FOR SALE: $7 Million Queen Anne Mansions

Welcome back to Preservation Travels with Lane and Kevin. We are absolutely over the moon to bring you what I think is the most spectacular rehabilitation project I've ever had the honor of being in. And not only is it a spectacular rehabilitation project, it's for sale. Now, in my opinion, this beautiful home's highest and best use would be as a luxury high-end boutique hotel. It is set up top to bottom, ready to go. All you'd have to do is come, bring the staff, and start taking your reservations. Welcome to the Wright Mansion, now known as Eureka Springs' Queen Anne Mansion. This beautiful home now sits nestled in the heart of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The city rose to prominence during the late 19th and early 20th century, world-renowned for the healing power of its waters. This beautiful Victorian village thrived for decades on end and remains a popular tourist attraction to this day. But this home didn't begin its life in Eureka Springs. In 1891, industrialist Curtis Wright built this beautiful mansion with the money he made from his mining fortune. In 1984, this property was in danger of being demolished and was taken apart piece by piece and moved here to Eureka Springs, Arkansas along with its sister property next door. It was meticulously reconstructed and served as a tour home for many years. It fell into disrepair, as these properties often will, and went on the market for sale. That's when in 2006, the Lovell family came in and saved this beautiful mansion once again. The Lovells spared no expense of time or money to recreate each and every beautiful detail that was missing and turn this glorious Queen Anne Victorian masterpiece back into the mansion it was originally. So come inside and let's take a look at this glorious Queen Anne Victorian. Here we are inside this unbelievable Victorian Queen Anne mansion. Again, let me give you a little refresher. What do we mean when we say Victorian Queen Anne? For our friends across the pond, that gets very confusing and we get a lot of emphatic denials that that style could possibly be a thing. But the Victorian Queen Anne style was developed in the 1880s by British architect Richard Norman Shaw who wanted an eclectic, exuberant architectural style for which he could pull from many different eras to create a whole new style that was uniquely his own. So in these beauties, these Queen Anne Victorian beauties, we see asymmetrical roof lines, towers, turrets, lots of fretwork and gingerbread work and an incredible mix of architectural styles across the ages. So that's what we mean by Queen Anne Victorian. You can thank your fellow Brit, Richard Norman Shaw. This home is a stunning example of that. Now, for those of you who've been here a while, answer me this question. Does the front have a turret or does it have a tower? It has a tower because as you remember, a turret stops at the roof line of the porch and extends from the second story upward. A tower extends all the way from its highest point into the basement. So this home has a tower. Well, here we are in the grand front entryway. Let's talk a little bit about the architecture and art that we find in the construction of this home. You'll see in this space, all of our hardwoods are oak. These beautiful architraves and entablatures with their incredible carved design. The pièce de résistance of this entryway that separates the front entry from the rear entry is this incredible meshrabia over my head that has this gorgeous spindle work and above us, we see a sunflower and sheafs of wheat engraved within God We Trust. All of the woodwork in this room, as I said, is oak and expensive hardwood to use at the time. The double front intro doors feature beautiful beveled leaded glass and of course, the stairway that exits out of the back entry up to the second floor is a marvel unto itself. But we'll see that in a minute. The first room off the entry would have been the butler's office. This is a space where the butler would have spent a great deal of his day awaiting guests' arrival so that he could be on hand whether he was called from the family or to welcome guests in. Here we see our first beautiful mantle. This one carved in oak and it has a gorgeous blue marble surround. The stone surrounds in each of the fireplaces in this home are not original. The current owners have taken exquisite time and care to select a different stone for each mantle place in homage to the original builder's mining origins. Well, here we are in the formal parlor, the room in which guests would have been received when they came to visit the Wright family originally. Can you guess what the showpiece of this room is? You're right. The glorious leaded, beveled, and jeweled glass window behind me. Now, here's a little secret that not many people are going to know. When the Lovells came to purchase this house in 2006, the previous owner had already contracted to sell the window behind me. But it was a condition of the sale for the Lovells that the window stay intact. So, once again, we have the Lovell family to thank for this beautiful mansion remaining in its original condition. The wood in this room is no longer oak. Here we have cherry, a very fine and very expensive wood for the day. Each of the window surrounds is highly carved with a matching, beautiful foliate design on the fireplace. This is the ladies' parlor. I love this room. Here behind me, you'll see the tower, which extends, again, from the basement all the way up past the second floor to the third floor. And eventually, we'll take you all the way up to the third floor to show you the top of that domed tower. But I love imagining the Wright family sitting inside that beautiful tower, doing embroidery, visiting, hosting guests for tea. I love this space. A smaller, more intimate space, but, once again, glorious cherry wood surrounds on two sets of eight-foot pocket doors, another exquisite mantelpiece with highly incised florid design, and gorgeous pink granite surround. This room could serve a number of functions. And because the way this home is laid out, we really have to guess as to what it was originally used for. With a beautiful oak coffered ceiling, oak wood mantelpiece, it has a slightly more