Here’s what KC officials told brothers fighting to tear down their historic mansion
The Kansas City Historic Preservation Commission told the Vawter brothers no.
Voting 5-0 on Friday, the commission refused to grant Matthew and Steven Vawter a “certificate of appropriateness” that would have allowed them to demolish their 7,400-square-foot, 110-year-old mansion, about a block west of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in the Southmoreland neighborhood.
Their aim is to tear down the house at 4526 Warwick Blvd. and possibly sell the nearly 1-acre lot so that apartments can be built on it. But neighbors consider the mansion beautiful and worth preserving.
During the meeting, Matthew Vawter said that denying the certificate would likely mean the vacant property will continue to deteriorate and become an even greater nuisance, as rehabbing the home is economically unfeasible.
“This property will become exactly what the Southmoreland Neighborhood Association does not want,” he told the commission via Zoom from his home in Boulder, Colorado. “They don’t want a vacant lot for homeless encampments. But by having a home on this property, the foregone conclusion is that will continue to be a magnet for vandals, vagrants and thieves well into the future.”
But commissioners said they had a duty to deny the request due to the house’s historic designation. As noted in a commission staff report, the Vawters’ proposal to tear down the house violated one of the 10 “standards of rehabilitation” outlined by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which says that the historic character of historically designated properties “shall be retained and preserved.”
Commissioner Sean Owens said the Vawter brothers’ predictions of further deterioration amounted to a threat.
“I have a really simple solution for that,” Owens said, “sell your property.”
The commission’s denial won’t likely end what has become a contentious housing drama that began last spring when neighbors, fearing the house would be torn down, sought to have the property placed on Kansas City’s Register of Historic Places.
The Kansas City City Council did just that in September, against the will of the property owners. But the designation does not prohibit the Vawters from demolishing the house in perpetuity. Three years from now, they will be free to tear down the house at will.
But they might even be able to do so sooner than that. If they choose, they can now apply for a “certificate of economic hardship” to again argue, as early as December, that the home should be demolished because the cost to renovate it is far beyond its worth. Friday’s denial also opens a path for the brothers to challenge any subsequent denials before a judge.
The Vawters have repeatedly said they will do whatever it takes to have the right to demolish the home their family has owned for 62 years.
Jackson County records place the home’s market value at just short of $1.3 million. But the Vawters say that because of the house’s outdated electricity, plumbing, heating, cooling and other structural problems, any buyer would need to spend an additional $1.2 million to fix it.
“The fact is,” the Vawter brothers wrote to the commission prior to the hearing, “you can’t save every building.”
Tension over the house first erupted in the Southmoreland neighborhood in April after neighbors discovered that the Vawters had applied for a permit to shut off the home’s water in preparation for demolition. A sign saying that the lot was for sale for potential “high-rise” development went up soon after.
Built in 1913 for George B. Richards, the wealthy owner of the Richards & Conover Hardware Co., the home is fronted by four Corinthian columns, a portico and white balustrade. It has five bedrooms, three and a half baths, a sweeping center staircase and carved plaster ceilings. A separate carriage house stands in the rear. The home was designed by the architectural firm of Root & Siemens.
Neighbors want the Classical Revival mansion preserved as either a single-family home or for another use.
Neighbors Ryan Hiser and his partner, David Tran, offered the brothers $1.25 million for the house with the plan to transform it into a boutique bed-and-breakfast hotel. Hiser and Tran already own two hotels in the Southmoreland neighborhood, The Truitt Hotel 4320 Oak St., and The Aida Hotel KC, 206 E. 44th St. Both are stately old homes that have been renovated.
The Vawters, whose real estate interest is being brokered by Whitney Kerr Sr., the senior director of Cushman & Wakefield, turned the offer down as too little. They initially priced the property at $2.5 million, later decreasing it.
In July, the Vawters said they signed a contract with local real estate developer George Birt, who agreed to buy the property for $1.9 million, but the deal was then contingent on the property being rezoned for commercial development and not being designated as historic.
After the City Council placed the home on the city’s historic register, Tran and Hiser renewed their $1.25 million offer. The Vawters again turned it down.
The property is zoned for residential use only. Neighbors say there is no guarantee the parcel would be approved for rezoning for a speculative project. No plans for an apartment building have been shown or filed with the city. Beyond wanting to save the home, neighbors are concerned that if the Vawters raze the house, the neighborhood will be stuck with an empty lot.
Steven Vawter told The Star previously that if he and his brother need to wait three years to raze the home, they will wait. He notes that theirs is the last single-family home in that corner of Southmoreland, where several apartment buildings already exist, including the 12-story Oak Hall.
Intruders have damaged the house, Vawter said..
“Copper pipe was ruthlessly ripped from the floor joists and a wall safe ripped from a wall,” the Vawters’ letter to the commission said. “’We were then forced to board up the house. …
“The point we are trying to make here is that rather than allowing us to proactively resolve this issue, you (the city) are creating an ongoing issue that will contribute to further crime and vagrancy ultimately leading to the blight of this fine home, a situation that you are trying to avoid.”
This story was originally published November 17, 2023 at 11:25 AM.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of the architectural firm that designed the house at 4526 Warwick Blvd. The firm was Root & Siemens.
