An unidentified Kansas City-area buyer is close to completing the purchase of a multimillion dollar rural Lawrence estate that includes a 12,000-square-foot mansion, which the sellers describe as “one of America’s great homes.”

Lawrence attorney Jack Brand confirmed a Kansas City buyer has signed a contract to purchase the estate of the late Neil Mecaskey, a co-founder of Lawrence’s Maupintour Inc.

A 12,000-square-foot mansion in rural Lawrence has found a buyer from the Kansas City area. The mansion is part of the multimillion dollar estate of the late Neil Mecaskey, co-founder of Lawrence's Maupintour Inc. The kitchen is shown during a 1998 tour of the home.

Brand, who was Mecaskey’s longtime personal and business attorney, declined to release the name of the buyer or to say whether the purchaser was an individual or a group of investors. He also declined to say when the deal would close.

Brand said he was not certain of the buyer’s plan for the 138-acre estate, but he expected the home would remain a private residence rather than be used as an upscale bed-and-breakfast, which was how the property was marketed at one time.

The home, which is about 20 minutes southwest of Lawrence near Lone Star Lake, cost Mecaskey $4.8 million to build in 1994. Brand would not disclose the sale price, but in the latest edition of Kansas Alumni Magazine, an advertisement for the property listed an asking price of $1.6 million.

The ad called the price “an incomparable value,” considering all the home had to offer. Built in the style of the pre-Civil War homes of Natchez, Miss., the house has six bedroom suites, a 10-car garage, a swimming pool and cabana, a 61-foot by 47-foot combination hearth room/kitchen, four fireplaces, three living rooms, a 106-foot porch and $1.5 million worth of custom millwork.

“I think clearly in Douglas County it is the most unique residence of its kind,” said Beverly Smith, the property’s listing real estate agent with Alvamar Realty. “Its size, its quality of construction, the site, just everything about it makes it very unique.”

The home is of such quality that rumors circulated in the late 1990s that movie stars Tom Cruise and then-wife Nicole Kidman were going to purchase the property.

The property has been on the market since 1995, shortly after the death of Mecaskey. Brand said finding a qualified buyer for the estate has been a unique project.

“We worked very hard, and I think we’re both ready to move onto something else,” said Brand, who was reluctant to talk about the pending sale because the buyer has requested to remain anonymous.

The property has seen its asking price decline over the years. In 1998, the published asking price was listed at $2.95 million.

Despite being several years old, the house is relatively unlived in. Mecaskey only occupied the house a few months before a long illness forced him to leave and spend his final days in a Kansas City, Mo., apartment near his doctors.

Mecaskey joined forces with Tom Maupin in 1955 to operate Travel House, a modest Lawrence travel agency that grew into Maupintour, which became one of the nation’s premier wholesalers of upscale tours. Its headquarters were located in west Lawrence until last year when it relocated to Nevada.