Any buyers? Mansion that is one of eight architectural wonders of Kansas is for sale
One of the eight architectural wonders of Kansas is now for sale.
It’s the Lebold Mansion, a Victorian-era mansion in Abilene, Kansas. The 10,000-square-foot home was built in 1880 for about $18,000 by Abilene banker Conrad H. Lebold.
The property features 23 rooms on six levels and is made of native limestone quarried in Kansas, according to the real estate listing posted by Reynolds Real Estate & Auction Co.
Over the years, the stately mansion has had many uses, including a children’s orphanage, a home for single women telephone operators, a girls club and also a boarding house for soldiers during World War II. Later, the mansion was turned into an apartment building featuring 17 apartments.
“The Lebold Mansion was voted one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas Architecture because it is a rare surviving example of the architectural style known as ‘Italianate Tuscan Villa,’” states the Kansas Sampler Foundation’s website. The home features a 65-foot tall entrance tower constructed over a stone dugout built in 1857 by Tim and Eliza Hersey, the founders and some of the earliest residents of Abilene. The stone dugout is preserved in the house today, according to the Kansas Sampler Foundation.
The home, once a popular attraction for visitors in Abilene, was sold May 6, 2019, in a sheriff’s sale to the highest bidder at the Dickinson County Courthouse in Abilene. The Lebold Mansion and another Abilene property were auctioned together and sold for just over $380,227 to Dickinson County Bank of Enterprise, said Keli Reid, a clerk at the Dickinson County Sheriff’s Department.
It was not the first time the Lebold Mansion was sold at a sheriff’s sale. In 1889, Conrad Lebold’s bank failed, and he declared bankruptcy. According to the nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places, the home was sold in a sheriff’s sale in 1894 to George Sterl, a local merchant who lived in the home until his death in 1918.
In the 1970s, Kurt and Kathy Kessinger, and later Merle and Fred Vahsholtz, each owned the property and began the restoration process for the storied home. In 1973, the mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places. On the nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places, it reads in part, “In an 1883 Kansas history, Lebold’s house was termed the finest dwelling west of Topeka.”
So, if you’re searching for a place in the town Dwight David Eisenhower called home, the Lebold Mansion is for sale once again with a listing price of $429,069.
Oh, and yearly taxes will set you back another $8,705.14.