This elegant French tea room is a hidden gem in Wichita’s College Hill neighborhood

Two years ago, Mariama Beemer bought an aging two-story College Hill home that wasn’t much to look at.

The house — which sits directly east of the Sport Burger Drive-In at Douglas and Hillside — was built in 1920 and had been vacant for many years. The yard was overgrown, the windows were barred, and the ceilings were covered in water spots.

“It was in shambles,” Beemer remembers.

But the house was just what Beemer was looking for, and she could easily see in it the French tea house she’d dreamed of opening for years.

Today, 3210 Victor Place hardly resembles its former self. Beemer, who built a career in tech before leaving it behind to run her dream business, has transformed it into an elegant tea house full of carefully curated antiques, Victorian furniture, delicate figurines and fancy tea things.

Beemer — born in Benin, Africa, and raised in Nances, France — officially opened The French Tearoom in July of last year. But a month later, her beloved father died. Beemer was grieving and couldn’t even think about her new business, which she shut down and didn’t reopen until March.

Since then, interest in the tea room — known in the neighborhood for the white-and-pink-pastel paint job Beemer gave it — has rapidly grown. Though Beemer is running the tea room on a reservation-only basis for now, she’s been steadily filling the books. Wichitans are throwing baby and bridal showers at the tea room. They’re holding book club meetings, meeting for Bible studies or just treating their moms to a proper afternoon tea.

“You don’t have to have an event to come,” Beemer said, remembering a local grandmother who recently drove around town collecting all of her grandchildren and bringing them to the tea house for a special treat. “But I kind of want people to want to be here. I don’t want people to be like, ‘Oh, I’m walking by. Maybe I’ll stop and have afternoon tea. I want people to be like, ‘I’m going to go. I want an escape. I want to have a good time. So I’m going to plan and schedule it.’ I want it to be intentional rather than second thought.”

Ethereal pink

The tea room definitely provides an escape unlike anything else in Wichita. When visitors arrive, they open an arched wrought-iron gate strung with pink flowers and pass through a shady front courtyard packed with statues, concrete fountains, and antique patio furniture.

As they step in the front door, they’re greeted by jazzy French bistro music, and their eyes are bathed in ethereal pink and gold. Beemer has painted the once shabby front room white with pink accents and installed a big golden chandelier. Banquette seating lines one wall, and across the tables are velvety pink dining chairs. An adjacent parlor is filled with Victorian settees, and a built-in shelf is filled with dainty porcelain tea cups Beemer has collected over the years.

Up the staircase are three sunlight-filled former bedrooms that Beemer has meticulously transformed into lavish themed dining spaces. The large “Pink Room” has floral wallpaper, a large dining table with a lace tablecloth, more Victorian furniture and lots of gold accent pieces. Next door, the smaller “Blue Room” is furnished with a round dining table surrounded by velvety blue dining chairs and a white shelf full of flowers and blue floral china pieces. Finally, the “Gold Room” has Victorian chairs upholstered with bright gold fabric arranged around a round glass coffee table. Ornate gold-framed mirrors and gold picture frames filled with Victorian artwork decorate the walls.

The food and drink Beemer serves is as elegant as the house itself. Customers are treated to traditional afternoon tea service, and they can choose from several menus, which range in price from $29.99 to $65.99 a person. But each includes several teas to sample — and each customer gets an individual teapot and can choose which tea cup and saucer to use. They also are served tea sandwiches and savory tarts, baked scones and croissants, and sweet treats like French rose macarons or mousse cakes, all arranged on a three-tiered serving tray.

Visitors also are greeted with a welcome drink — a glass filled with sparkling pink juice in which is floating a pink, rose-shaped ice cube. Customers who reserve the main floor are served their tea by Beemer’s staff. Upstairs visitors serve themselves, but they can text the staff if they need anything.

“One of the rules that I have for my customers — and I literally have it written down — is that guests must feel like royalty,” Beemer said. “I want them to feel as pampered as nowhere else. Because this is what I’m about — making them feel so good.”

Shabby to chic

How did Beemer pivot from a career in tech to running a tea room?

Though she loved her career, which she built mostly at NetApp after graduating from Friends University in 2012, Beemer said, things got “a little crazy” during COVID. She kept thinking back to a conference she’d attended in London in 2018. Several of the women in attendance kept promising they’d hang out together, and on their final day in England, they all met up at a beautiful English tea room.

“We went in as six perfect strangers. We didn’t really know each other except that we worked together. And we came out as six best friends,” she said. “We bonded so much over the tea and the beauty — it was beautiful and it was just cozy.”

That same year, Beemer started a side gig putting on “pop-up” tea events around town, renting venues in town like Terradyne Country Club or the The White Building on East Douglas. Back then, she operated under the names Madame’s Tea Party and later Chez Marie. She’d sell 30 tickets on eventbrite then lavishly decorate the space and serve a traditional afternoon tea.

“Each and every time, I sold out,” she said. “So that was kind of like my market research. There was so much interest in that. And I was saving the money until I was able to purchase the house.”

When she started the search for a brick-and-mortar tea room space, Beemer initially thought she’d rent. But no landlords wanted to let her paint the outside of their buildings pink. She decided she wanted to buy and began hunting for the perfect spot. But after four months of fruitless searching, she began to give up. Then, in March 2022, a friend spotted the house on Victor Place and sent her the address. When Beemer realized it was in College Hill and that it was zoned for commercial use, she went directly there and called the real estate agent whose name was posted on the sign.

Though the house was in bad shape, both inside and out, Beemer saw the potential and immediately put in an offer, even writing a letter to the owners pleading her case. She closed the following month.

That was in April 2022, and Beemer immediately dove into the renovation. It was a big project: The house had no working HVAC, the sewer line was gone, and all the electrical work had to be removed and brought up to code.

Beemer also spent months searching for decor at estate sales, garage sales and on Facebook Marketplace. She drove all the way to Colorado to get her difficult-to-find tiered trays. But when the tea room was finally complete, Beemer left her job in tech and made the tea room her full-time pursuit.

She’s never been more at peace.

“I’ve worked really, really hard to create an environment where people can step in here and feel like they can just leave stress outside,” she said.

On Mother’s Day weekend this year, The French Tearoom is offering several special Parisian-style tea parties with tickets starting at $65.99 a person. Packages for groups also are available. Get reservations for the teas, which happen daily from May 10 to 12, at www.thefrenchtearoom.com