I've only been in the Hornibrook House once.
Long ago, Kathleen, a fireball hellcat of a woman who looked like Betty Boop, worked at the spooky Hornibrook House.
It was spring at twilight, flowers blooming, overpowering with their sweetly smells, and Kathleen floated through the gardens surrounding the Queen Anne style house as if in a David Lynch movie. Dreamy yet surreal with dark undertones, shadows swirled around us – the same shadows that had fallen over the house for decades. What secrets did the garden, the house and even Kathleen hold?
That evening forever remains in my memory. I needed photos of myself snapped for a project, and Kathleen offered to do them at the Hornibrook House where she worked. The house had become the Empress of Little Rock Small Luxury Hotel and Bed & Breakfast, and Kathleen, well, I never really knew her title when she worked there. She simply acted like she owned the mansion, and perhaps in another life, Kathleen, ever ethereal, did.
Legend says the house was haunted.
No doubt, ghosts looked on as Kathleen escorted me through the rooms and up the staircase to the house's turret with vivid stain glass squares for windows where men once played poker. The stain glass radiated prisms around the room. The hint of cigar smoke lingered, and a haze floated in the small room, still with a poker table and cards on it. Real smoke from ghosts, imagination playing tricks, Kathleen conjuring? Hard to say.
Kathleen's beloved house, which sits in the historic Quapaw Quarter Historic District, is now on the market.
Zillow lists the house, which has a rare, divided stairway, stained glass skylight and octagon-shaped rooms, for $1,799,000 with 10 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms. It's been on the market since February, and the house is actually $100,000 lower than when it was originally listed.
The Zillow description states: "The Hornibrook Mansion, built in 1888, stands as a historic landmark celebrated for its extraordinary Queen Anne architecture—one of the finest examples of the style in the nation.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, it is now best known as The Empress of Little Rock, a beloved tourism icon and thriving Bed & Breakfast that welcomes guests from around the globe."
Filled with antiques and paintings, the house is "fully furnished and turnkey, ready to continue operating as a business, or it can be purchased as a furnished private residence."
Zillow calls the Hornibrook House one of the "most iconic and historically significant homes in the South."
History of the Hornibrook House
A 2012 report by Rachel Silva for the "Sandwiching in History" program states the "James H. Hornibrook House was listed on the National Register of Historic
Places in 1974 for its extraordinary Queen Anne-style architecture and is one of the best examples of the style in Arkansas."
Silva wrote that James H. Hornibrook was born in 1840 in Toronto, Canada. After the Civil War, Hornibrook, his wife, Margaret R. McCulley Hornibrook, and their children moved to Little Rock. In 1868. Hornibrook formed a partnership with a local saloonkeeper, Miles Q. Townsend, and the two men jointly operated a saloon and liquor distributorship for the next 22 years.
Hornibrook and Townsend then started Edison Electric Light Company.
Obviously, Hornibrook made a lot of money in his business adventures. He decided to build a mansion and in 1888, after seven years of construction, the mansion was completed at a cost of $20,000, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
But in 1890 tragedy struck.
Silva's report states: "In the early morning hours of Saturday, May 24, 1890, Hornibrook’s lifeless body was discovered just inside the front gate. The May 25, 1890, Gazette detailed Hornibrook’s final hours. He spent most of the day with his family, and after supper, he and his daughter rode downtown in a carriage, where Mr. Hornibrook proceeded to entertain friends at his saloon."
The men, including Hornibrook, left about 3 a.m in a streetcar headed home. One man accompanied Hornibrook to the front gate of the house.
Silva wrote, "But just after entering the gate, Hornibrook suffered an “apoplectic stroke” (could have been a stroke, aneurism, or heart attack) and collapsed on the pavement, striking his forehead. Nearly 3 hours later, a butcher’s delivery boy
found Hornibrook’s body and alerted the servants."
Hornibrook was only 49 years old.
His wife and daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren continued living in the house until 1897 when it became the Arkansas Women’s College. During the Great Depression, the Hornibrook House was vacant. During World War II, the house may have been used as a rooming house for women who worked at the ordnance plant in Jacksonville.
After the war, Miss Clare Freeman purchased the house and turned it into a nursing home for 20 years before it sold to a private family who turned it into a home for the disabled and the elderly.
In 1993, Little Rock couple – Bob Blair and Sharon Welch-Blair – bought the house and began restoring and renovating it into the marvel it is today.
In 2019, the couple sold the house for approximately $825,000, or $87 a square foot, to Antonio Figueroa and Keith Sandridge, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
Sharon Welch-Blair passed away in 2020 from leukemia.
Many rumors persist among paranormal types that the house is haunted. One constant is that Hornibrook himself may float down the stairs in period clothing and a top hat.
The Zillow listing doesn't mention the haunted aspect, but for a Gothic lover with deep pockets, the house would be the perfect haunt.
One has to wonder if now Kathleen doesn't visit Mr. Hornibrook in the wee hours before dawn. That would not surprise me or anyone who knew Kathleen.
Read more about the Zillow listing and view pictures here. To learn more about the house, read the 1974 application to the National Register of Historic Places here.
