Lore and Love Letters

By Patty Swyden Sullivan

Missouri Life Built in 1909, the Taylor House is named for its original owner, John N. Taylor, an entrepeneur and civic leader. John died in 1932, and three years later, his wife, Elizabeth, divided the home into apartments. After the last surviving Taylor died in 1989, an absentee landlord rented the apartments to college students, and the home deteriorated.

In 1999, Deborah and Robert Tucker of Columbia bought the house and began the painstaking process of returning it to its former glory. After two years of work...