When looking to purchase her first home in 2010, Tamar Tunnell knew immediately that she wanted to find a home in Northeast. She grew up in the Northland but frequently visited the Kansas City Museum, and fell in love with the old homes, the history and lore of the surrounding Northeast neighborhoods.

At that time, the crime rate was rising and the housing market crash had left behind many vacant houses. Many of her friends and family tried to deter her from purchasing a home in the neighborhood, but she ignored their cynicism. “To me, it was the opportunity to live in an old stone home close to my favorite museum with a soda fountain in the basement!” Tunnell said.

Now, after nearly a decade of renovations, her 1928 two-story stone house is nearly complete.

“The beauty of our neighborhood is that the architecture of the homes is just as diverse as the people that live here. Where else can I have a neighbor that was a school teacher in Iraq who fled Saddam Hussein tyranny, another from Vietnam with a gorgeous Bonzai garden in his yard, a next door neighbor that is a plumber and will help anytime I call, and yet another neighbor with a huge Italian family that always makes wedding cookies and shares some when she ‘makes extra?’” Tunnell boasts.

“As I like to say, pull up a chair, make a little sweet tea, have a good front porch sit, and get to know your neighbors.”