CARTHAGE, Mo. – Zillow Gone Wild has a reputation for sharing the online realtor’s oddest and most ostentatious home listings across social media.
Weeks ago, the account highlighted an all-black ‘goth house’ north of Springfield, Illinois that drew gasps and jokes online.
Coming out of Christmas weekend, Zillow Gone Wild shared a listing for a pair of Victorian-style mansions in southwest Missouri situated on nearly 13 acres.
The homes have a combined 8 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms (10 full, 1 half) over 16,851-square feet. Realty Executives Tri-States posted 222 photos with the listing, showcasing authentic Carthage marble, stained and beveled glass, ornate chandeliers, and intricate woodwork. But we suspect it’s not the late 19th-century architectural features you’re here to see.
You can take a virtual tour of both three-story mansions and check out the walk-in safe, as well as a long tunnel connecting the basements. But the virtual tour fails to include two especially unique features of the property.
A full-sized caboose is stationed on abandoned tracks behind an unassuming grey carriage house on the property.
In addition, there is an enclosed brick gazebo containing a wooden throne that appears to have been carved from a large tree growing through an exposed opening in the floor.
Dr. John Carter had the original mansion (with the wrap-around porch) built between 1893 and 1896. A veteran of the U.S. Civil War, Carter served as both soldier and physician in the Union Army. He moved to Carthage after the war and married.
Carter ultimately became the largest landowner in Jasper County, Missouri, with 3,000 acres to his name. Much of that land was given away and the city named a nearby park in Carter’s honor.
Carter died in 1913 at 79 and the beautiful brick mansion was eventually painted over. He was inducted into the Hall of Carthage Heroes in 2013.
Many decades later, cable and radio businesswoman Ruth I. Kolpin Rubison bought the Carter mansion and sought to restore the home. She succeeded in having the paint removed and lived out her remaining years in the carriage house. Kolpin Rubison died in April 2019 at 96. She was inducted into the Hall of Carthage Heroes in 2015.
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