Interest in Joel's Houses Fort Wayne, Indiana-1983

The interest in Joel Ninde’s houses emerged for the second time in Fort Wayne in 1983 when Michael Hawfield, then director of the Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Museum, wrote an article for the Fort Wayne newspaper on Joel’s innovative designs. [i]Most information about the locations of Joel’s houses has been rediscovered by Robert and Mary DeVinney, Harold Lopshire and other volunteers at ARCH. Joel Ninde houses on Wildwood were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992 [ii] Because of several dedicated historians’ research, all of the homes in Shawnee Place have been documented as Ninde and Crosby houses. [iii] Additional investigation is currently underway in the Brook View area where three houses are suspected of being Joel’s designs [iv]Even though Wildwood Builders bought and plotted the land in Lafayette Place, no Ninde houses were ever built there.
[i] Angie Quinn, “In Search of Joel Ninde,” ARCH News, March 1998. Lutheran Hospital converted Judge Linsley and Mrs. Ninde’s Wildwood mansion, 21 room, Italianate Villa and Estate into a 25 bed hospital During subsequent expansions and need for increased parking, the (Lutheran) hospital eventually demolished over 20 of Joel’s earliest designed homes along Home Avenue, South Wayne Avenue and Wildwood Avenues, including the first “modern” home that began her career.”[ii] Fort Wayne Indiana: Interim Report Indiana Historic Sites and Structures, 1996, 26. The South Wayne Historic District is roughly bounded by West Wildwood Avenue, South Wayne, Packard, and Beaver Avenues[iii] Creager Smith, Staff Review of Historic District Application, Case: HPRB 12-15-97LHD, December 15, 1997- “The staff recommends that the Historic Preservation Review Board, based on the petition of a majority of the property owners in fee-simple within the potential historic district, recommend the Shawnee Place Historic District for historic district designation…”(approved as a Local Historic District on February 3, 1998).[iv] Harold Lopshire, interview by Corinne Toth, April 17, 1998 and Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, February 8, 1914 (ARCH files). The North Wildwood Company was formulated under the umbrella of Wildwood Builders, to plot the lots in a tract of land bordered by Fort Park on the east, Lakeside Park on the south, Spy Run District on the West around 1914. Dan Ninde had purchased this land for Wildwood Builders. These plots, later called BrookView, consist of Dalgrin, Dunwood and Field Streets. Wildwood Builders, starting in 1923 built houses based on Joel’s designs in BrookView.