Kansas City's most expensive mansion ever is across the street from the dump
Like any king, Ron Deffenbaugh enjoyed surveying his kingdom from his castle.
Unlike most kings, his dominion was Kansas City's trash, and the crown jewel was the Johnson County Landfill in Shawnee, Kansas.
So he built his 13,000-square-foot mansion directly across the street from Deffenbaugh Industries' dump, where 800 garbage trucks roll in around the clock every single day.
Let's be honest: The location stinks.
"It depends on how bad the weather is. You get some evenings when it’s calm and it’s pretty rank," mansion next-door neighbor Bruce Bird told the Kansas City Star.
Ventilation systems are pretty important in the neighborhood, letting folks take indoor refuge from the refuse. "Most of us that live around here have pretty decent kind of heating and air-conditioning system with filters and UV, all that sort of thing, so that when the odor does get bad outside, it doesn't get bad inside the house," Bird told KCTV.
Deffenbaugh died last year at 73. The estate trustees considered subdividing the property, or perhaps converting the mansion into an institution for people with spinal cord injuries. (Deffenbaugh's neck broke in a freak accident in 2007 — he fell off an X-ray table — and he'd been a quadriplegic since. He built the mansion afterward, sparing no expense in making it both luxurious and completely handicap-accessible.)
But subdividing would be problematic because of sewer lines, and the institution conversion would be a lot of work.
Instead, the trustees opted to list it as a luxury single-family property.
The asking price is $14 million — the most expensive listing the Kansas City metro area has ever seen.
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