This Kansas City family made Loose Park possible. Their mansion is for sale for $4.3M
Original Tiffany chandelier. Three antique safes. Eight fireplaces. Marble flooring. A dozen balconies.
The historic Loose Mansion — currently an event venue — has hit the market for $4.3 million.
Owners Ken and Barbara Saathoff have partially retired and want to fully retire in the next year or so.
“We have an outstanding staff and this is the time for us to just slip out the door and let a new owner, or group of owners, take it to the next level,” Barbara Saathoff said. “This was a landmark that was just being ignored, and it has been a really good thing to bring it back where people can really enjoy it. I’ve loved it. This has been such a fun, fun business.”
Block & Company Inc. Realtors has the listing.
The Loose family is perhaps best known for Loose Park, on 75 acres just south of the Country Club Plaza. But their mansion, at 101 E. Armour Blvd., also is remarkable.
According to The Star’s archives and the Saathoffs, Jacob and Ella Loose broke ground for the mansion in 1907, and it was completed in 1909.
He made his fortune with Loose-Wiles Biscuit Co. (also known as Sunshine Biscuits). But the original funds for the mansion came from a copper investment made by Jacob, his brother Joseph, and a friend. Their $10,000 investment had a payoff of $1 million each.
Jacob told his wife she could use the windfall however she liked. She spent $250,000 to construct a mansion that would be a showplace for large parties.
Their Washington, D.C.-based architect — known for building embassies — put in cement flooring, high ceilings, wide doorways and multiple entryways. Pocket doors could be shut for more intimate settings.
It had a grand salon and music room on the main level, cigar and billiards room on the lower level, and a third level ballroom for dinners and dancing.
The four-story mansion, listed on the National Historic Registry, has the original Italian tile flooring and marble foyer with brass railings, along with the Loose family safe, Ella’s jewelry safe and a high-security bank safe. Eight of the original 11 fireplaces remain, along with four of the 12 bathrooms. It also has 12 balconies.
Jacob’s affectionate nickname for Ella was Sunshine, and S’s are hand-carved in the mahogany grand staircase.
The main building is 16,204 square feet, and the carriage house is 2,200 square feet (currently a bed and breakfast sleeping up to 10 people). The sale also includes event bookings — some two years out — and it has a full liquor license.
After buying the property, the Saathoffs spent three years and about $3 million restoring and converting the mansion into an event space. It gradually opened from 2004 to 2007. Events have included rehearsal dinners, weddings (nearly 2,000), and civic and corporate gatherings.
“Our focus has mostly been on weddings and we are very, very good at it,” she said.
They have continued to maintain the facility and took time during COVID to do such projects as resurfacing the parking lot and refinishing wood floors.
Bookings are getting back to pre-pandemic levels, and they had their best October in four years.
Loose Mansion has four full-time employees, and about 20 regular contractors who work the events, probably the “best staff we’ve ever had.”
“They know it is a retirement issue and that we’ve earned the right to retire. We weren’t sure what they would say but they are excited,” said Ken Saathoff.
