Marvin Gardens Private Basement Apartment

Large living room and full kitchen are private for you except in case of Emergency. (See house manual) Two blocks from ESU & 4 blocks to our Historic Downtown. Residential neighborhood, separate entrance through garage. Fully finished, carpeted, walk-in basement (NO stairs). The small bedroom is cool & quiet with a ground level window. Queen bed with a 3" memory foam top. Pull-out sofa-bed on request. NO TV but WiFi is strong for personal devices. Laundry service &/or coin-op 3 blocks away. A semi-private fully finished walk-in basement apartment. The house is built on the side of a hill and the bedroom and living room are partially above ground. Both have nice windows that looks out into the back yard as the ground slopes downward. You have daylight and views of grass, trees & sky. The space has a cozy, quiet ambience. Bedroom has a queen size bed with a 3" memory foam topper, a variety of sheets for all seasons and plenty of blankets available. It has two H/A vents you can manually adjust to suit you. It has a large closet and storage above. Great Room/Living Room: Huge 25’x25’ room has nice seating area with full size pull-out sofa and is large enough to set up a full air mattress. Separate Kitchen: Full sized Refrigerator, stove, microwave, coffee pot, dishes, pans, etc. Stocked with basics for cooking, including some spices and condiments. Laundry Room is NOT available to guests until further notice during the pandemic. There is a coin laundromat two blocks away on 12th Ave. near Sylvan Street. Your separate entrance is on the ground level next to the garage door. You come through my garage into The Great Room, a 25’x25’ living area. The bedroom opens from the Great Room and is across from the bathroom and kitchen. If you need the laundry room, please let me know 24 hours in advance so we can agree a timeframe and I can unlock the privacy door. Storm Shelter: Under the upper level front porch behind the solid white door right next to your outside entrance. Or use the bathroom and pull a mattress topper to put over you. Each level operates independently (except for HVAC) and you will probably not see me, unless there is an emergency or you invite me to visit. I am available between 9 AM and 9 PM if you need anything. Please send a text via the Airbnb message system. If I need to pass through from the garage to use the inside stairs because of inclement weather, or to carry heavy objects, if possible I will let you know in advance. I will knock and call out to let you know I'm coming. Usually when I need to talk in person to guests in the basement, I will call, text, knock or ring your front doorbell. My car is parked in the garage that you pass through, so you may occasionally hear me come and go even if you don’t see me. We are in a mid-century neighborhood near ESU campus & downtown. There are river walking trails nearby and easy access to the country and gravel roads for bicyclists. Do-B's Burger Barn has something for everyone and is in walking distance at 12th Ave & East St. Downtown you will enjoy Ru Yi (Asian), Amanda's (sandwiches), Casa Ramos (Mexican) and Bobby D’s Barbeque. Radius Brewery has award winning signature craft beer and Mulready's Pub is a great place to relax. Be sure to stop in at the Sweet Granada for delicious chocolates. Ad Astra Food & Drink is only a 20 minute drive to Strong City, when you head out to the Tallgrass National Prairie Preserve or Pioneer Bluffs, all in the wonderful Flint Hills. Please park in the east driveway (right side). Street parking is only legal on the (opposite) south side of the street. We are within walking distance to ESU, two grocery stores, and lots of great shopping and cultural opportunities in our Historic Downtown district. Marvin Gardens—The Story My Dad was R. Marvin Schadt, a Professor of School Administration at KSTC (now ESU) and building houses was his hobby. We moved to Emporia in 1959 and to find good housing was a problem so he decided to build again. I was old enough to participate. Dad sometimes hired professional contractors, but he was a die-hard do-it-yourselfer who knew how to keep expenses down. He was among the first repurposing builders and used good salvage and new materials. You might be surprised, since the house is professionally constructed with many customized touches. Commercial builders have marveled and puzzled at things he did. In 1960, the entire shell appeared to be finished from the street, but our family of six moved into the lower level walk-in basement where we lived for six years. My mother, Florence, and children had lived in an unfinished basement with Dad before, so she insisted he finish this one first. The upstairs was mostly storage and construction zone where Dad worked in his spare time. I often helped by being his tool gofer. The trouble was he also did moonlighting as a consultant for small rural school districts. In 1966 my parents decided if they didn’t hire help the kids would be grown and gone before moving into their dream bedrooms. Dad had a carpenter friend help finish in six weeks and we moved up. Why do I call it Marvin Gardens? Dad was also the gardener in the family and he planted trees, roses, lilacs, forsythia and shrubs. In the front is a Silver Leaf Maple and I remember the day strong winds broke one sapling limb. I can show you where the new limb sprouted in this gorgeous 50-year-old tree. He also planted a Sycamore for quick shade, but oh how I get to clean up after it now. He planted a row of Barberry Bushes along the retaining wall that I have worked to revive but they need more sun. Dad lived out his latter years in the house. In 2004, soon after he armchair-supervised the planting of six poplar trees in an aging terrace garden, he passed at age 93. Mother later hired a landscaper to repair the terrace, also added more roses and daylilies. After living 33 years away from Emporia, in 2007 I came back from Alaska when I was very ill. I moved back into the basement with my 92-year-old mother upstairs. After I recovered I stayed to help mother, like she had helped Dad, to live out the rest of her life at home. I walked the lot and was stunned with how much the gardens had suffered through years of drought. After decades of living places I could not garden, to take this on was daunting. Every inch desperately needed attention. Mother was too old and I was overwhelmed. Mother paid for hoses, sprinklers and regretted the days she refused to let Marvin put in an underground sprinkler system. I simply began to water, just water everything as much as possible. I progressed by planting one small bare spot that bugged me most. In a few places Dad never quite figured out how to solve the unique gardening problems of living on the side of a hill. Mother and I were tired of seeing the erosion on the curbside slope and she paid landscapers to help me transplant Vincas from what had grown rampant in the planter. Mother paid to have Iris planted in the back terrace from what we chose together at Toad Hollow Daylily and Iris Farm east of Emporia. I have so many more gardening stories to tell… After Mother passed in 2013 at age 98, I hired a gardener friend to put in daffodils next to the Barberry and transplant English Ivy along a bare strip. We did a lot, but there is so much more it still seems endless. Now I’m on my own, doing it all. That’s one reason why I chose Airbnb, so the house will support itself and I can afford to create a gorgeous garden worthy of its name to honor my parents. I have always dreamed of sharing my home with others. I never dreamed I would live here again, but after a couple years I saw Emporia through new eyes and rekindled my love affair with the Flint Hills. Nor did I dream I could buy out my three siblings’ share of the property. Sometimes our hearts desires are dreams we dare not dream but they can come true when we finally dare to live the dream. Marvin Gardens is a dream-work in progress, inside and out, and I live the dream one day at a time. Thank you for choosing to share my dream through Airbnb.