Joel Roberts Ninde Designed 300+ Homes

When Joel “Joe” A. Roberts (1874 – 1916) of Mobile, Alabama, married attorney Lee J. Ninde in 1900, she apparently had no thought of designing homes, “her only task to be happy and to make happiness for others with those social gifts with which she was so richly endowed,” a newspaper reported after her death.  But after moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to her new husband’s family estate “Wildwood,” Ninde found she would prefer not to live in the family mansion.

Although Ninde had no architectural training, she designed a cottage for herself and her husband. It would be the first of many starter homes that she would design. She was working at a time when most modestly-priced homes were described as charmless boxes and was committed to doing better. Ninde believed in designing with economical materials employed appealingly for durability and efficiency. She also believed in admitting a “volume of fresh air in summer, and at all seasons the bringing in of the out of doors,” she wrote in 1914.

Ninde’s aesthetic sense was matched with her practicality and appreciation for efficient housekeeping. She ended an article on two of her house designs by writing, “both houses…keep the seclusion of your living porch and save the eternal floor mopping by having a separate front entrance….[Y]ou have plenty of both sunlight and fresh air, good wall spaces, and an abundance of places in which to store things.”

Ninde’s house designs were so popular that in 1910, her husband left practicing law to start Wildwood Builders Company. He created the company and published a national magazine with the mission of “bringing into concrete form Mrs. Ninde’s ideas.” Architect Grace E. Crosby joined the company soon after the company’s founding. The two women provided home design, interior design, and construction supervision services. They transformed neighborhoods in Fort Wayne. The demand for their designs was so great they influenced their competition to meet their standards. By 1914, more than 300 houses had been designed and built by Ninde and her colleagues.

From The Wildwood Magazine, Spring 1916.

Sadly, in 1916 Ninde had a stroke and died at age 42. Her impact on the South Wayne Historic District remains, as seen in this video.

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Sources:

“Life of Mrs. Ninde Full of Inspiration,” The Pensacola Journal, March 31, 1916: 5.

“Joel Roberts Ninde, 1874 – 1916,” Arch Inc.

Joel R. Ninde and Grace E. Roberts, “A House of Convenience,” The Wildwood Magazine, Christmas 1914: 23-24.

“Joel Roberts Ninde,” The Wildwood Magazine, Spring 1916: 15-18, 47.