Apartment 1A

Owners past

RUSSELL and TERI PATTERSON

Best known dates at The Sophian, 1979-1998

Russell Patterson was one of the founders and the artistic director of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City for four decades. Patterson also served as the first music director for the Kansas City Symphony.

The Independent published a glowing profile of Patterson in 2013. "Russell made Kansas City’s cultural life forever richer. He was a musical entrepreneur. He would say, ‘Somebody needs to start a Sunflower Music Festival,’ and he started it in Topeka". Patterson played French horn for the KC Philharmonic; studied at the New England Conservatory; and founded the Missouri River Festival and the Buzzards Bay Musicfest in Marion, Massachusetts. "He was the first music director of the new Kansas City Symphony when it rose from the ashes of the Philharmonic in 1982."

1923 original floor plan: "A" stack

FLOOR PLAN CHANGES OVER THE YEARS

The most significant changes in the “A” stack apartments are how the owners have handled the “service” side of the apartment. In the original 1923 configuration, the service entrance from the common hallway had a straight shot to the kitchen, passing a small bedroom and bathroom reserved as a housekeeper’s room, and ending at the formal dining room which faces the Southmoreland Park and the Museum.

Nearly all apartments have closed the service door. Some still have the housekeeper’s room as a bedroom or office. Others have converted it to butler’s pantry or expanded the kitchen.

The second bedroom has also been the focus of remodeling in many of the “A” stack apartments. Some apartments have sealed the doorway directly into the living room, leaving the entrance through the sunroom. Most apartments no longer have a connection between the primary bedroom and second bedroom with a Jack-n-Jill bathroom opening into both bedrooms.

interiors Past | Apartment 1A

(2010)

Owners MARILYN GALLAGHER and MILLARD ALDRIDGE

Best known dates at The Sophian, 1999-2014.

"Marilyn and Millard decided to downsize: … '[W]e were about to rent a place in the Sulgrave when one morning Millard was reading the paper and said, 'You won’t believe this, but there’s a place for sale in the Sophian.' As they pulled up to the building she looked up and said, 'Oh, I hope it’s the one with the windows!” Indeed it was. She says, 'I walked in, saw the long wide hallway with the Palladian windows behind it in the living room and thought, ‘I love it!’”