Corinthian Hall
Corinthian Hall was built in 1910 by Robert A. Long as a private residence for his family. Architect Henry Hoit designed this Beaux-Arts style mansion for lumber businessman Robert Long, who named it Corinthian Hall after the front portico’s six Corinthian columns. Long moved his family, including wife Ella and daughter Loula, into the new home in 1910 after a six-month shopping trip to Europe. The oldest daughter Sallie visited often and 4 of her 5 children were born at Corinthian Hall.
The 3-acre estate at 3218 Gladstone Boulevard in Kansas City, Missouri included the 24,292 square feet, 4-story, 70-room Beaux-arts style main residence, a stable and carriage house, a conservatory, greenhouse, and gate house along with a colonnaded pergola. The property has a stone and iron fence with elaborately-detailed entry gates, surrounding the property. The estimated cost in 1910 was $1M ($29.1 M in 2021).
The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 14, 1980.
R. A. Long's daughters, Sallie and Loula, donated the residence to the Kansas City Museum in 1939. It was opened to the public in 1940.
Main House - First Floor
Great Hall
The great Hall was 26 feet in width and 58 feet in length and was styled in the French Renaissance tradition. A pink Skyros marble vestibule is at one end and a stairway of Hauteville marble with a bronze balustrade ascends from the other. The walls are Caen stone, a white material of a fine grained stucco appearance. The floor is paved with white Cippolino marble, bordered by a contr
Grand Salon
The Long family reserved the Louis XVI Salon for the most formal entertaining. The French doors opened to the outside portico, and a white Italian marble Fireplace accented the north wall. The original rug matched the ornate plasterwork on the ceiling.
Dining Room
Everything in this gold and soft green room—the motifs on the wall, ceiling and curtains, the chandelier, furniture, tapestries, and overdrapes was in the Louis XIV style. Rich green marble, silk velvet and custom-woven silk damask were featured throughout the room.
Library
The library across the west hallway from the grand salon was Longs private retreat. Each morning he would come there to read passages from the Bible. Warm and comfortable, with tooled leather, velvet, and tapestry upholstered furniture, the Elizabethan style room has oak paneled walls and leaded glass bookcases and windows The massive oak mantel, carved in New York, rises to the ceiling. Th
Living Room
The living room was located to the right of the entrance hall, directly across from the grand salon. The predominant colors were slate blue and gold, colors characteristic of the Reigh of Francis I A Caen stone fireplace extended to the ceiling and as patterned after one of the fireplaces in the Chateau Blois, a favored model for American palaces in the Gilded Age. The baseboards were r
Sun Room
The room had green latticework on the walls, a bower of potted ferns, and chintz-covered wicker furniture. The stained glass sunlights were designed by Hoit.
Main House - Second Floor
Family Bedrooms
The French style dominated the family bedrooms, which had connecting sitting rooms, spacious dressing rooms and baths. Mr. Long’s suite also featured a fully equipped barbershop. Loula’s suite was in the Marie Antoinette fashion; most designers thought the style particularly suitable for young ladies.
Main House - Third Floor
The third floor housed staff bedrooms and guest quarters. The Long Family employed twenty-four people including four maids, a butler, two cooks, two chauffeurs, two laundresses, a gardner, stable hand and a horse trainer.
Main House - Basement
The picture above is of the billard room as it exists now.
There was a bowling alley at the south end downstairs that ran east and west A billard room was across the hall in the northwest corner with a pool table, billard table and game table. The laundry room was in the northeast corner The electric switchboard was on a marble slab.
The billard room had a strong English Manor house flavor The ceiling beams were black walnut and the massive fireplace is intricately carved.
The basemen of the house also contained a bowling alley that extended the full length of the house.
Carriage House and Stable
The most elaborate of the outbuildings, the carriage house measures 40 x 121 feet and faces south. On the second story were quarters for grooms and servants The first floor had ten large stalls, five on either side of the two-story central section.
A 15 x 18 foot wood paneled harness and tack room, which by 1909 was already decorated with silver trophies and blue ribbons, led to the north entrance. The adjacent 18 x 19 foot space was a circular carriage drive and white-tiled wash room which contained a lift for elevating vehicles to the storage loft.
Built-in shelves for the monogramed woolen horse blankets, carriage robes, and stacks of driving aprons of pure silk satin, wool challis and linen
The stable contained five box stalls and one tie-stall on either side of the central aisle. The flooring was concrete with a textured finish for the protection for each expensive occupant's feet.
Each box stall contained a window for cross ventilation. The stall partitions and sliding doors were decorated with solid brass finials and wrought iron grills above the pine paneled wainscoting. The stalls were 10x10x10.
Living quarters for the grooms were on the second story over the center and east sections of the building From three to five grooms were in residence at all times.
