KCK police show up in force to serve court order on owner of dilapidated landmark
A dozen police SUVs rolled up on 935 Shawnee Road in Kansas City, Kansas, Monday morning, but it wasn’t a raid.
Officers were escorting a few code enforcement officials and a private contractor that the Unified Government had hired to board up historic Sauer Castle.
“We are simply there as support,” the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department explained in a tweet after word got out on social media about the show of force.
A Sauer Castle page on Facebook has more than 11,000 members where fans have fretted for years about the future of the fading landmark high on a ridge in KCK’s Rosedale neighborhood.
“Something is sure going on right now at the castle because there are multiple cop cars there,” one post began Monday morning.
“Maybe all those cops plus codes enforcement means someone got hurt or worse while exploring,” speculated another.
No one had gotten hurt, but authorities have long worried that someone might get injured. The castle is attractive to trespassers. The UG also is concerned that rain and snow might further ruin a historic structure and were there to board it up by court order, Unified Government spokesman David Reno said.
“We had attempted to secure the property earlier,” Reno said, “but the owner had kicked us off the property.”
This time he wouldn’t. Out on the front lawn that morning, Carl Lopp, who in 1988 bought the dilapidated mansion his great-great grandfather Anton Sauer built almost 150 years ago, talked with reporters. He said he couldn’t understand why that many cops were needed for a code enforcement court order on the vacant building.
The gun in his right pants pocket, he explained, was only for protection against the intruders who vandalize the property at night.
“They gave me no advance warning,” Lopp said of Monday’s events and complained that the contractor was damaging the structure by nailing boards over the windows and doors.
Lopp claimed to not understand what precipitated the action, while acknowledging that he has had many run-ins with the UG, and before that with the Kansas City, Kansas, municipal government prior to the city’s merger with Wyandotte County more than two decades ago.
Those disputes have centered on the slow progress of his now 32-year-long renovation project, code violations and Lopp’s tendency to not pay his real estate taxes until just before the 10-acre property is set to be sold for back taxes on the courthouse steps.
Reno said Lopp is $15,402 in arrears on the castle in property taxes and $14,260 behind on the house next door to the west, which he also owns. He also owes $21,950 for code citations and special assessments on both properties.
The cost of boarding up the property, which he must pay, will make it more.
“It’s completely illegal what they’re doing,” Lopp said. “This is a national landmark, and they are damaging it.”
Upon arrival, officials served Lopp with an administrative search warrant signed by Wyandotte County District Court Judge Jennifer L. Myers. It gave them the right to come on the property for the purpose of “boarding and securing the premises and abating any weed, grass, and/or vegetation in violation of city ordinances.”
The grass wasn’t that long Monday, but some second-floor windows that had not yet been boarded up at noon appeared to be broken.
Lopp said he continues to make improvements and hopes one day he will complete the project.
“You know, we were just getting ready to put up all the Christmas ornaments on the castle,” he said in a phone interview, “and they show up here at 9 o’clock in the morning without any notice of any kind.”
This story was originally published December 14, 2020 at 5:14 PM.
