs a restoration, and they take out a huge loan to pay for the restoration,” Zweifler explains. “And then they expect to make enough money to pay for the first and second mortgage. It doesn’t work that way. This is a cottage industry. Even if you have 70 percent occupancy, it still isn’t going to be enough money. That’s why this has taken 20 years. We did each thing as we could afford it.”
JUST A HARMLESS APPARITION If that isn’t enough to ponder for someone in the market for open-
18 VINTAGEKC SUMMER 2017
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