Amongst towering trees, green gardens, and expansive horse barns, a stone mansion built over a century ago still sits nestled into the Lee’s Summit countryside. Longview mansion was constructed under the direction of Kansas City lumber baron Robert Alexander Long in just eighteen months from 1913 to 1914. It was called the “Rural Versailles” by The Kansas City Star shortly after its completion.
Over the years, the home has been many things: an estate sold and traded among the Long family, a historic touring site, an abandoned shell of itself, and now, a wedding and event venue. Sunflower Development Group—a team of real estate developers in Kansas City—decided to bring the mansion back to life from its deteriorated state. After being beautifully renovated, the home now functions as a full-time event venue.
After driving by the mansion on a trip to Lee’s Summit, I couldn’t help but feel like I needed to do some sleuthing. What is the history behind this place? How could the owners afford to build this large of an estate? And most pressing, What is inside that mansion? Fascinated by the history of the home, I reached out to Sunflower Development Group. Though historical tours of the mansion are no longer given, the general manager of the property kindly coordinated an exclusive private tour for Missouri Life readers.
Welcome to Longview Mansion
Upon arriving, I pulled into the tree-lined drive, waving hello to a few groundskeepers. My younger sister and sidekick, Sarai, tagged along with me for a rare peek inside the home. There, the Longview Mansion, with its 22,000-square feet of space, loomed ahead of us.
Pushing open the heavy front door, Sarai and I were met with an echoing silence and a glorious front entryway. As the mansion holds 48 rooms, 6 fireplaces, 14 bedrooms, and 10 bathrooms, we stood at a complete loss for where to venture first. Thankfully, Heather Brewster, event coordinator at Longview Mansion, met us in the entryway and led us on a brief tour of the mansion before we explored on our own. We first walked through the grand entryway toward a temperature-controlled tent attached to the back side of the mansion, which is where indoor weddings and large events are held. Large clear vinyl windows along the walls of the tent allow for natural light to filter in and for the tent to seamlessly blend in with the rest of the house.
Amongst the dozens of rooms on the main level, which are adorned with dark walnut trim, elaborate wainscoting, and vintage wallpaper patterns, the formal dining room was one of the most memorable. When Robert would have called the mansion home, many special events, birthdays, and dinners were held in the dining room. It was easy to imagine the Long family, including Robert, his wife, Martha, and his two daughters, Sally and Loula, sitting around the large mahogany dining table, sharing laughter and conversation over dinner.
Beyond the mirrored French doors is the kitchen. Back when the farm was run by more than 200 employees per day, Robert had male and female dining rooms designated in the kitchen area where employees would eat meals. Legend has it that the men and women were separated into two dining rooms after a fight broke out in the combined dining
space. This space is now used as an industrial kitchen. Heather continued to lead us through the main level, pushing open a door that revealed a hidden hallway with a staircase made specifically for employees and a small yellow wallpapered room now used for storage. This small room was the only space in the house that felt heavy and drab, which made sense when Heather explained its original use. In the early 1900s, Robert opened this room for the community to use for open-casket funerals and visitations.
In the opposite wing of the main level is the formal sitting room, the porch, and a million-dollar view of the Longview property. Looking out from the windows of the back porch, visitors can see hundred-year-old oak trees towering over the backyard and a perfectly manicured lawn encircled by the home’s original stone terrace.
Upstairs are the former rooms of Sally, Loula, Martha, and Robert along with an attic with eight additional bedrooms and multiple baths. Sally and Loula’s childhood rooms are decorated with white curtains, intricate fireplaces, and soft seating areas. These rooms are now used as the groomsmen suite when wedding parties book the venue. One of the most interesting features of the mansion is Loula’s “pet nursery,” where she kept her 23 dogs, pet skunk, and pet pig. When Loula resided in the home, she placed a bed for each animal in this room. Blankets for the pets were changed twice daily. Across the hall is Robert and Martha’s master bedroom. This large suite contains the only remaining bathroom with its original tile and tub.
At the far end of the mansion is a summer sleeping room with five-foot-tall windows and the original family furniture from the early 1900s. This is where the Long family would sleep in the hot Missouri summers. The windows surrounding the room would open to allow for a soft breeze and a good night’s sleep. Today, Robert and Martha’s bedroom, the summer sleeping porch, and the pet nursery are all part of the bridal suite.
We finished our tour with Heather at the top of the grand staircase, where she gave us the thumbs-up to explore the house on our own. Sarai and I began walking around upstairs in silence, but eventually the home brought out the inner child in each of us. Our imaginations and our chronic storytelling habits came to life. I don’t know how many times we said out loud, “I wonder if they …” and “I bet that Loula and Sally …” We walked room to room, imagining the laughter that the sisters would have shared, the late nights on the sleeping porch, and the afternoons spent on the patio watching their children and pets chase one another in the yard. I wondered how many times they’d ridden horses through the pasture, or shared stories while on a walk through the gardens. As sisters, strolling around the mansion felt like a sweet sort of ode to the Long sisters.
