Purchase Price $214,000
4 bed · 4 bath · 1,656 sqft
The picture perfect location for this charming home is on historic Lovers Lane. This lovely two story stucco home offers a serene front porch as well as a double level deck that overlooks a park-like backyard where you can spend quiet mornings or enjoy the afternoon. In the heart of the city, this home features 4 bedrooms and 4 baths. Newer roof and HVAC system. Once car basement garage with plenty of parking for guests. Beautiful hardwood floors throughout the home.
Contact: Frank Leone at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services/ Stein & Summers Real Estate
Call: 816-387-1996
House History & Gallery
Living the American dream – to come from a modest background and to achieve big things – that’s what this country was built on. The John Broaddus Home at 2110 Lovers Lane is a stucco embodiment of that spirit. Built in 1915 by John for his new wife Magdalen (Miden) Rainalter. This wonderful home was theirs for the whole of their married life; Miden did not leave until after John’s death in 1946.
The Broadduses were prominent figures in St. Joseph society. He worked his way up from cashier to President of the German American Bank. She was a local golf champion and a stalwart member of the Junior League. She counted members of all of the wealthy families in St. Joseph as her friends; in 1936 she hosted a celebratory luncheon for the wedding of Margaret Wyeth.
The Broadduses personified a part of elite St. Joseph culture that we often forget – like several other wealthy St. Joe citizens they were members of the private Wismo Club in Stone Lake, Wisconsin. This hunting/fishing getaway was founded by local dentist Dr. F.P. Cronkite (the grandfather of the famous newsman, Walter Cronkite) in 1906. Local elites built “cabins” along the lake and spent a good part of their summers there. John and Miden Broaddus were among the regular residents there.
John and Magdalen had one daughter, also named Magdalen (Miden) who grew up and spent her young adulthood at the family home on Lovers Lane. She attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY for one year in 1934 before returning home. A decade later, she still had not married and was working as a counselor for Beauty Counselors Inc. Not long after she married and moved to Pennsylvania.
For much of the period between 1915 and the 1940s the Broadduses employed a live-in maid. The census records give us the names of three of them: Selma Pohl (1920), Nellie Horn (1930), and Eileen Cochell (1940). They all were young women in their mid-twenties when they worked as maids at the house. This was likely considered a fairly good job but certainly it did not pay terribly well. We know that Eileen had worked for 52 weeks in 1939 at the house and had made $416 (remember, she also got room and board).
John died suddenly in 1946 and Miden sold the house and eventually moved to Pennsylvania to live with her daughter’s family. The new owner was Erwin Hargrove, president of the American Union Live Insurance Company, his second wife Virginia, and his son Erwin Jr. The young Mr. Hargrove attended Yale University. The Hargroves lived in and cherished the home until well in to the 1960s.
The John Broaddus Home at 2110 Lovers Lane was built to celebrate a marriage and to represent the worldly success of John W. Broaddus. He chose the neighborhood carefully; Lovers Lane was then and is now one of the most desirable residential neighborhoods in St. Joseph.
