Sue Ramsett-Kretz and her husband, Chris, love old homes and own four of them in the Davenport Hilltop area.
When the media executive and graphic designer, respectively, first moved to Davenport in 2017, they bought a 1905 home near Vander Veer Park, next to the historic E.P. Adler House.
They proceeded to buy that 1916 home and carriage house (2104 Main St.) from St. Ambrose University, and the nearby 1871 mansion at 1527 Brady St., also sold by Ambrose. All are open for public lodgings and events, and the renamed, restored Hilltop Inn is expanding its calendar of fun activities, including a Mistletoe & Martinis mixer Friday night, Dec. 5.
“My husband and I have always loved old houses since we were children. We finally found the house of our dreams when we moved to Davenport in 2017,” Sue said Monday, Dec. 1. “We noticed the house next to us, which was owned by St. Ambrose, was not getting a lot of use. So eventually they agreed to sell that to us. And our hope is ultimately to turn that into a home where our son with autism (now 20) can live with some other differently abled adults and a caregiver. But that's a ways off.
“So we had to come up with a way to cover that loan and make that make sense for us. So we're turning it into a family business,” she said of using the Adler property as a VRBO and Airbnb.
Sue was general manager at KWQC-TV (nearby on Brady), as well as Gray Media regional vice president for four other stations – in Quincy, Ill., Rochester, Minn., Mankato, Minn., and Sioux City, Iowa, and was let go due to corporate leadership changes in early 2024. She has her own marketing/PR firm now, Ink and Feather Boutique Marketing (clients include Robbie Wolfe and Danielle Colby), and serves as board chair for Common Chord.
As a media veteran, Sue also appreciates the iconic history of the Adler family in QC journalism.
Emanuel P. Adler (1872-1949) became a printer's apprentice at the age of 13. He was working in the mechanical department of the Ottumwa Courier when he was discovered by the paper's publisher A.W. Lee. Adler became a reporter for the Courier and was then sent to Davenport as the business manager of the Davenport Times. When Lee died in 1907, Adler took over as president of the Lee Syndicate, now known as Lee Enterprises, and held the position for more than 40 years. Under Adler's guidance, the company grew to include newspapers, radio, and TV stations.
Davenport’s Adler Theatre was renamed in 1986 for E.P. Adler and his son Philip.
Lovingly restored in 2023, the 1916 Colonial-style house in the Hilltop area features a main floor with an open kitchen, formal dining room, cozy living room with a fireplace, a 4-seasons room, and a pub/game room. Upstairs, there are four bedrooms — three with full bathrooms — along with a screened sunroom/sleeping porch. The large private backyard has a patio with a fire pit and a charcoal grill.
The Carriage House sits at the back of the property and is also available for short- or long-term rental. This upstairs residence has also been fully restored and offers a comfortable living room and dining area, a full kitchen, two bedrooms, and a full bathroom.
Sue and Chris Kretz bought the Adler House in August 2022 and spent about six months cleaning and renovating it into an Airbnb. They acquired what became The Hilltop Inn in November 2023, as SAU was moving its office furnishings, equipment, and supplies out (the private school used the home for its advancement and alumni relations functions, including hosting alumni and networking receptions).
Heaven on the Hilltop
The gorgeous, elegant Hilltop Inn is filled with original woodwork, stained glass, marble fireplaces, parquet floors, and many antiques. The three-floor home boasts 10 bathrooms, seven bedrooms, six decorative fireplaces (none functional), three sitting rooms, two dining rooms, and a full kitchen.
The house was built for John Dahms in 1871. He lost his fortune and was forced to sell the house in a sheriff's sale in 1880 to Frank H. Miller, a wholesale grocer. He had been Davenport's largest wholesale grocer from the Civil War to the turn of the 20th century, according to a history of the house (as with the Adler home, on the National Register of Historic Places since 1983).
In 1907, the house was purchased by the Catholic Diocese of Davenport and became the residence and headquarters of the diocese's bishop.
Bishop James Davis established the first Carmelite Monastery in the Midwest adjacent to the home in 1911. He continued to live in the residence until he died in 1926. His successor, Henry Rohlman, lived in the house until 1933, when he moved to the Selma Schricker House on Clay Street. The Miller House became the novitiate for the Sisters of St. Francis of Clinton, Iowa. After the sisters moved out in 1941, it was bought by Thomas Hinrichsen, and the house was divided into six apartments to house workers at the Rock Island Arsenal.
