Strawberry Hill Museum & Cultural Center

The food, service and decor was so wonderful. Highly recommend. The staff is informative and they have a quaint little gift shop. A great collection of the different cultures in the region.

I highly recommend that you go online and make reservations to tour this beautifully decorated home and museum during the holidays. It's stunning! The tour is $10, takes about an hour, and if you have a good guide (which unfortunately we did not), you learn lots of interesting history, including that the home was turned into an orphanage after the war and the Spanish flu destroyed families and left many children homeless. Although the power went out for part of our tour due to the bajillions of tiny holiday lights and old wiring overload, it was so worth the trip! Although the home's decorations will probably never be as gorgeous as during the Christmas season, I am already planning another museum/home tour because there was SO much to see, and so many fascinating displays to explore, an hour was not long enough. The original woodwork, intricate parquet floors, and leaded glass throughout the home could be a whole tour on their own! I also recommend a drive around the area to see some of the many historic churches in the vicinity.We also had reservations for lunch at the tearoom based on a glowing recommendation from a friend, but I think this must have been an "off" day for them, perhaps in part due to the unexpected power outages. I'll try the tearoom again another day. And if you go, ask for hot tea with your lunch. It's a treat ser in lovely antique china cups, with two different flavors of tea,

Went for the Holiday tour. The thing that bothered us was when we were outside the front door ready to go in a gentleman asked what our last name was. I stated and he said Oh and turned around. Was nice at first then bam. I do not think he was part of the organization I dont really know. But I found out why later. It really is for someone that has a Croatia background. At least you will appreciate it more. We enjoyed the story and history and building. The guide kept pushing us through to keep the hour in store. Felt it was going to fast. Sorta like and as we pass this you will see this but dont stop to look. Guide was someone disorganized. Rather would have enjoyed a self guided tour with literature better. The Holiday decor was very well put together.

Visiting a former orphanage with your children is a sobering experience. As the tour guide talked about motherless babies, I instinctively held mine a little closer. Our trip to the Strawberry Hill Museum and Cultural Center in KCK left me in a brooding mood, feeling very thankful for my own small brood.The ornate Queen Anne mansion started out in 1887 as the showplace of successful attorney John Scroggs and his wife, Margaret. It was the finest home to be built on "Splitlog's Hill" and the Scroggs family lived there for over 30 years. As the 1918 flu epidemic ravaged the country, a local priest urged the parish to open an orphanage in the area to house the growing number of parentless waifs. So, the Sisters of St. Francis of Christ bought the Scroggs mansion for $15,000 spent the next 70 years raising children there. In 1988 the property entered its third incarnation, as a museum to promote the region's rich Slavic history.Each country/ethnic group has a room filled with traditional costumes, old photographs and random memorabilia. The time capsule effect is haphazard, but fascinating. Croatia is undoubtedly the rock star, with the most floor space and an entire wall dedicated to Nikola Tesla. The most cherished exhibit seems to be the collection of personal travel effects used by Pope John Paul II - including bed sheets & the seatbelt from his TWA flights. The mansion and adjoining chapel get a flamboyant makeover at Christmas time. Representatives from each country come in to decorate their rooms with authentic seasonal flair. In short, everything is glitzed and gilded to the hilt. In child friendly terms, the museum is a bit of a gamble. There are many breakable objects, and younger children will be extremely tempted to touch them all. Our 4 year old was on his best behavior, but I suspect that the eerie atmosphere of the upper floors had something to do with his solemn attitude.He gripped my hand as we spiraled up the creaking staircase, and stared with saucer eyes at the hair raising nun mannequin that was all decked out in a floor length habit and peering at us from within a darkened room. "She's not real," the tour guide reassured him. Uh huh. After we got home, I did a bit of research and found out that the Strawberry Hill museum has at least one resident ghost. Despite the fact that she perished as the result of a botched abortion, "The Lady in Red" seems to be a friendly phantom and has been known to greet people with a pleasant "hello!" before vanishing into thin air. A caterer setting up for an event on the top floor claims that she was chased by a male specter bearing a strong resemblance to the mansion's original owner. A visit to the Strawberry Hill Museum during the holidays marries festive frippery with the macabre. It truly is a consummate nightmare-before-Christmas experience!NOTES: The museum is only open on the weekends (last tour at 4:15pm). There is a Tea Room on the ground floor, but it was already closed when we arrived. Be sure to sit awhile on the mansion's wraparound porch; the views of downtown are magnificent.Photography is not allowed inside the museum.Read more on my KC Blog, The Family Unit (see Profile for link).

