This year’s home tour to benefit Hand-in-Hand Hospice promises everything from modern to historical, and some surprises along the way.
The annual tour will be from 2 to 5 p.m. May 4. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door. There are four homes on this year’s tour. Tickets can be purchased at any of the CoreFirst Bank locations; the Newman Regional Health gift shop; Hand-in-Hand Hospice; Dayton’s Hobbies and the Medicine Shoppe.
Homes on this year’s tour include the Gufler home, 612 W. 12th Ave.; the home of Gilan and Susan Cockrell, 739 Road 200; the home of Char and Steven Miller, 502 W. 15th Ave.; and the home of Jim and Deb Rathke, 1545 Berkeley. Today, we peek inside the first two houses. On May 2, we’ll profile the other two houses.
739 Road 200
Gilan and Susan Cockrell built their 5,000-square-feet home in 2001. The home sits on 40 acres and is open and spacious with lots of natural light coming in through the windows intended to give guests a view of the lake behind the home.
The Cockrell home has four bedrooms and 3 1/2 baths with a walk-out basement and media room complete with a 108-inch projector screen. A patio both on the main level and in the basement of the home allows for outside access.
The kitchen of the home is large and open with a center island. The large area allows everybody to gravitate to the kitchen, Susan Cockrell said.
Cockrell said her husband enjoys electronics and gadgets. He even thought to put a switch on the inside of the house in one of the walk-in closets to turn the outdoor Christmas lights on and off. The large movie screen is wired so Gilan Cockrell can use it for viewing while surfing the Internet.
Inside the master suite is a large bathroom with a walk-in shower. Cockrell added that the shower is handicapped accessible and the entire house is designed so that a wheelchair can easily maneuver around inside.
The basement holds the other three bedrooms, the media room and a family/game room. A 1949 Coca-Cola machine that takes nickels also is downstairs, as are Coca-Cola bottles from around the world.
The bottom bookshelves of the family room were designed to hold tall children’s books for the Cockrell’s grandchildren. Cockrell said it was one of the stipulations when the home was being built.
Several personal touches adorn the home, including paintings done by family members, and the fireplace upstairs has a piece of wood mounted above it that came from the corral of Gilan Cockrell’s parent’s farm.
612 W. 12th Ave.
Built between 1915 and 1917, the home of Albert Henry and Mary Gufler is for sale, but will be open and ready for the homes tour. The Gufler home has a history as rich as the woodwork that adorns the 7,453 square foot home.
The Gufler home has three floors and a basement, eight bedrooms, four bathrooms and is zoned both as a single family home and a bed and breakfast. Guests that enter the home through the front entryway are greeted with the large staircase that leads to the second and third floors. Ornate crown molding, which was originally made of plaster and horse hair, is visible.
The Guflers moved to Emporia in 1901 from Ottawa to take over management of the Poehler Mercantile (now Poehler Antique Mall). Albert Gufler had a hand in many Emporia and Lyon County projects. The Guflers sold the home in 1946 to the Kappa Sigma Epsilon fraternity. In 1953, the home sold to Tau Kappa Epsilon. It sold again in 1984 to the Peterson family and has seen three owners since that time.
The home has a music room, a parlor room, a solarium where Gufler grew his orange and lemon trees, library, dining room, two kitchens and a carriage house, which has been transformed into a two bedroom, one bath apartment. The third floor and basement of the home are still under renovation. The ballroom used to be on the third floor. The second floor holds many of the bedrooms, including the famed “purple room,” which is where Herbert Hoover stayed when he visited Emporia.
The library on the first floor is where the original blueprints for the home and pictures, articles, historical documents, video and TKE memorabilia are housed.