The house was bought from Hinrichsen by Herb Tyler in 1989 and was completely renovated and turned into a bed and breakfast called the Bishop's House Inn, which was named after the two bishops who had made it their home. St. Ambrose bought the bed and breakfast in 1995 and operated it until May 2008. At that time, the building was repurposed to hold private and public functions on the ground floor and office space on the upper floors.
After buying it, the Kretzes made several repairs, including on the main roof, and rebuilt the porch roof. They also did a lot of touch-up improvements inside. They officially opened to the public in spring 2024.
“Now our goal is just to make it accessible to as many people as we can. So the bread and butter is still renting it for big events as a vacation rental on weekends, but now we're looking for ways to have smaller events during the week and on open weekends so that more people can come in and enjoy the kind of history that sits right here in our community,” Sue said.
Chris Kretz, a graphic designer by trade, said Monday:
“I've always loved architecture. I took some architecture classes, drafting and things like that…So we would go into, like, if Palmer owned a couple of houses and needed them torn down because they're just old or worn, we would go in and salvage everything and then sell it to the architectural rescue shop, which just closed a couple of months ago. So I got into salvaging and just kind of learning how all this stuff is put together by taking it all apart.”
“I really got into it, and just living around here, the inventory of old houses is just so cool,” he said. “I mean it was her passion, but it just kind of wore off on me.”
“I want to share it with the community,” Chris said of Hilltop Inn, where you can relax in a slower, more refined time period. “You drive by, everyone wonders, I wonder what it looks like inside there. Now they can find out.”
Both Sue and Chris grew up in Wisconsin. “I grew up in a ‘70s ranch-style home. And so I would just fantasize about being in those big, beautiful old homes,” Sue said. “You just walk in, and I don't know, there's just something in your soul that doesn't want to leave.”
The master bedroom and dining room were part of an addition built in 1890. A spacious third-floor attic includes three toilets and two showers alone.
Putting Hilltop on the map
This past October, the couple saw other businesses having a lot of success with pop-up events, so they wanted to try them at Hilltop Inn, starting at Halloween (a new series called “Pop the Top”).
“It's a great opportunity to do some smaller-scale things that will bring more people into the house,” Sue said. “We did an adult trick or treat, and that was lots of fun. And then we just take ideas from people who come to the events. So everyone said, let's do a Prohibition-era party. So we did a Prohibition-era party (in November), and that was a lot of fun.
“And now it's the holiday season. So we heard from people that they would like to do an elegant dinner that's not in a crowded space,” she said. They have scheduled Monday night wine dinners this month (with Chef Josh Weathers, of Chef’s Catering Company), which will be $80 per person, and the first one was Dec. 1.
The Hilltop Inn is hosting a holiday “Mistletoe & Martinis” event this Friday, Dec. 5, with Chef Weathers, and mixologist Tara Colby. It’s from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., $50 per person, and $60 after Dec. 3.
“We’ll hopefully create a safe space for elegant folks to get together for an elegant evening,” Sue said. “Tara Colby has a whole menu of beautiful holiday martinis put together and also a plan for helping people mingle so that it's not an uncomfortable situation.”
The food will be “very high-end small bites so that people can actually munch and have some hors d'oeuvres and tour the house and take part in some of the activities with a lovely plate of food and a delicious martini,” Sue added.
The wine dinners aim to “make it a very elevated dining experience where it feels like you had a personal chef come into your home and the chef will come to the table and you can ask questions about how they prepared the food and ask them questions about their careers,” she said. “And we think it's just a really unique opportunity for those who really love food to come in and not only experience that, but also the people who create the food.”
The Kretzes plan to have those dinners on a regular basis in the new year, and some fun Sunday events.
“It is a dream come true for people who love old houses like us,” Sue said. “I think as a child we both dreamed of being in homes like this, whether it was just stopping in for a tour, what was it like to live there, how do they decorate for the holidays? So now we're actually living that.
“And I think that's what drives us to want to do it. Not just for us, but it's really for other people. It's for the Quad Cities,” she said. “This house is meant to be full of people and laughter and parties. And that's our goal.”
“We want to get Hilltop on the map,” Sue said of working with Hilltop Campus Village. “There are a lot of misconceptions, like south of Locust…Come visit; guess what? This beautiful mansion you’re sitting in right now? It’s south of Locust, and it’s spectacular and it’s safe.”
She wants to see the same revitalization that’s been pumped into downtown continue up in the Hilltop area.
“We’re just going to be trying stuff until it sticks,” Sue said. The inn has hosted several wedding receptions, family reunions, and even groups coming in for funerals.
For more information on the Hilltop homes, click HERE.
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