41st Annual Designer’s Showhouse

We are touring this home on May 4th.

The brick colonial revival house at 5833 Ward Parkway, Kansas City, Missouri, was built in 1922 for Elizabeth Smith, widow of William J. Smith, an early investor and president of the Kansas City Cable Railway Company, the first cable car line in Kansas City. The architectural firm for the design was Hoit, Price, and Barnes. Mrs. Smith was from New York and died in 1928 while living at the house with her daughters, Mable Saunders and Marion Smith. Mable was the widow of Daniel Green Saunders, Jr. who owned the D. G. Saunders Lumber Co. Mable and Marion continued to live in the home into the 1930’s when it was sold to John E. Murray.




Elizabeth Smith had eight children and fifteen grandchildren. She loved to have them come over to her house after church on Sundays. In the summer she would serve them lemonade and in the winter hot chocolate. During family dinners it was quite an honor when the young people graduated to the grownups table in the dining room according to Cliff C. Jones, one of the grandsons. Other grandchildren still in the Kansas City area include Frank P. Sebree, Mrs. Beverly Platt (Alice), and Mrs. Richard Sutton (Serena). Mr. Jones also recalls that his grandmother had an electric car.



By 1940 the home was owned by J. Kinney Moore and his wife Norcille of the Moore-Lowry Flour Mills Co. This icon of Kansas City mills as shown on the company letterhead was built in 1898 at State Line and Southwest Boulevard. It was acquired by Moore-Lowry of The Wichita Flour Mills Co. in 1923 and featured such brands as “Old Squire” and “Red Top.”



By 1942 Thomas R. Finn and his wife Eileen bought the house and moved his aging parents in with them. Mr. Finn was a professional fundraiser just as his father had been. At that time their official title was “counselors of institutional finance.” Mr. Finn had extra shelves built in the third floor attic area to store his records of fundraising campaigns. He even trademarked the term “Fair Share” for fundraising in the State of Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Finn were avid golfers and had membership card #3 at Indian Hills Country Club. She was a caregiver to her in-laws, Thomas M. Finn and Mary (Mayme) Fitzgerald Finn and later her own parents, John and Alice McIntyre. The Finns did not have children until later in life so they lavished much attention on their cocker spaniel Patty and her offspring. Their “miracle babies” were Thomas, an ER physician now deceased; Terry Finn, a Kansas City policeman; and one daughter, Kathleen. Terry recalls the wonderful vacations the family took in Colorado where they went to dude ranches. Mr. Finn died in 1965 at the home, and Mrs. Finn went on to co-found the K.C. One real estate company.



The center of the Finn household was likely the kitchen where Mahala Collins cooked for the extended family. The wonderful fireplace in the kitchen was actually used for cooking turkeys and roasts. Her husband Nathaniel took care of the yard, and they lived in an apartment on the third floor. Terry Finn also recalls what fun it was to go out on the flat roof of the double-decker porch when it had a balustrade all the way around.



In the 1980’s the home was owned by John K. Sherk, Jr., his wife Elizabeth, and their three children. He was a professor in the Education Department at UMKC and published widely in the area of early childhood education. His son, John K. Sherk III, is a partner of the Shook Hardy law firm. One of the founders of Shook Hardy was Samuel Boyd Sebree, a son-in-law of Elizabeth Smith.



In the year 1986 when the Landmarks Commission did a survey of the home, it was owned by Yorihiko and Mizue Oshima. Mr. Oshima’s father was a co-founder of the Honda car company and he himself was a commercial real estate developer in Japan. His wife had a degree in piano performance from a conservatory in Tokyo before her marriage. The library was reserved for her concert grand piano and music books. Their four children attended the Pembroke-Hill School. The Oshimas enjoyed the wide open spaces of Kansas City. One of their projects was to remodel the kitchen based on ideas they had collected from their neighbors. It was quite a project because the contractor had to strengthen the floor supports to hold oak cabinets, a sub-zero refrigerator, thermador double ovens, gas cooktop, tile floor and bringing the washer and dryer to the first floor from the basement.



In addition to the kitchen remodeling, the Oshimas added a brick patio outside the porch which by this time had been glassed in to create a cheerful sunroom, the favorite room of the family and their friends. One of their teenage daughters used the third floor and had the walls papered with Laura Ashley prints. With all the coming and going of teenagers, the family added a small circle drive in front of the house. By 1990 Yorihiko and Mizue had moved back to Tokyo and gave the house to their eldest daughter upon her marriage. The couple lived in the house when their first child was born and eventually transferred to the New York area.



The next owners of the house in the mid-1990’s were Clyde and Carolyn Williams who made significant additions to the property. The original garage for the house was in the basement with a ramp entrance from 59th Street. The Williams built a separate three car garage with a portico linking it to the house. They took great care to find the source for the brick, limestone, and slate tiles of the original house and had the garage built to match. Later the Williams also had an elderly mother with them so they converted the garage to the carriage house that it is today. The Williams also added the state-of-the-art swimming pool and the wrought iron fence all the way around the property.



The present owners of the house are Dale and Peggy Kesl who have it on the market. Dale graduated from the University of Health Sciences-College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1982 and Peggy graduated from the St. Luke’s School of Nursing in 1978. Dale is board certified in family practice and emergency medicine and is the director of the Emergency Department at the Lafayette Regional Health Center in Lexington, MO.



Their daughter Megan finished her emergency medicine residency from UMKC and Truman Medical Center in 2009 and is a staff physician at Truman Medical Center-Lakewood and hospital hill. James is a 3rd year medical student and most recently lived in the carriage house. Matthew is prelaw at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO. The youngest children are twins—Abigail, a junior at Columbia College in Columbia, MO with a special education major and emphasis in autism, and Allison, a student at Mitsu Sato Hair Academy. The Kansas City Symphony Alliance wishes to thank the Kesl family for the generous use of their home for the 41st Symphony Designers’ Showhouse.



-Beverly Shaw, House Historian