1600 North 21st Street

1600 North 21st Street, Westheight Manor


Frank Jennings Residence
1600 North 21st Street
Victor J. DeFoe / DeFoe & Carroll, Architects
Built 1922-23

An imposing two-story, brick-faced, wood frame house with a green tile roof, this house occupies one of the most commanding sites in Westheight, overlooking Westheight Manor Park. In style it is an eclectic misture of Mediterranean, Neo-Classical, and Prairie School elements, a not-unpleasing mixture found in many Kansas City houses of the period. It would seem to be the first house to have been built in this northern area of the subdivision. The columned pavilions with trellised eaves that flanked the first story before remodeling originally were endlosed with Frend doors. In 1983-84, the house was extensively remodeled, losing much of its distinctiveness. This remodeling does not conform to the Secretary of Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation. A pen and ink rendering of the house was included in a March 16, 1924 advertisement for Westheight Manor in the Kansas City Kansan.

Immediately to the south of the Jennings' property is the Westheight Manor Walkway, a twenty foot wide, east-west pedestrian extension of Freeman Avenue. DeFoe and Carroll prepared plans for the improvement of the walkway with a concrete walk, steps, terraces, and brick balusters in 1922, but this work was apparently never carried out.


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