Berman/Kinder House

338 Madison

The Berman/Kinder House is a brick masonry example of the Neoclassical style with Prairie influences, has a two-story front porch with both a second story and a third story balustrade. The house’s unique inward-curving first floor porch extends toward the street.

Oscar and Charlotte Rachal ‘Ray’ Finklestein Berman lived with their family in a rented house in the 400 block of Madison Street until they built their home at 338 Madison. The house was constructed sometime between 1906, when they bought the property, and 1908 when the city directory first shows them in residence. Harvey L. Page, architect for the Masonic Temple, the Schutz House and Temple Beth-El designed the Bermans’ new home. Mr. Berman was in the wholesale liquor business (Berman and Zadek). He died in 1923, and Mrs. Berman stayed in the house until 1927. Mrs. Marie Jameton purchased the house and in 1930 removed the original wrap around porches and added wings to both the north and south faces of the house.

Mr. Albert Kinder lived at this address longer than anyone else. He bought the property in 1940 and made it his residence until 1973. Sheila Winget Murray (319 King William), his grandaughter, remembers sitting on the front porch as a small child and being fascinated as the house now at 334 King William moved down the street on the journey to its new home. Allen Klaus bought the property in 1973 and sold it to Frank and Marjorie Alford in 1974. Shortly before Gates and Joan Whiteley bought the house in 1976, the 1930s ‘wings’ were removed. John Whitehead purchased the house in 2008; and the Booth Brothers Paving Co. II, LP, bought it in 2014. This house has a circular walk and inwardly curved downstairs porch with an entrance on both sides. Originally, the inner circle was a garden and when Mrs. Whiteley lived here she grew pansies and day lilies there. During their 32 years in the house, the Whiteleys preserved and restored much of the interior as well as removed a 1940s enclosure of the upper front porch.

The King William Area, A History and Guide to the Houses, Mary V. Burkholder and Jessie N.M. Simpson; published by the King William Association, 2017