Hays Post
A historic home in downtown Hays has a new look, thanks to a local couple.
Larissa and Kris Munsch spent the bulk of last summer working on the exterior of the house at 117 W. 13th. They have reopened the home, formerly the bed breakfast the Tea Rose Inn, as the Inn at 117.
Larissa, who bought the house two and half years ago, runs a group on Instagram called Oldhouselove, which has more than 84,000 followers.
“I have always been obsessed with old houses and loved old houses,” she said. “This was a dream house for me when I purchased it.”
Larissa met Kris at another old house. The couple joked Kris, who also has a love for old houses, married Larissa just to get the house.
The home was built in 1909 by early Hays entrepreneur Justus Bissing Jr. He owned the local mill and built other homes in the city, including the Mary Elizabeth Maternity Home. Bissing was involved in bringing electricity to the City of Hays, and he also designed and built furniture, some of which is in the collection of the Ellis County Historical Society. This included an intricate wooden light fixture.
Larissa has a special affinity for old lighting and has restored several antique pieces for the house.
Bissing lived in the home for about two years before it was purchased by the John Basgall family. Generations of the Basgalls lived in the home until the 1990s when attorney John Bird bought the house.
The Basgalls owned a grocery store that was in the building now occupied by The Paisley Pear. The grocery store was then moved to 13th Street behind the house.
One of the family’s descendants, Dale Wolf, the great-grandson of Irene Basgall Wolf, gave the Munsches a number of antiques that had been used in the home. These included rugs, a Tiffany-style lamp, rocking chair, a shoe shine kit and a family photo.
Eventually the house was turned into a bed and breakfast, the Tea Rose Inn.
Larissa said she would like to work toward having the house placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The home is already located in the historic downtown Chestnut District, which is on the national registry.
When Larissa bought the house, the interior was in good condition, but the home need extensive work to its exterior.
Larissa spent a couple of days at the Ellis County Historical Society researching Bissing, the Basgalls and the house. She was able to find a couple of historic photos of the homes on which the couple has based the renovation.
The Munsches aided by a couple of Fort Hays State University students spent a month and half scrapping old paint, power washing and replacing damaged wood on the exterior of the house.
“Had we wrapped the house in hardy siding,” Larissa said, “you just lose so much character. You lose the character. You lose the history of the house. It is wasteful … more material to the landfill. We knew the right thing to do was to fix the siding.”
Kris said, “Putting vinyl siding on an old house is like putting dress pants on a pig.”
For every square nail in the wood siding on the 3,200-square-foot Victorian home, the Munsches drove new modern nails. This required the entire house to be recaulked.
The Munsches still need to do some work on the porch, but thus far they have put 68 gallons of paint on the house.
The house had been originally painted tan, brown and white. Larissa wanted to be a little more colorful, but maintain the historic integrity of the house. She researched historic color pallets and decided on four colors, a mint green, gray, maroon and white. Trying to decide where to put different colors was like a giant puzzle, they said.
The Munsches also replaced the crestings on top of the house. Kris said he thought the crestings had originally been wood and rotted away. The couple replaced them with iron. In an effort to bring the house back to as near as possible to Bissing’s, original vision, the square supports on the porch were replaced with round columns with crestings.
“The whole time we worked on the outside and the whole time I built those porch columns,” Kris said, “I am thinking about Mr. Bissing—Justus Bissing, the guy who originally built this house. That guy was a craftsman. Every time we would finish something, we would step back and say, ‘I think Mr. Bissing would like this.’ There is a lot of that and a lot of pride.”
Larissa said, “It is like I don’t own this house. I am just a steward of this house. I am a steward of keeping the architecture alive, the history alive.”
The Munsches needed to replace the wooden skirt molding than ran along the outside of the house. The Munsches went back to the old mill in Hays and were able to find the original cutter head used to make the original boards. New boards were made using that cutter head.
On the interior, the couple added stenciling to one bedroom and the entryway ceiling. Larissa said the original home would have had wallpaper, but she did not want to burden future owners with stripping wallpaper.
Larissa said she wanted to restore the home as much as possible to original, but over the years the home has been updated with modern comforts the couple wishes to keep, including modern bathrooms and kitchen and air-conditioning. The home is still heated by a boiler through radiators, which the couple said keeps the home toasty in the winter.
One of the next projects for the house is the replacement of the oriole window that originally faced 13th Street. Larissa said she believed the window was probably damaged in a storm and removed.
“What we are cursed with is that she finds these original things …” Kris said. “The challenge is that she finds something like that and learns more about it. I love to build stuff that is a challenge, so instantly I started thinking in my mind, ‘Can I build this? Could I build this?’ Now that we know that was on the house, without a doubt, we know that it has to be put back on the house.”
Larissa said, “If you go outside and look at that side of the house, it changes the whole look of the house. It is just so amazing and beautiful. We feel it just has to be put back on.”
Larissa said she can’t imagine ever selling the house, but the couple already has another project. The couple is getting ready to move a 1910 Craftsman 70 miles from Ness City to their workshop in Hays so that it also can be restored. They hope to eventually move into that home and will open up the fourth bedroom at 117 to boarders.
“I have probably redone 50 house in town, but somewhere along the line, I don’t want to flip houses anymore,” Kris said. “I don’t want to just buy a house, clean it up and sell it. There is no challenge in that.”
The Munches currently live at the Inn at 117. They use the kitchen and living room and the third-floor bedroom. The three bedrooms on the second floor, which each have private baths, are rented through Airbnb. The inn can be booked directly through Airbnb or the inn’s website will redirect you to the Airbnb site.
The Munsches have been steadily booked and have had guests from all over, including Taiwan, England and both coasts.
“You get to meet really cool people,” Kris said.
Cost to rent a room is $60 to $76 per night, depending on which room you choose and time of stay. This includes a cleaning fee. Airbnb offers discounts for extended stays. Although the inn no longer offers breakfast, the Munsches have partnered with the Golden Griddle, which offers a 10 percent discount to inn guests.