It's probably apt that Villa Panorama Mansion was included in Sunday's Heisinger Homes Tour. The home at 1310 Swifts Highway has a history of being open to the community in various ways.
In 1919, 12 years after being built, 382 St. Mary's Hospital patients were temporarily cared for there after the hospital burned down. In 1948, it was donated to a Catholic order to be used as a seminary. Priests lived there for more than two decades. Then, in 1969, Don and Grace Kruse lived there with their five children for 11 years.
Their children went to Helias High School across the street, but it wasn't just their kids' friends who came there.
"We left the side door open," Grace Kruse said at her former house during Sunday's homes tour. "Helias kids knew they could come in any time, day or night to visit."
When a Helias student felt ill, school officials simply sent them across the street to Villa Panorama to lie down on a bed. If a sports team arrived back in town late at night and some of the athletes didn't have a ride home, there was always a bed for them there.
In the early '80s, it was a restaurant before being named to the National Register of Historic Places.
Carolyn Mills, the current owner of the home with her husband, Michael, said that when they bought the home in 2002, they considered making it into a bed and breakfast.
Carolyn Mills and Grace Kruse both said they fell in love with the home at first sight. For Mills, the ornate woodwork was one of the reasons why. Kruse loved the area and the six acres of land that came with it. After buying the home, her and her husband bought another four acres behind the home.
"It was a treat to get to see this home," said Beverly Buschmann, one of the many people who toured the home on Sunday. "The woodwork and furnishings are what impress me. They have beautiful antique furniture."
Darlene Hurst, sister of Carolyn Mills, donated a Christmas display for the tour. "Everything is still homey. It's not stuffy," she said of the home.
Those who fell in love with the home on Sunday like its current and past owners might soon have a chance to do more than just walk through it.
Carolyn Mills said she and her husband are considering downsizing, and they might put the home up for sale next year.