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May 24, 2023

Elvis slept here? Maybe. But now you can at Kansas City area’s new Elvis Retreat House

The Elvis Retreat House at 3416 S. Crysler Ave. in Independence opened Feb. 15.

The Elvis Retreat House at 3416 S. Crysler Ave. in Independence opened Feb. 15. The Airbnb is a former private home built by a prominent dentist and his wife in the 1950s. (Emily Curiel/The Kansas City Star/TNS)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Wade French and his family searched for a fun, unique place to stay for their first visit to Kansas City. They found it in a modest-looking yellow ranch house that hit all the right notes.

When they arrived at the new Airbnb in nearby Independence, French unlocked the door, opened it, and there it was: a swimming pool shaped like a guitar.

"I like to see the looks on my kids’ faces. And they were like ‘oh my God,’" said French, a high school band teacher in Cody, Wyoming, who brought his family to town during spring break.

Four local friends have pooled their money, muscle power and areas of expertise to convert a well-known private home in Independence into a midcentury modern homage to the king of rock ‘n’ roll.

The Airbnb, at 3416 S. Crysler Ave., opened in February, and reservations already stretch into the fall. The first handful of guests so far have all left five-star reviews, the highest possible.

French's family vacations a couple of times a year, staying often at Airbnbs. Online, he said, the Elvis house looked "really cool. Indoor pool. Elvis theme. Really good energy."

The house's history inspired the name and theme. Lore has it that Elvis himself slept there while touring Kansas City in 1956 and years later. Elvis might even have inspired the pool, too.

The man with the gyrating hips is said to have been a friend of the first lady of the house, the wife of a prominent dentist who built the five-bedroom, 6,000-square-foot home in 1955. Elvis gave his first concert in Kansas City the following year.

The house has changed hands several times since 1973, and listings over the years have mentioned the Elvis tie as a selling point.

"Elvis slept here! By many accounts it's true! The King himself used this as his ‘home away from home’ while touring in the late 50s and 60s," said the real estate listing when the partners bought the house last year.

It has never been open to the public, one reason the partners wanted to turn it into an Airbnb.

"Every time it got sold it went viral," said co-owner Cody Bellah, a mortgage banker who lives in Lee's Summit. "It would get shared on everybody's Facebook page. ‘I want to try to buy this,’ or ‘how cool would it be to buy this.’"

He and his business partners spent four months of late nights and long weekends peeling away decades of outdated interior design decisions to restore the home to its original midcentury vibe. Though they’re not Elvis fans, they played his music as they worked.

"It was like polishing a really old penny and this really beautiful copper comes out," said Bellah.

A dentist built this

It looks small from the outside. The nondescript ranch with the weird roof of glass awnings — that's the vaulted roof over the pool — sits a quick drive from the Truman Sports Complex. Because of its location, the new owners hope the house appeals to sports fans from out of town.

"This property is really, really infamous, especially in Independence," said Bellah. "Everybody … knows this house. They’ve seen it, drove past it, worked on it or tried to buy it."

Bellah, who is 41, has had his eye on it since he was a 20-something starting out in business. But years ago it would have been an unwise investment — an expensive home surrounded by more moderately priced houses. It was like "trying to sell a Lamborghini at a Ford dealership," he said.

Valuations in the neighborhood eventually caught up. And last year, when the house went up for sale again, the partners bought it for $460,000 and spent $200,000 on renovations, Bellah said.

According to land documents Bellah has reviewed, the one-acre lot was originally owned by William M. and Mabel E. Erickson in 1955. They sold the property to dentist Kenneth E. Cole and his first wife, Bessie, both now deceased, and the Coles built the house.

It appears Bessie Cole is the Elvis connection.

‘Atomic-powered singer’

Maybe, Elvis escaped to the house the night of May 24, 1956, when an overwrought, hormonal crowd of teenage girls forced him off the stage at Municipal Auditorium Arena, according to an account in The Kansas City Times (the sister paper of The Star then).

The headline said: "Elvis Presley Flees to Car After 20 Minutes On Stage."

It appears he was only able to make it through "Heartbreak Hotel," "Blue Suede Shoes," "Long Tall Sally," "I’ve Got a Woman" and "My Baby Left Me" before he had to make a break for it.

"Elvis fought his way clear of the hysterical swarm of teen-age girls that broke through the police lines, then he jumped into a motor car parked in the corridor backstage and was off like a frightened gazelle," wrote reporter Bill Moore. "He left in the middle of a note if the act he had been performing could be called singing."

Moore was less impressed than the girls were.

"Elvis, who is 21, is billed as the nation's only atomic-powered singer. Some of the adults in the audience commented … that if this is the use to be made of atomic power, the idea of splitting the atom was the saddest mistake the world has made," Moore wrote.

