KCRag Forum

January 22, 1994

Private person puts his talent on display

Author: JOSEPH POPPER

Article Text:

There are very few homes in Greater Kansas City so frequently stared at, wondered about or remarked upon as Jim Tharp's concrete aerie atop the hill on 17th Street just west of Interstate 35.

"I rarely meet anyone who hasn't seen the house and thought about it," said Tharp recently. He is a businessman and lawyer who built the structure himself in 1983.

"I know that people going by on the interstate look up and wonder what kind of life goes on here," he said.

And little wonder. The house is unique. It's a modernistic structure in the shape of an inverted L - a solid-looking vertical concrete slab supporting a horizontal, glassed-in living area suspended almost 50 feet in the air.

Though he is acutely aware of the constant scrutiny, Tharp said, public attention was the last thing he had in mind when he designed the house.

"I don't know why in the world I built anything so visible," he said. "I certainly don't have any delusions of grandeur. I'm really quite private and usually just keep to myself. The whole thing was completely out of character for me. " Far more reflective of his personality, he said, was his previous house, which he constructed almost entirely underground.

It was covered with earth and virtually invisible. He built it in 1980 on the lot next to his current home.

"It was almost perfect," Tharp says. "I had it to a point where no one even knew I was there. I built a stone wall so I couldn't see the highway and they couldn't see me. " The earth house was designed with no windows on the west side, the side facing the residential street. On the east side, though, facing the highway, Tharp installed 50 feet of glass, which gave him both a panoramic view and an unexpected sense of dread.

"I began worrying about people with guns coming through that glass," he said. "I would lie awake in bed and think about it for hours. " That particular variety of urban angst became so irksome that Tharp sold the earth house to a Lutheran Church mission and began planning his new residence. He knew that he wanted to stay on the hill.

"For the view," he said. "All my life I've been attracted to the high ground. Back in the early 1960s, when I was in high school, I used to sneak out on the runway at the Municipal Airport at night just to look up at the lights of the city. " His fascination with the night view, he said, was the primary consideration when he designed his new house. Security, he added, was secondary.

"I'm really not a recluse," he said. "I accept risk, but I want to know what it is so I can control it. To live in a city like this you have to control your environment or eventually you get hurt. " Security may not have been his paramount concern, but a quick walk around the base of his house reveals only two points of entrance: a locked garage and a single steel doorway. The rest is concrete.

"There's not even a doorbell," Tharp said. "I can't be reached unless I want to be. " Traffic is mesmerizing On a recent evening, as a heavy fog rolled across the city, Tharp invited a reporter up to see the view from his living space. He dimmed the lights and stared out at the traffic on the interstate below. Barely a murmur from outside penetrated the 8-inch thick concrete walls.

"It's like a snake of lights," he said, pointing at the traffic flowing along the highway. "In the silence up here it's mesmerizing. Sometimes I watch for hours. " When Tharp began building the house 11 years ago there were some odd reactions. One TV news anchor referred to the towering concrete wall as a "vertical bowling alley. " That structural wall (Tharp calls it the "tube" because it is hollow) rises 49 feet above the top of the hill. It contains an elevator and severa l levels of storage space.

From the roof atop the tube, the drop is so sheer, so vertiginous, that even those unafraid of heights recoil reflexively when they first look over the wall.

"Just imagine how I felt," Tharp said. "I put a layer of Styrofoam insulation on the exterior while hanging on a scaffold.

And I have a terrific fear of heights. " He looked over the wall at the driveway. It seemed very far below. "I guess I've walked a fine line all my life," he said. "I get a lot of satisfaction out of testing the edges, out of taking risks. But only those risks I'm comfortable with.

"I used to race formula cars, and I still drive 140 miles an hour on the highway on a regular basis. But I wear a harness and I drive defensively. I don't want to get hurt. " Engineer handled details When Tharp began designing his house, he said, "hundreds of people" gave him suggestions. He finally created a scale model he liked out of foam blocks and then turned the technical planning over to a structural engineer.

"I wanted it to look organic, like it was carved out of rock," he said.

The towering structural wall was built with steel and poured concrete. The 1,800 feet of living space is anchored in that wall and supported in front by two steel rods. Tharp did almost all the construction himself.

"I learned to walk the steel," he said. "I spent a year on the job. I had just brought a business to a successful conclusion and it seemed a good time to take a year off. I was like a kid with an Erector set. " Tharp, who grew up in Kansas City, Kan., has by his own count owned and operated eight or 10 successful businesses in this area.

Perhaps his best-known venture was Vee Village, a Volkswagen repair center he ran near Downtown in the 1960s and '70s.

"I lived on top of Vee Village," he said. "At night I had total isolation in the heart of the city. I barbecued right out on my roof. I loved the feeling of being alone but surrounded by city life. " He prides himself on having conducted his various businesses with the same kind of independence and determination he brought to car racing and home design.

"I guess I've done things a little differently than most," he said. "I still think one of the primary roles of any business is to generate jobs. I will gladly make less money if it allows me to hire more people. But I'm afraid that's not the case for most businesses these days. " He stared out the window at the rolling fog. "I suppose I've always enjoyed challenges," he said. "I just love it when people say I can't do something. I just love it. "

CAPTION: The house at 1745 Jefferson St. is shaped like an inverted L. Motorists passing by on their way to or from Downtown on Interstate 35 often look at it and wonder.