Longview Mansion

A 22,000 square-foot, 48-room mansion built in 1913-1914 by Kansas City lumber baron Robert Alexander Long. Called the Rural Versailles by The Kansas City Star, the mansion sits on 10 acres and underwent a $3.2 million restoration in 2018.

Longview Mansion in Lee's Summit, Missouri, was built in 1914 as the country estate of Robert A. Long, a millionaire lumber baron who transformed sixteen hundred acres of Jackson County farmland into one of the most spectacular private estates in the Midwest. The mansion, designed in the Colonial Revival style, featured twenty-four rooms, extensive gardens, a show horse arena, and grounds that rivaled the great estates of the Eastern seaboard. But it is Long's daughter, Loula Long Combs, whose spirit is said to preside over the property more than half a century after her death.

Loula Long Combs was a woman of extraordinary accomplishment and fierce independence. She became a world-renowned equestrian, winning horse competitions throughout Europe, Canada, and the United States, and made history as the first woman to drive in competition at Madison Square Garden. Her passion for animals extended beyond horses -- she was known to take in any stray dog that wandered onto the property, and her menagerie of beloved animals became as much a part of Longview as the mansion itself. When her favorite horse, Revelation, died, she had him buried with full honors in front of the Longview Show Horse Arena.

Loula lived at Longview until her death in 1971 at the age of ninety, and according to numerous witnesses, she has never truly departed. Her ghost has been seen riding horseback across the property, moving at a canter through the fields she loved in life. Students at nearby Longview Community College, which was built on a portion of the original estate, have reported hearing the sound of ghostly hooves on pavement and catching glimpses of an unknown woman on horseback in the areas surrounding the mansion.

When the Longview Mansion was selected as the Symphony Designers Showhouse in 1987, a staff member responsible for preparing the rooms made a disturbing discovery. Each morning, Loula's bed appeared to have been slept in -- the covers rumpled, the pillow indented -- despite being carefully made the night before. The bed had to be remade every morning throughout the event, as if Loula was still returning to her room each night.

Those who have worked at Longview describe Loula's presence as unmistakable -- a woman accustomed to being in charge who continues to oversee her estate from the other side. She drifts across the grounds accompanied by what witnesses describe as a cloud of animals, a spectral pack of the strays and beloved pets that she cared for in life. The image of Loula Long Combs on horseback, surrounded by ghostly animals, moving through the Missouri twilight, is one of the most distinctive and poignant hauntings in the Kansas City area.