The Carriage-House Stable
From: “Corinthian Hall, an American Palace on Gladstone,” Lenore K. Bradley, 1999
By the year 1909, the era of the horse-drawn vehicle was ending. This did not deter the Longs from building what was probably not only the last elaborate carriage house and stable within the city limits, but also what was probably one of the largest, most costly, and certainly most handsome.
But the Longs never counted pennies where their horses were concerned. Prior to their six-month tour of Europe in 1910, they shipped their horses 700 miles away to the bluegrass country of Kentucky, because all available pastures around Kansas City were fenced with barbed wire.
Ironically, the stable housed the horses only a few years until the great show barn at Longview Farm was completed in 1914.
Like Corinthian Hall, the carriage house-stable, from the ground up is constructed of stone. Carthage stone for the base and Bedford limestone for the superstructure. Certain key design elements such as bullseye windows framed by elaborate copper scroll work appear on the façade.
The building has two stories in the carriage portion and one story in the stable portion. The floor plan is similar to a residence with a center hall. The central block consisted of two spaces. A 15x18 foot wood paneled harness and tack room which by 1909 was already decorated with silver trophies and blue ribbons, led to the north entrance. The adjacent 18x19 foot space was a circular carriage drive and white-tiled wash room which contained a lift for elevating vehicles to the storage loft. Finishing touches were well thought out: built-in shelves for the monogrammed woolen horse blankets, carriage robes, and stacks of driving aprons of pure silk, satin, wool challis and linen. Steam heat came from radiators with bronze grilles, and there was always a plentiful supply of hot and cold running water.
The horses lived in high style. The stable contained five box stalls and one tie-stall on either side of the central aisle. The flooring was concrete with a textured finish to protect feet. Each box stall contained a window. Stall and sliding doors were decorated with solid brass finials and wrought iron grilles. Stalls measured a comfortable 10 ft. wide and 10 ft. 10 in. long.
Living quarters for the grooms were on the second story over the center and east sections of the building. From three to five grooms were in residence at all times.
By March 1909, the carriage house-stable had been completed, and work on the main residence was moving ahead.
Gatehouse
The Gate House, located near the East gate of the property, is the two-story house built for the horse trainer (Dave Smith) and his family.
Conservatory
The Conservatory is located on the west end of the property, the most formal of the outbuildings. A glass-paned dome with ventilated louvers rose from the flat roof. Balustrades decorated the window bays.
The Convervatory provided a plentiful supply of ferns and other house plants and in winter housed the large ornamental trees in clay pots which lined both side of the colonnade.
Colonnaded Pergola
The pergola originally extended east and west, with the greenhouse at the east end and the conservatory at the west end. The colonnade extended to the south beginning at its center section and ending at the north door of the carriage house. This was dismantled sometime in the 1960's.
Corinthian Hall: The "Palace"
From: "Corinthian Hall: An American Palace on Gladstone," by Lenore K. Bradley, 1999
Corinthian Hall receives its name from the six columns of monolithic size supporting the front portico. Constructed of solid limestone, 25 ft. high and 2 ½ ft. in diameter, the columns were of such extravagant cost Henry Ford Hoit (architect) suggested them as an alternative. But Long, who wanted a dramatic entrance to his house, insisted on their use.
Hoit did not want overhead wires to mar the beauty of the site. Therefore the garage contained a generating plant in the basement. The lines, including phone, ran underground throughout all the buildings.
The sun parlor at Corinthian Hall had green lattice work on the walls, potted ferns and chintz covered wicker furniture. None of the 70 rooms contained a single piece of antique furniture as Mr. Long thought it ridiculous to buy something old and “full of worm holes” and what he considered “second hand”.
Corinthian Hall presented an ultra fashionable mix of period rooms, principally French and English. Exceptions, of course, were the service areas, the bowling alley, and Long’s full-equipped barbershop next to his bedroom. The love of period rooms during the Gilded Age was so strong that even the billiard room in the basement boasted a strong English manor house flavor with black walnut beams and an intricately carved massive fireplace. The living room was located to the right of the entrance hall, directly across from the grand salon. The predominant colors were slate blue and gold. Though Mrs. Long’s favorite, the library across the west hallway from the grand salon was Mr. Long’s private retreat. Each morning he would come there to read passages from the Bible. The bedrooms were solidly French and exceptionally large, with connecting sitting rooms, spacious dressing rooms and baths.
By December 1910, all was in readiness for the Longs’ occupancy at Corinthian Hall. Unmistakably, Corinthian Hall is a regal place, with distinguished architecture, justly deserving the homage it was paid November 14, 1980, when the mansion entered the rolls of the National Register of Historic Places. More palace than house, its style and construction are an honest reflection of the achievements of the man who lived there and the aesthetics of the Gilded Age in which it was built. The Kansas City parade had never seen banner-Beaux-Arts or otherwise – like the palace at the crest of the hill on Gladstone. Nor will again.
Sun Parlor
Grand Salon