masculine feel. So, was it the gentlemen's parlor? Very likely. Or could it have been a billiards room? I know that I can certainly imagine a beautiful billiard table right here in the middle of the room, where the gentlemen could have retired to enjoy their after-dinner drinks and a fun game of billiards, while the ladies enjoyed more refined entertainments in the ladies' parlor. Let's take a look at the exquisite dining room. What an absolutely marvelous space this is. This dining room is monumentally large. It features a glorious, beveled, jeweled, colored art glass window overlooking the backyard. Then, absolutely stunning, we have this open gallery to overlook to the bottom floor. This gives you an idea about the exquisite level of attention to detail that was paid in this restoration rehabilitation. This is an open space. It is a gallery that overlooks a stairway that is an exact replica of the original stairway that goes to the second floor. The one that exits to the bottom floor is not original. It is a complete recreation. I suspect that when this home was originally built, this space would have been pocket doors that would have opened up to an ancillary room off of the dining room that would have served as a solarium, a green room of some sort. But now is an open space to a bottom level that has a number of guest suites down there. We'll take you down there in just a minute. But again, when you walk into this home, unless you are a professional trained eye, you cannot tell the difference between what is original and what has been replicated. It is a true work of art. Let's take a look at the kitchen spaces. Right off of the dining room, you'll see that we have a fully equipped and ready to function commercial kitchen ready for you to start your business today. Off of the commercial kitchen, we have a small residential kitchen that could be used by the owners as their personal kitchen if they wanted to live in the home. In the back hall, which would have been the servant's hall, we have two large restrooms for men and women. And then we have the access to the servant staircase. Oh, this Newell post with its Newell lamp are so glorious, they almost make me want to weep. That's how we preservationists feel when we see art of this type in architecture. We have repeated again the sunflower motif in this Newell post, and I would love to know the symbology for the Wright family. The architect of this home was C.W. Terry, and he brought this 12,000 square foot mansion to life for the Wright family. And I know I, for one, would have loved to have been part of the conversations taking place to design this spectacular monument. Let's go upstairs. We'll start here on the second floor in the landing of this amazing floor space. This home has been converted, as I said, already to a luxury boutique hotel. And on this floor, we have four complete suites ready for you to go. This home will be sold completely furnished. The only thing not included in the sale will be the original art on the walls. So you'll have everything you need, like I said, to start your business right away. Architecturally, I'd like to point out to you that on the second floor of this home, all of the wood that's used in the surrounds, in the mantels, in the fretwork, is maple. Normally, in a second floor space that's meant to be a private space, we have woods that are of lesser quality. We've talked about it before. We have pine normally in these spaces. But high-end exotic woods were used even here on the second floor, which shows the amount of wealth that our industrialist builder had. Let's take a look at the four guest suites. The third floor, where I am now, has two beautiful guest suites, one of which we're in right now. And there are a couple of things I wanted to point out to you specifically. Behind me, as promised, is that third floor tower room. That little space right there would be enough for me to spend the rest of my life in very, very happily. Now, I told you the house comes furnished, and there is museum-quality furniture in every single space in this house. If I took the time to point out every museum-quality piece of furniture in this house, this video would be several days long. But I had to show you this little goody because this is one of my favorite things. I have kind of a personal penchant for these. This is a Wooten Desk. These were invented in the Victorian era, and they were famous for having 110 cubbies. So maybe we could say this is an early flash drive for storing all of your information. The Wooten Desk is yours. If this hotel becomes your new space. In this suite, one of my favorite pieces is this precious Capitamonte chandelier from Italy. Well, look at this glorious staircase. Looks like a completely original staircase, doesn't it? This beautiful turning, the incised carving. This staircase is only about 10 years old. The Lovell family had this staircase beautifully recreated, copying the staircase in the front entryway to give us access to the bottom floor of this house. So come with me and see what treasures await down here. Here we are in the bottom floor of the Wright Mansion, and you'll see around the walls of this room photo documentation of this glorious house being disassembled in Carthage, Missouri and brought here to its new home in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. In 1984, the cost to move it was half a million dollars. Extrapolate that out today. Let's not even talk about what kind of numbers that was. Down here on this bottom floor, you have two more amazing guest suites and then, fabulous surprise, a movie room to enjoy your favorite classic films. Now let's go inside this 2,500 square foot Queen Anne Spa. Thanks for joining us today on this tour of the Wright Mansion in beautiful Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Are you the next caretaker of this beautiful property? This property includes the 12,000 square foot mansion, the 2,500 square foot spa, the beautiful grounds, which are 4.23 acres, and comes fully furnished and equipped for $7 million. If you think you're the next caretaker of this property, we've got the link in the description below and the number for the real estate agent. I'm out. I'm going to snuggle up and enjoy our restoration nation. Bye!