After an hour and a half of perusing and snapping pictures, we ended our day. Sitting on the top step of the grand staircase, my two months of Longview research and exploration approached a soft stop. After a few minutes, I said, “so long,” to my friends Robert, Martha, Sally, and Loula Long, knowing that I would probably not enter their home again. Sarai and I couldn’t help but laugh quietly on our way out, sharing a vision of Loula running down the carpet-lined staircase, her 23 dogs, pet skunk, and pet pig galloping behind. We stepped back into my car as a light rain began to fall. “You know, I think I saw some of the remaining Longview Farm buildings just a few miles from here,” I said, looking over at Sarai and raising my eyebrows. “Want to drive around and try and find them?” She shook some rainwater from her hair and nodded. “Oh yeah. Let’s go.”
The Legacy of R.A. Long
Robert A. Long, known as R. A. Long in the business world, was co-owner of Long-Bell Lumber Company. With part of his fortune from the timber industry, he built two homes—a city home and a country estate.
Robert Long, his cousin Robert White, and his friend Victor B. Bell began a hay baling company in the late 1800s. For unknown reasons, things went south with the business soon after it began, and Long’s first business venture became a complete failure. The three men then decided to deconstruct their hay sheds to sell the lumber and recover some funds. The lumber sold fast, and a new idea was born: the Long-Bell Lumber Company. With Bell’s father being the president of the Kansas City Savings Bank, the men easily received a loan and started their second business.
When the Kansas City Southern Railroad was founded in 1887, Robert was an early investor, securing the trajectory of his company and influencing his prosperity. The railroad could now conveniently transport his lumber to buyers around the country. Long was able to buy a small three-bedroom cottage in Columbus, Kansas, for his wife, Martha, and their two daughters, Sally and Loula, where they lived until their move to Kansas City in 1891. In 1903, Long-Bell Lumber Company reported an annual revenue of around $7 million, equivalent to over $25 billion in today’s dollars.
After Longview Mansion, their country estate, was built in 1914, they spent their time between their two beautiful homes, Corinthian Hall, their city home (now the Kansas City Museum), and Longview.
The estate, along with over fifty of its surrounding buildings, was said to have been built specifically with Robert’s horse-loving younger daughter, Loula, in mind. Robert said Loula’s first sentence was, “Please buy me a pony,” and their city home was not suitable for horse riding and training, making her passion difficult to pursue. Wanting to foster his daughter’s love of horses, the Longview Mansion and its surrounding estate was erected on Long’s newly purchased 1,780 acres of land in rural Lee’s Summit.
Loula’s love for horse riding never ceased. She was known internationally for her riding skills, and she won numerous competitions in England, the United States, and Canada. On the property resided “a horse race track that seated up to 1,000 people, giant sparkling greenhouses, handsome barns with wood-pegged floors for prize cattle and hogs, a hotel for single men, housing for employees, a church [also used as a schoolhouse], and community newspaper,” according to the Sunflower Development Group.
One of Robert’s goals for Longview was for the estate to be self-sufficient. Because of his large number of employees, Robert prioritized their comfort, placing many amenities on his farm that were not typically found outside of cities. The mansion had underground electricity lines and its own water tower that could hold up to 100-thousand gallons of water. Steam-powered energy plants provided heating for the hotel, employee homes, and the mansion. Local telephone operators and telephone lines were added as well. In case of an emergency, the property also had its own police station and fire department.
At a time when America was struggling with the effects of World War I—such as food scarcity and country-wide rationing—Robert built a dairy on-site. This milk supply made it possible for Robert to feed his family and his employees at Longview. Because urban areas like Kansas City were widely affected by the scarcity of fresh food, Robert donated milk to the Children’s Hospital in Kansas City.
You can still spot Longview buildings with their creamy beige exteriors and bright, burnt orange terra cotta roofs in Lee’s Summit. Loula’s horse barn and arena is now Longview Farm Elementary, and neighboring Longview barn is being used as storage and workspace for the Department of Conservation. The Longview church is now Longview Chapel Christian Church. Many of the original 40-plus buildings were taken down to create Longview Lake.
As a lumber baron, Long’s main goal was to harvest quality wood that could be used for home construction. He was an early adopter of sustainability, refusing to allow his business to cause deforestation in western and midwestern America. His sustainability efforts began in Ryderwood, Washington, at one of the headquarters of the Long-Bell Lumber Company. Ryderwood was known as the world’s largest logging town. Here, Robert created a self-sustaining town for his employees. According to the Ryderwood Improvement & Service Association, this was the location where he “instituted a five-year program of reforestation.” A nursery was created on land near Ryderwood, where each year, Long would plant three to four thousand acres of new trees.
This article was originally published in the November/December 2024 issue of Missouri Life.
