A century-old brick building that once housed Brookside's police and fire crews is about to be filled with vintage furniture, designer fabric and gilded mirrors instead. Hydrangea House, a luxury antique and homegoods store owned by interior designer Jessica Carpenter and her daughter, Abigail Gaughan, has leased the two-story Tudor-style building at 22 W. 63rd St., with a soft opening planned for 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, timed to coincide with Holiday Spirits: A Brookside Cocktail Crawl.
The move marks a major leap for a business that started small. According to Startland News, Carpenter and Gaughan launched Hydrangea House in a 160-square-foot space inside Overland Park's Glenwood Antique Mall, where customer demand pushed them to keep expanding. They closed that original Glenwood space in mid-October after growing the footprint and rent along the way: the shop initially paid $165 a month, then expanded in February and again in March, with rent climbing to $2,270 monthly.
From Antique Mall Booth to Historic Firehouse
The new Brookside home dwarfs that starting point. The store is renovating what Startland News describes as a 6,265-square-foot former police and fire station, though Block & Company's own announcement lists the two-story building's size as 3,815 square feet — a discrepancy the available reporting does not explain. Carpenter brings more than two decades of experience as an interior designer to the project, while Gaughan still works full time as a nurse practitioner alongside running the business.
Hydrangea House now has seven team members and is preparing three truckloads of merchandise for the new location, including vintage and antique furniture alongside new European furniture and home furnishings, per the same account. The shop will carry fabric lines from Schumacher, Thibaut, Kravet and Covington, and it plans a conference room dedicated to fabric and wallpaper samples. Among the items for sale will be custom pillows starting at $350 for two, made in designer fabrics.
A Sister Brand Moves In Next Door
The west side of the building will belong to a sister brand called the Gilded Fox, which Startland News reports will lean into a darker, moodier, Ralph Lauren-inspired aesthetic — a contrast to Hydrangea House's own lobby, which is planned in a grandmillennial style built around corals, blues, greens, florals, china and gilded trumeau mirrors. Owners also plan to organize classes and possibly configure showrooms, with events planned for the building's upper level in late 2027.
A Building With Brookside Roots Going Back to 1918
The building itself carries decades of neighborhood history. Startland News reports that Station 29 opened in Brookside on June 1, 1918, and closed in 1978. After its public-safety days ended, the space became home to Fiddly Fig, the local florist that moved into 22 W. 63rd St. in 1995. The Kansas City Star reported that Sheryl and Joe White purchased the building with Sheryl White's late father. The Kansas City Star reported in December 2019 that Fiddly Fig occupied 4,000 square feet on the first floor and 3,000 square feet on the second before the Whites closed that location in late March 2020 and relocated to 9716 Holmes Road, combining operations with Teefey Flowers and Gifts under the Fiddly Fig name.
Block & Company's own account says Fiddly Fig occupied the building from 1995 until March 2020 before relocating to South Kansas City. A 2022 report from BizJournals noted that after being acquired in late 2019, the historic building changed hands again and was searching for a new tenant.
The Building's Recent Ownership
The Kansas City Star reported that Joe Zwillenberg became the building's new owner in 2019.
Hydrangea House and the Gilded Fox are preparing to fill the long-vacant building at a corner that has anchored the neighborhood since the fire trucks first rolled out in 1918.
