Supposing a 140 year old Victorian mansion bought reveals that they have found a slew of hidden treasures

A Kansas couple has shared the mysteries and hidden treasures of a Victorian mansion they bought in Leavenworth two years ago.

Thad and Robin Krasnesky took up residence in the massive house, turning it into a sanctuary for rescued “cats, raccoons, and fish, and even rats.” page.

But the 140-year-old home continues to amaze followers as the couple discover the carefully preserved history of the home’s previous owners.

First purchased in 1885 and kept within one family until the 1970s, the Krasneskys are the most recent owners of a 900-square-foot treasure trove of secret chambers and hidden riches.

They spoke to DailyMail.com about the rare and puzzling discoveries of the “Krasnesky Manor for Wayward Cats.”

The Krasneskys moved into the house in 2021, a decade after they first saw it and “fell instantly in love with it,” Thad told DailyMail.com.

After leaving the military, Thad discovered the house was finally online and became “emotionally involved in the purchase,” against his intuition.

“But when you see the house, it’s easy to see why,” he said.

Thad and Robin moved in on December 20, 2021, moving in just in time for Christmas when the family started arriving: “It was chaos, but it was great.”

They then made their first discovery when Thad was dusting a 10-foot bookshelf and found a Civil War presentation stick and a pocket watch.

He was able to track down the owner’s heirs and return his findings.

He told DailyMail.com that they also found a box full of 1930s equestrian ribbons, and 30 or 40 old license plates from the 1960s stashed on shelves in one of the basement rooms.

From here the house began to reveal its hidden secrets.

In the attic, Thad found a loose floorboard. He pulled it up and found a “shiny thing” in the back.

“I put my hand back in and pulled it out, and there were two pots of silver coins,” he told KCTV.

They also discovered that a can of raccoons had moved into the attic.

“It’s not an ideal situation and we’re working to rectify it,” Thad told DailyMail.com, “but our organization focuses on animal welfare, so everything we do we do with the animal in mind to make sure they don’t take damage.

“At this point we have limited further damage and have come to an uneasy relaxation with them.

“We even decorated their attic space for Christmas and it has lights and a tiny tree and tiny stockings.”

Elsewhere in the house, they found books dating back to 1907, including The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850s historical fiction, and an inspiration for the movie Easy A 160 years later.

And under another floorboard he found a bag containing even more coins, dating back to the 1890s.

Most recently, on their Facebook page, the pair shared with followers the latest attempt to crack open a ‘mystery box’.

‘Simon [a cat] tried to help me unlock the mystery box this week.

“We had a box of keys that we found in a closet that goes to closets and stuff, but most of them are mystery keys.

“None of the mystery keys came with the mystery box.”

But the biggest mystery remains unsolved.

Downstairs, Thad removed old planks, pulled back some scrap metal screwed deep into the stone walls, and found a hidden room.

With the help of friends, he now removes dirt in the room to find out what it hides.

“The biggest mystery we can’t figure out at this point is simply why it was closed off in the first place and why it was filled in with four feet of dirt,” he told DailyMail.com.

“All the walls in the basement are all more than a foot thick, massive slabs of limestone. They go all the way to the floor.

“So why bother making an extra room and building the massive thick limestone walls if all you could do was fill it back in with soil and seal it?”

Since moving in December 2021, the family has been very interested in their dream home.

“As we researched the house and its history, we discovered that the original builder was related to the person who founded Rhode Island,” Thad said.

“We’ve also found a very tenuous and unrealistic connection through that line of the family to a couple of pirates who came from Rhode Island in the early 18th century.

“A little kid in me really hopes we’ll eventually find a pirate’s treasure chest in the middle of Kansas.”

The manor’s first owner moved in in 1885, but died three months later.

The house was then passed on to his daughter and later to his granddaughter, who died in the 1970s.

The new owners have taken care of the house, which still has the original woodwork and careful stained glass windows.

Thad told KCTV“The house is like, ‘Dude, I was here 140 years before you were here. I’ll be here 140 years after you’re gone.'”

The house has had its problems, with leaks exacerbated by harsh weather, he said.

But the sanctuary has become a home for more than just the family, with seven cats in the mansion, as well as three raccoons in the attic, five woodchucks under the porch, and a herd of about ten deer living in the field.

The old mansion has also attracted a fox, who lives at an old spring house, several coyotes, possums, skunks, two pairs of brooding crows, a barred owl, as well as “hundreds of other birds and about a billion squirrels.”

It also remains a point of interest for local history buffs.

The family organized a fundraiser for the Leavenworth Historical Society, organizing people to go onto the property with metal detectors, which found a few trinkets.

“One of the more interesting finds was made by our Facebook followers asking about a fake mirror in the library, so we quickly did a live event on Facebook.

“I climbed up the ladder to take down the old painting and remove the mirror, and I discovered a small space under the main staircase with several old books hidden in it,” Thad told DailyMail.com.

Now they are planning future functions on the mansion to benefit other animal rescues and the local library.

Filled with life and animals and a real appreciation for the home’s history, Krasnesky Manor for Wayward Cats continues to delight its new owners with hidden treasures.