Elvis appeared four more times in Kansas City in the 1970s. Bellah has spent hours poring over land records, obituaries and accounts of those performances to figure out when he might have stayed at the house. Process of elimination has him focused on the Coles as well as Donald and Darlene Ogilvie, who owned the home from 1973 to 2000.

Diamond in the rough

When Bellah and his partners first walked through last September, the house didn't appear to be in bad shape, he said, just outdated. But it needed more love than they realized. They painted, tiled, knocked down walls, installed new ceilings and floors and more.

The decor was mishmash. This bathroom looked like the Jetsons decorated it. That bedroom was oh so Victorian.

"You could see when people owned it in the ‘70s they put ‘70s stuff in. Then the new owners in the ‘80s put ‘80s stuff in. Then owners in the ‘90s put ‘90s stuff in," said Bellah. "It was never really renovated, just updated.

"It all got ripped out. We went over budget a lot."

Bellah and two of the partners — Chris Bingham, who owns an excavation company, and Eric Brunk, who works at the Ford Assembly Plant — did most of the work restoring the ‘50s ranch to its midcentury modern roots.

French's children saw photos of the bedrooms online and rushed to grab their favorite ones as soon as they arrived.

One bright-white bedroom has green, palm-leaf wallpaper on the focal wall behind the bed that matches the ‘50s green sink, tub and toilet in the adjoining bathroom. The finished basement is a suite with a living room, queen-sized bed, bunk beds, bathroom and kitchenette.

"The pool is great but the housing arrangements … the home part is beautiful," said French.

The theme is Elvis but there is no Graceland gift shop kitsch here.

Guests enter through the pool room at the back of the house. But if they used the original front door they would walk straight into a living room that looks like a "Mad Men" set.

A coffee table with a kidney-shaped glass top sits in front of a retro-inspired sofa — orange, low-slung and L-shaped with squared-off arms. An Eames-inspired chair sits next to it. Matching Sputnik chandeliers with trademark spindly arms and globe lights hang from the beamed, vaulted ceiling.

The men decorated the house, shopping for retro furnishings mostly on Amazon. They chose dining chairs with scooped backs and tapered dowel legs, rugs with geometric patterns, and benches and bedside tables with hairpin legs. They learned how long it takes to assemble a ‘50s-style TV console. The learning curve was steep.

Bingham knew nothing about midcentury modern when they started, "and I know a little bit now," he joked.

People want to know about the makeover.

"The questions I’ve received so far are what motivated you guys to do this, how long did it take and what shape was it in," said Bingham, who has suggested the friends create a scrapbook so guests can see what the home used to look like.

"It's not a brag that we need but it's been a really big question. Before and after," he said.

An Elvis old-fashioned

The house, which can sleep 16, rents for about $550 during the week and $1,300 a day on weekends. The price goes up when big events like concerts are in town. Pets aren't allowed because the owners don't want pups accidentally falling into the pool.

About $1,500 went into the swimming pool, where French's children and a couple of their friends tossed a ball around before the group headed to downtown Kansas City for sushi and "Hamilton" at the Music Hall last Tuesday night.

The family left a five-star review.

"Our group had 10 people, 8 were adults and 2 were 16 year olds, perfect for our family!" Wade French wrote on the Airbnb website. "The pool was awesome, love that everything didn't smell like chlorine in the home. Most indoor pools have that problem."

Because of the glass roof, the pool room is airy and bright even on a cloudy, rainy day. Two palm trees stand tall and sentinel-straight at poolside. The lounge chairs are curved and sexy. There's a dining table, six-burner grill and 120-inch projector screen.

The room can be bathed in color. Chiefs red? Blue suede shoes?

There's a bar next to the pool under a big neon sign that says "The Elvis Retreat House." On the nearby wall are Elvis-themed drink recipes for guests to try. (If you BYOB.)

"If you love both whiskey and peanut butter & banana sandwiches then this Elvis Old Fashioned is for you!" reads one recipe made with peanut butter whiskey, banana liqueur, honey and two dashes of orange bitters.

There's also a pool of the billiard kind and arcade machines in an adjacent game room, where most of the Elvis memorabilia lives.

The walls are decorated with Elvis tabloid covers, Elvis clocks, a couple of Elvis Pez dispensers, framed concert posters, and the front page of The Kansas City Times from that infamous day in 1977.

"Elvis Presley, King of Rock, Dies of Heart Attack."

Bessie Cole, the dentist's wife, reportedly was an FOE — Friend of Elvis.

Bellah recently learned from a real estate agent who sold the house in the past that Bessie had a lot of say in the design of the house. It's believed she designed the guitar-shaped pool for her superstar friend.

The pool leaked when the partners bought the house. They replastered it themselves, laid down epoxy and added a new detail: They painted guitar strings on the bottom.

Just don't tell anyone that there are only five strings instead of the usual six.

It it just might get guitarists all shook up.