Are you of European ancestry? Did you or your family grow up in Strawberry Hill in KCK before the highways came in and knocked the hill down? Looking for Pope memorabilia? Diehard Catholic? You've come to the right place.The people who work there all live (or lived) in the Strawberry Hill area. They're such a friendly group and will be glad to share their personal history. Our tour guide talked about the history of the area and the house (which was a mansion for a wealth family and then became a Catholic orphanage run by nuns). The mansion itself is quite ornate and it's amazing that it's intact after 80 years worth of children coming through the place. You can see beautiful hand carved woodworking, ceiling and floor panels, a fireplace under a wooden stairwell, and other ornate vintage things you rarely see in today's houses.They have a chapel where you can pray downstairs and a functioning tea room (where you can experience yesteryear). Upstairs, the former nun's rooms were turned into a Pope Room (where they have many items TWA setup for the Pope when he was visiting the US including his bed, toiletries, etc.) and the other rooms are all setup to represent various ethnic/country backgrounds such as Croatia, Sweden, Ukraine, etc. I found the downstairs fascinating, but when I came upstairs, I found the various ethnic rooms kind of cheesy. Also, the Christmas decorations in the house I found quite out of place as well. They lessened the value of the experience. It appeared little more than a random haphazard collection of Christmas decorations donated over the years from families that were clearing out their basement of dollar store ornaments. The Chapel would have been a much more meaningful experience with less "Christmas clutter."I really enjoyed talking to the various family members going back 3 generations worth who worked there who told me about how things changed over the years. It's a shame that the highway project caused the retail and restaurants to close that were tied to the community.Of note, parking is a cinch. We parked right in front!

Strawberry Hill Museum was always on my list of places to go. It especially intrigued me since I'm from an Eastern European background, have lived there and have several friends from the former Yugo. I just never got around to it until one day a lady caught me with half my body inside a cedar trunk reading an old newspaper and our conversation turned to best historical sites in the metro area. She said Strawberry Hill at Christmas was on her top three list and that they go overboard decorating.Well, gosh darn, it was about a month before Christmas and now I just had to go. Convinced the not-as-good-half to come out with me since visiting museums is up on his list as well.Overboard decorating isn't the terms I'd use. There are a number of rooms in this former mansion turned orphanage turned museum. All were decorated by little old grannies and overzealous repressed gay men. You'll see what I mean if you go. Having never grown up with something like that, I've got to say that it's kind of cool. What's cooler is if you get behind the decor. The stained glass windows in the front from yesteryear are amazing. The woodwork around the house is just incredible. Despite its history and usage, much of the old infrastructure still remains and that's pretty amazing in this tear-it-up-and-move-farther-out-in-the-suburbs area.When you get upstairs, you go through various rooms that have memorabilia from the old country. Each room represents a different country in the CEE (Central Easter European) region. It is kind of schlocky and reminds you of those 5th grade plays where you dressed up like an ancestor from 100 years ago, all the kitsch included.I saw stuff that my mom has from the old country that she'd always bring out and discuss all nostalgic about her childhood. I do admit that it helps if you're from a CEE country. I'll admit even more that if your roots are from KCK, this place will by a 5-star experience for you, or at least close to it.Yeah, so it's probably more of a solid 3.5 stars. I decided to bump it up to four since they're a wonderful arts organization that tries to keep an old community alive in spirit and hold onto the history of the people in this former community. They also were pretty good at answering my barrage of questions, which as a cultural history buff, I always throw at people.PS - They have a little tearoom with snacks. We got there too late to sample but I'd go back for some kolache or something.

If you have any Eastern Europe ancestry, Strawberry Hill is worth checking out. You will score extra points for bringing your grandma or mom, because they will love all this old stuff. Score extra, extra points for taking your grandma or mom over the holidays when they deck it out with every Christmas decoration they can find. Score extra, extra, extra points for paying to stop in the tea room.

We thoroughly enjoyed our tour of the Strawberry Hill Museum. The volunteers were so friendly & knowledgeable. We just happened across the museum the day they reopened after decorating for Christmas. What a wonderful coincidence! I would like to go back & see it without the decorations so I can thoroughly appreciate all the architectural details.