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A couple from Kansas have shared the mysteries and hidden treasures of a Victorian manor they bought two years ago in Leavenworth.
Thad and Robin Krasnesky moved into the vast home and set it up as a sanctuary for rescued ‘cats, raccoons, and fish, and even rats’, updating fans on an online page.
But the 140-year-old house has continued to amaze followers as the couple uncovers the carefully-preserved history of the home’s past owners.
First bought in 1885 and kept within one family until the 1970s, the Krasneskys are the most recent owners of 9,000sq-ft treasure trove of secret rooms and hidden wealth.
They spoke to DailyMail.com about the rare and puzzling discoveries of the ‘Krasnesky Manor for Wayward Cats’.
The beautiful ‘Krasnesky Manor for Wayward Cats’, bought by the couple two years ago
Simon (pictured) helps his owners sort old keys to open a mystery box in the house
The couple have found many old coins dating as far back as the 19th century in the house
Thad Krasnesky spoke to DailyMail.com about the discoveries at his Kansas home
The Krasneskys moved into the house in 2021, ten years after seeing it for the first time and ‘falling in love with it immediately’, Thad told DailyMail.com.
After leaving the military, Thad found the house had finally been listed online and became ’emotionally involved in the purchase’, against his intuition.
‘If you see the house though, it is easy to see why,’ he said.
Thad and Robin moved in on December 20, 2021 and moved in just in time for Christmas as family began to arrive: ‘It was chaos, but it was wonderful.’
They then made their first discovery when Thad was dusting a 12ft-tall bookshelf and found a presentation cane from the Civil War and a pocket watch.
He was able to track down the owner’s heirs and return his findings.
He told DailyMail.com that they had also found a box full of equestrian ribbons from the 1930s, and 30 or 40 old license plates going back to the 1960s that had been stashed on shelves in one of the rooms in the basement.
From here, the house started to reveal its hidden secrets.
In the attic, Thad found a loose floorboard. Pulling it up, he found a ‘little shiny thing’ stuffed in at the back.
‘I stuck my hand back in there and pulled it out, and there were two jars of silver coins,’ he told KCTV.
They also discovered a gaze of raccoons had moved into the attic.
‘Not an ideal situation and we are working to rectify it,’ Thad told DailyMail.com, ‘but our organization focuses on animal welfare, so everything we do is done with the animal in mind to ensure they are not harmed.
‘At this point, we have limited any further damage, and have come to an uneasy détente with them.
‘We even decorated their attic space for Christmas and put up lights and a tiny little tree and tiny little stockings.’
The family found silver under the floorboards and raccoons living in the attic, for whom they put up a little Christmas tree and some festive lights after moving in
They started finding ancient treasures after dusting a 12ft bookshelf in the house
Beautiful decorative items found by the couple throughout their house. On Facebook, fans speculated the item on the left might be part of a necklace or earrings. The right is a ring
‘I hope to find the story behind this chandelier in the boxes and albums left behind for us,’ they wrote online
Elsewhere in the house, they found books dating back as far as 1907, including The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 historical fiction and an inspiration for the film Easy A 160 years later.
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And under another floorboard, he found a satchel containing even more coins, dating back to the 1890s.
Most recently, on their Facebook page, the couple shared with followers the latest attempt to break open a ‘mystery box’.
‘Simon [a cat] tried to help me unlock the mystery box this week.
‘We had a box of keys that we found in a cabinet that go to closets and things, but most of them are mystery keys.
‘None of the mystery keys went with the mystery box.’
But the biggest mystery remains unsolved.
Downstairs, removing old shelving, Thad pulled back some old metal bolted deep into the stone walls and found a hidden room.
With help from friends, he is now removing dirt inside the room to find out what it conceals.
‘The biggest mystery that we can’t figure out at this time is simply why was it sealed off in the first place and why was it backfilled with 4 feet of dirt,’ he told DailyMail.com.
‘All of the walls in the basement are all over a foot thick, massive slabs of limestone. They go all the way down to floor level.
‘So why go through the trouble of making an extra room and building the massive thick lime stone walls if all you were going to do is re-fill it with dirt and seal it up?’
They found books dating back as far as 1907, including this version of The Scarlet Letter
Cats belonging to the family are seen in the beautiful old manor, featuring original woodwork
Photo shows the interior of the home full of unsolved historical mysteries, cats and raccoons
The house has become a home to many kinds of animals, including woodchucks
The family has taken a deep interest in their dream home since moving in in December 2021.
‘As we have researched the house and its history, we have discovered that the original builder was related to the person who founded Rhode Island,’ Thad said.
‘We have also found a highly tenuous and unrealistic connection through that line of the family to a couple of pirates that came out of Rhode Island in the early 1700s.
‘A little kid in me is really hoping that we wind up finding a pirate, treasure chest in the middle of Kansas.’
The manor’s first owner moved in in 1885, but died three months later.
The home was then passed on to his daughter, and later to his granddaughter, who died in the 1970s.
The new owners have taken care of the home, which still features its original woodwork and carefully stained glass windows.
Thad told KCTV: ‘The house is like, “Dude, I was here for 140 years before you were here. I’m gonna be here 140 years after you’re gone.”‘
The house has had its issues, with leaks compounded by harsh weather, he said.
But the sanctuary has become a home to more than just the family, housing seven cats inside the manor, as well as three raccoons in the attic, five woodchucks under the porch, and a herd of about ten deer living in the field.
The old manor has also attracted a fox, living out by an old spring house, several coyotes, possums, skunks, two pairs of nesting crows, a barred owl, as well as ‘hundreds of other birds and about one billion squirrels’.
It also remains a point of interest for local history buffs.
The family hosted a fundraiser for the Leavenworth historical society, organizing people to venture out on the property with metal detectors, who found a few trinkets.
‘One of the more interesting finds was instigated by our Facebook followers who were asking about a fake transom in the library so we quickly did a live event on Facebook.
‘I climbed up on the ladder to take the old painting down and remove the transom, and I discovered a small space that was tucked up under the main stairs with several old books hidden in it,’ Thad told DailyMail.com.
Now, they are planning future functions at the manor to benefit other animal rescues and the local library.
Filled with life and animals and a real appreciation for the home’s history, Krasnesky Manor for Wayward Cats continues to surprise its new owners with hidden treasures.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
