Purchase Price $385,000
5 bed · 4 bath · 5,135 sqft
Contact: Conrad Mays, Re/Max Advantage
Call: (816) 820-1186
House History and Gallery
There are some streets in St. Joseph that are just magical; where the houses pull you along the sidewalk. As you walk along Clay Street you just know that these houses have wonderful stories to tell. The Cooper-Heaton House at 2028 Clay certainly has more than its fair share of fascinating people living in it.
The house first appears in the records when the Reverend Rice H. Cooper took out a building permit in November 1888 to build a residence and stable on the southwest corner of Clay and 22nd Streets. The total cost was $1,875.00 – a substantial amount at that time. Rev. Cooper was a Methodist Minister who lived in the home until about 1895.
When Rev. Cooper left the city and moved to Fayette, MO the house was taken over by the undertaker David E. Heaton and his extended family. The 1900 census shows David owning the house free of mortgage and living here with his wife Mollie, their teen-aged daughters Hazel and Bessie, Mollie’s mother and sister Amanda and Blanch Thurman. During the Heaton residency the house was modernized, including extensive remodeling to the bathrooms. The Heaton girls were very active socially and while they lived there numerous parties were held at the house. In 1903, Amanda Thurman died at the home.
By 1908, the Heatons sold the house to Charles H. Nold, the president of C.H. Nold Lumber Company. Nold was a St. Joseph native who shared the home with his wife Lillian. According to the 1910 census, the Nold household was quite small – just Charles and Lillian and a live-in servant, Edna Boshen. Tragedy struck the family in 1913 when Lillian was taken very ill with nephritis while on the train returning from a family visit in Galesburg, IL. She was taken directly from the train to the hospital where she soon died. Perhaps not surprisingly, Nold did not remain in the house for much longer.
The next occupants of the house were Eugene F. Michau, his wife Ida, and their two daughters. Michau was a bookkeeper for the Tootle, Wheeler, and Motter Mercantile Co., but it was his real estate dealings that made him his substantial fortune. In 1917 Eugene and his brother Edward purchased the building at the northeast corner of 6th and Felix Streets. This substantial commercial building was leased by the S.S. Kresgee Co. and the Michaus made a great deal of money from the rentals. It was this income that gave the family the means to purchase a idyllic home in Coral Gables, Florida where they spent a great deal of time before moving there permanently in about 1927.
When Eugene and his wife moved to Florida, the house passed to their daughter Marie and her husband Louis Hax Smith, the secretary and treasurer of the Hax Furniture Company (he became the president in 1933 upon the death of his father). The family had two sons and one daughter. The Smiths retained the house until 1950, when they too moved to Florida.
In 1950, the investment banker Stuart Wyeth Campbell and his wife Charlotte took up residence in the home. Stuart was a member of the prominent Wyeth family; he was described after his death as “a businessman, a yachtsman, an artist, a collector, a philanthropist, and a world traveler.” Charlotte was a gifted singer who performed as a soprano soloist with the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra in 1953. The Campbells were a prominent fixture in the St. Joseph social scene, hosting lovely cocktail parties at the home.
The Cooper-Heaton House at 2028 Clay is a real show-stopper and it is ready for its next act.
