photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Crews clean the outside of the Castle Tea Room building on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026.

Just a few years ago, it looked like Lawrence’s historic Castle Tea Room’s time as a gathering place might have been over.

Attempts to run an event business at the 19th-century home at 13th and Mass. – which really does look like a castle – simply hadn’t made enough money to cover the building’s upkeep. A custodian appointed in 2019 to help it out of financial distress thought that office space might be the most realistic use for it.

Its new tenants, though, are giving The Castle another shot as a wedding and event venue – and they say the community is “ecstatic” about it so far.

“We’re, like, drowning in inquiries, in a positive way,” said Jena Dick, who also owns J. Lynn Bridal in downtown Lawrence.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Cory Lauridsen, left, and Jena Dick are turning The Castle into an event space. They’re pictured Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, with some of the building’s stained-glass windows.

It’s not even been two weeks since she and Cory Lauridsen announced the plans for the event venue, which will be called “The Castle on Mass.” Their website right now is just a landing page with an email address for inquiries.

“And it was flooding! Flooding!” Dick said. “… Even if people weren’t like, ‘I want my wedding here’ or ‘I want something,’ they were pumped. They were like, ‘Let’s bring back tea!’ and ‘Let’s have events there!’ It’s all been very positive.”

Added Lauridsen: “I think the community is embracing it, because prior to an event space it was offices, which doesn’t really involve the community.”

The Castle hasn’t always been a place for gatherings and celebrations. When it was built in 1894, it was the private residence of Lawrence businessman John Roberts, who had made a fortune selling berry baskets.

But it became more of a community fixture after it was purchased by Libby Kriz-Fiorito and her husband, Dr. Louis Fiorito, in the 1940s.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

A painting of The Castle hangs alongside one of its staircases.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

This room in The Castle, pictured Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, was once Libby Kriz-Fiorito’s room.

Kriz-Fiorito not only lived there, she ran The Castle Tea Room restaurant there for decades, and it became a spot for wedding receptions, anniversaries and other celebrations. She was even inducted into the Kansas Restaurant Association Hall of Fame for her work.

When Kriz-Fiorito died in 2002, she left behind a nonprofit foundation to see that the building would be preserved. The Castle was restored in 2006, and the foundation did try to continue using it as an event space, but couldn’t generate enough revenue to cover the costs of operating and maintaining it. In 2019, a judge in Douglas County District Court had to appoint longtime Lawrence attorney Wint Winter Jr. as a custodian to try to fix the nonprofit’s finances, and the search was on to find tenants for it so it wouldn’t have to be sold to a private party.

Two tenants did move in in 2020: the United Way and a mental health treatment provider called The DBT Center of Lawrence. But the building’s use as office space meant that it “really went kind of dormant” in the community’s eyes, Dick said.

Dick actually considered renting The Castle herself and moving J. Lynn Bridal into it when it was previously up for lease. She said that, just to do her due diligence, she checks on available spaces around town every few years when her own lease comes up for renewal, and back before COVID, she saw The Castle was available.

“I’d gone through it and everything, and I was like, ‘This would be pretty sick to have a bridal shop in here!'” she said.

But it became clear that running a shop out of the building would be logistically difficult, and she already loved – and still loves – her current storefront in downtown.

Recently, she was looking around again and saw that, “Oh, the Castle’s up again!” And this time, she signed on. She and Lauridsen took over the lease in July, and they’ve been working to clean and brighten up the building since then.

“It needed paint, it needed all the drapes coming down – they were huge, heavy velvet drapes that covered the entire window; you couldn’t even really tell it was a wood frame,” Dick said. The building has needed electrical and HVAC work, window cleaning and washing the exterior stonework.

“Since we weren’t planning our opening immediately, that allowed for a lot of stuff that needed to be done here,” Dick said.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The outdoor courtyard area of The Castle is pictured Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026.

The Castle may not have a large banquet hall – that was one of the reasons Winter said that the previous events business wasn’t working. But The Castle on Mass. plans to solve that problem with its courtyard, where Dick said they’ll put up a big tent for weddings. Couples can get married outdoors in front of The Castle’s fountain, she said.

The rooms inside may not be big, but they’re perfect for more intimate gatherings, Dick said. An upstairs room, which was once Kriz-Fiorito’s room, will be a smaller and quieter gathering space with a bar. Another room on the same floor will be a “get-ready room” for brides, with an enormous mirror (which still needs to be moved up from the ground floor).

There’s plenty of old-fashioned craftsmanship for guests to discover, from the stained glass windows on the staircase that Dick and Lauridsen think will be perfect for photos; to the hand-carved wood accents, which are made from different types of wood in different rooms; to the five fireplaces, each with its own unique paneling. It starts before you even walk in the door, Dick said, with the lion-head door knockers outside. “Those lion heads, people immediately are like, ‘This is sick!'”

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

One of The Castle’s lion door knockers is pictured Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Jena Dick shows off the huge mirror that will be going upstairs for a “get-ready room” for brides on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, at The Castle.

It’s all ornate and formal, but not cold or austere, either.

“Sometimes castles, in your mind you think like cold and massive – not warm,” Dick said. “And (people) come in and they’re like, ‘Oh, this is very welcoming and warm!'”

Dick and Lauridsen have welcomed many people into The Castle already. They spent all day on Wednesday giving tours, Dick said on Thursday afternoon – “literally from 9 to 7 yesterday Cory and I were just walking around and talking about the place. We even had some people just come in off the street.”

Some of them had never seen inside The Castle – Lauridsen was like that, too, until this summer. And the first time people walk in, it always makes an impression. Among the visitors recently were a couple getting ready to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. The wife said she grew up a couple blocks away and had never been inside it before, and Dick said that when she saw it, “she was just thrilled.”

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for The Castle On Mass is scheduled in September, and Dick and Lauridsen anticipate people can start booking Oct. 10 and onward.

“It’s going to be insane,” Dick said. “I expect to have a lot of people wanting to come and see The Castle.”

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

A sign advertises The Castle on Mass event business outside the old Castle Tea Room building on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The doors of The Castle’s outdoor carriage house are still due to be repainted.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

One of The Castle’s fireplaces is pictured on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. The Castle has five fireplaces, each one unique.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The Castle’s stained glass windows are pictured on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

One of The Castle’s fireplaces is pictured on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. The Castle has five fireplaces, each one unique.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

One of The Castle’s fireplaces is pictured on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. The Castle has five fireplaces, each one unique.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The door handles at The Castle have intricate decorations.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The Castle is seen from its courtyard space on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026.