Levi McIntire House

This historic Kansas City home was constructed in 1911 and was among the handful of remaining single-family homes on Armour Blvd., a street that would be lined with mansions and apartment hotels by the 1920s. Its first resident, Levi Mclntire, worked in real estate. Construction of this home occurred amongst a backdrop of a two-decade population boom for Kansas City, with roughly 130,000 people moving to the city between 1910 and 1930. Over time, the grand mansions and middle-class housing gave way to apartments and hotels. Keene & Simpson, a well-known Kansas City architectural firm, built this house. The firm gained a reputation for its excellent residential designs and institutional buildings, such as the Scottish Rite Temple at Linwood, The Paseo, and the Carnegie Library in Lyndon, Kansas.

This home residence, constructed in 1911, is one of the few substantial, architect-designed residences remaining on the Boulevard. Although the home served a financially successful middle-class resident, the home differed from the grand mansions located west of the historic house on Armour Blvd. Builders marketed this house as one built at a "reasonable" cost, amounting to roughly $345,000 (2021 value). 

Armour Boulevard, named after Armour Meatpacking founder, Phillip Armour, emerged as part of the city's urban planning that included developing a boulevard system. Its original intent in the late nineteenth century involved a plan for the construction of residential homes. While that idea came to fruition, most early homes stood as grand homes and mansions catering to the exceptionally wealthy. Over time, wealthy residents shifted southward. As a result, low-rise apartments catering to wager earners and high-rise apartment-hotels catering to upwardly mobile middle-class residents arose. Still, a few residences continued to be built on the Boulevard, many of which catered to the same middle-class residents that lived in the apartment-hotels. 

Construction of the Levi residence occurred in 1911, just as Kansas City experienced a population boom that lasted for roughly twenty years. Around 130,000 people moved to Kansas City between 1910 and 1930. As a result, Armour Boulevard and surrounding streets saw the construction of apartments and hotels in the years that followed in response to the need for more housing, including multi-residential properties. In 1911, private homes designed by architects were still in vogue on Armour Avenue. Levi Mclntire, a real estate investor and realtor himself, was the home's first resident. 

Uguccioni, Ellen J. "Nomination Form: Levi McIntire House." National Register of Historic Places. archives.gov. 1983. https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/media/63817509/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MO/83001011.pdf.

Uguccioni, Ellen J and Sherry Piland. "Nomination Form: Armour Boulevard Multiple Resource Area." National Register of Historic Places. mostateparks.com. 1983. https://mostateparks.com/sites/mostateparks/files/Armour%20Boulevard.pdf.