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Uniquely KC is a Star series exploring what makes Kansas City special. From our award-winning barbecue to rich Midwestern history, we’re exploring why KC is the “Paris of the Plains.”
It has been 86 years since famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, in 1940, finished the initial construction of what was then a tiny and modernistic one-story home of yellow brick and glass tucked among the trees in Kansas City’s Roanoke neighborhood.
At only 900-square feet, the L-shaped home at 3600 Belleview Ave. was tiny. Built for physician Clarence Sondern and his wife, it had no attic or basement, only two bedrooms, a workplace kitchen, a laundry/heater room, den alcove and one bathroom.
It was so compact that, nine years later, after the home’s new owners, Virginia Burns and clothier Arnold Adler, took possession, they hired Wright again to add 2,000 square feet to the house and turn what is now known as the Sondern-Adler house into something far grander: sunken living room with Wright’s modernist clean lines, a dining room, expanded bedrooms and larger kitchen, a car port and plunge pool on the outside terrace.
Now, Thomas and Amy Axtell of Kansas City - who purchased the home in June 2024 with little fanfare - have, since their purchase, been gradually remaking the home once again, although not by adding space, but by renovating and redoing the space to preserve and maintain the home’s historic beauty.
“Yeah, my wife and I have tried to keep it quiet. We’re private people. We live humble lives,” Tom Axtell, the third-generation co-owner of the family business, Lexington Plumbing, said of what for him was a passion purchase.
The Sondern-Adler house
A lifelong admirer of Wright’s, Axtell estimated that, since his teen years, he has visited approximately 35 of the architect’s 350 or so existing structures. When on vacations, he and his wife purposefully seek out Wright’s work.
“They just have such a sense of calm and connection, and it just feels different when you’re in them,” Axtell said.
As for why they bought the Sondern-Adler house, he said, “We just think it’s beautiful.”
Axtell said that they knew that they’d be making a steep financial commitment when they bought the home in a private sale for an amount Axtell did not disclose. Construction has been ongoing for about two years. Strata Architecture & Preservation of Kansas City is leading the work, with interior design by Lisa Schmitz Interior Design of Kansas City, as shown on Instagram.
“When we bought it,” Axtell said, “the kitchen and bathrooms were gutted. So we’ve had those rebuilt. We’ve cleaned all the interior brick and woodwork, all the exterior woodwork. We put a 40-year roof on it, all new HVAC, plumbing and electrical.
“I want it to, you know, be taken care of for the next 20 or 40 years when the next person’s able to have it. You know, I’m just the steward at this time.”
Because the sale was private, the price of the purchase is not recorded in county records or on the Realtors’ MLS, or multiple listing service. A brief history of the home, submitted to the city of Kansas City’s Historic Preservation Commission, lists the Axtells as the home’s sixth individual owners.
Six owners in 86 years
The Sonderns sold to the Adlers. Arnold Adler died in 1951, leaving Virginia to remarry in 1953 and, with her new spouse, adding an outdoor lap pool to the property. (Frank Lloyd Wright died at age 91 in 1959)
In 1963, the house, which is located next door to the artist Thomas Hart Benton’s home and art studio, a Missouri State Park, was purchased by investment banker and arts patron Richard J. Stern, whose foundation bears his name.
Stern, likewise, modified the house, enlarging the kitchen. He added steel beams to stabilize the roof’s cantilevers and installed copper gutters and downspouts, decking, rail upgrades and repairs to the brick courtyard.
Stern died in 2001. The home was briefly held by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art before being bought in 2003 by Jim Blair, who worked to maintain the house, providing it for charity and other events. In 2018, however, Blair placed the house, and its 1.5 acres, on the market for $1.65 million.
No buyers emerged at that price.
In 2019, the house went up for auction at no set minimum.
A Husker room? Just joking
In August 2019, Omaha attorney George Martin, a partner at the law firm Baird Holm LLP placed a winning bid of $980,000 (over $1 million with the 10% auction house fee) and joked at the time that he would add a “Husker room” to the house, in honor of the University of Nebraska “Cornhuskers.”
That didn’t happen. He also knew that the house needed extensive work.
“The house is in really good shape. But it’s aged,” Martin said in 2020. “It’s going to be an expensive undertaking. But the things that have to be done to it are not really exotic. By and large, the bones are really solid.”
Axtell said they intend to make the home their private residence. He did not offer a timeline of when the work would be completed.
Historic preservation
The Sondern-Adler house, itself, is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
It is, however, protected locally and is on the Kansas City Register of Historic Places as a structure within the city’s Roanoke Historic District, a neighborhood of about 100 stately homes bounded by Roanoke Park to the north, West 38th Street to the south, Southwest Boulevard to the east and Valentine Road to the West.
As such, changes to the home’s exterior and property visible to the public must be approved, known as “certificates of appropriateness,” from the city’s Historic Preservation Commission.
Since 2024, the Axtells through Strata Architecture have sought to remove a storage shed on the property that had dilapidated, remove the non-original lap pool that was put in around 1957, and to modify an exterior kitchen wall to convert a window to a door to allow entrance to the south courtyard, and to regrade part of the property.
In making changes, the couple has also consulted with the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy in Chicago.
A new chain link fence
Most recently, in June, the Axtells also sought permission from the city to replace the crumbling asphalt driveway with concrete. In early July, they asked permission to keep in place a new chain link fence that weaves through the trees on the north side of their property alongside Roanoke Park. The new fence replaces an old chain link fence that was already there.
“The owner,” the commission notes, “has experienced significant intrusion on their property from vagrants accessing the site from Karnes (Boulevard) and walking through the wooded areas to the property.”
The Axtells are aware that chain link is not a material permitted by the preservation committee, but they believe a 6-foot-tall wood fence would be more unsightly and have suggested painting the chain link black to make it less obtrusive.
“We’ll comply with whatever they think is appropriate,” Axtell said. “There’s so many people that I find in the driveway and wandering around the property. This is a private residence. You know, it’s where my family is. And I would just like people to respect that.”
The Sondern-Adler house is one of three Wright structures in Kansas City. Designed in 1957, the Frank Bott house, 3640 North Briarcliff Road, was constructed between 1961 and 1963.
Even before the Sondern-Adler house was completed, Wright had been asked in 1940 to design the Community Christian Church just east of the Country Club Plaza, 4601 Main Street.
Axtell said that until the Sondern-Adler house became available, he did not consider that he would one day own a Wright house and care for its preservation.
“Never even thought about it,” he said. “It just became available, and I thought it was a good time to do it.”
