photo by: Mike Yoder

From left, Lena Giordano, 4 months, Lara Giordano, Rosalie Giordano, 3, and Ari Linden, are pictured outside their home in the Pinkney Neighborhood at 401 Indiana St.

Last year local Realtor Tom Harper posted a picture on Instagram of a stained-glass window for a house that would be for sale soon. He didn’t include the address, writing only that the house was in the Pinkney Neighborhood and would soon be on the market. Lara Giordano, who was living in East Lawrence with her husband, Ari Linden, and their toddler, saw the picture and became a little obsessed.

“One of the things that drew me to the house is they have these beautiful, original stained-glass windows,” Giordano says. “I was so obsessed at that point that on one of my jogs I jogged through Pinkney and found the house,” which she would also discover had some interesting history: It was built by a well-known Vaudeville performer for his mother.

“It was out of our price range,” Giordano says, “and Ari said we could not go see it because I had ‘that gleam’ in my eye.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

Several rooms in the house at 401 Indiana St. feature stained glass.

The “edict” notwithstanding, Giordano and her family moved into the three-bedroom Dutch Colonial house at 401 Indiana St. in May. The couple have since had another baby, so now they have two daughters whom they plan to raise in the 2300-square-foot home with a gambrel roof, backyard deck and carriage house.

Linden and Giordano are both from California but from different parts of the state. They independently came to Lawrence to teach at the University of Kansas, where they met. Linden teaches in the German Studies Department, and Giordano is a lecturer for the humanities program. For a couple of years, they lived in a home in East Lawrence together, but as they started a family they began to search for a larger house.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Rosalie Giordano and her mother, Lara Giordano, work in the kitchen of their home at 401 Indiana St.

“When Ari and I were looking for a place, we were really Jonesing for space. … This is definitely not the virtue of 401 Indiana Street,” Giordano says. “The kitchen is unnavigable; you can barely open one drawer without bumping into another. But what 401 Indiana has — and what made me fall in love with it — is an abundance of small beauties. The house has what many modern homes lack: that care and attention to detail in its woodwork.”

Giordano and Linden can collectively rattle off the small details that drew them to purchase 401 Indiana: the wood bannister and built-in bench in the foyer, the two stained-glass windows that adorn each side of the front of the house, the unpainted wood paneling, the Japanese weeping maple that grows in the yard.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Rosalie Giordano carries a menorah into the entry area of her family’s home at 401 Indiana St. The home, built in the early 20th century, features a lot of original wood trim, floors and columns.

photo by: Mike Yoder

The house at 401 Indiana St. features extensive original woodwork.

“I grew up in a home with a lot of outdoor space. My father used to host huge summer parties where our friends and family would camp out for days at a time, playing music and hiking,” Giordano says. “When (Ari) and I started looking for a home, I was driven very much by the desire to extend the same hospitality and care to our community here in Lawrence. I kept thinking about how lovely it would be to see all of our friends’ children running around the backyard together and how great it would be to have the carriage house to accommodate all our loved ones that live so far away during their visits.”

African American vaudevillian performer George Walker, who was born in Lawrence in 1872 or 1873, had the house built for his mother in the early 1900s, Giordano says.

Vaudeville performer George Walker pictured in 1903

Walker and partner Bert Williams were two of the most well-known performers of the Vaudeville era. Some think it’s likely that Walker stayed in the home with his mother before he died in 1911.

Other families came and went in the next 100 years. The family who lived there most recently before Giordano and Linden’s stayed for more than a quarter of a century.

“The last occupants raised a family here,” says Linden, of the family who moved in in 1994. “They were here for 27 years, and they had put a lot of effort into basically loving and preserving the house and basically improving it. …They did a wonderful job beautifying the yard. … I can just imagine as (our daughters) get older how this yard will be a great space for them to run around and play.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

A view looking north shows 401 Indiana St. at right and a stand-alone dwelling, or “carriage house,” at left.

Giordano grew up in the foothills of California in a house that sat on seven acres, so having a sizable yard was important to her.

“I grew up with a lot of outdoor space and thought it was wonderful to be able to explore and play, and I thought it would be great to give that space to (my daughters), although in a miniaturized way,” Giordano says.

Linden is just as smitten as Giordano with the house.

“We‌ ‌love‌ ‌all‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌wood‌,” he says. “We‌ ‌love‌ ‌the‌ ‌way‌ ‌the‌‌ light‌ works‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌house. … I‌ ‌was‌ ‌just‌ ‌so‌ ‌taken — ‌by‌ ‌the‌ ‌yard‌, ‌the‌ ‌space‌ ‌and ‌everything‌ ‌about‌ ‌it.‌” ‌ ‌

photo by: Mike Yoder

Ari Linden holds his 4-month-old daughter, Lena Giordano, while his daughter Rosalie Giordano, 3, eats breakfast in their home’s dinning room at 401 Indiana St.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Rosalie Giordano, 3, and her mother, Lara Giordano, visit in the family’s large multipurpose room in the basement of their house at 401 Indiana St.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Morning light, from the east and the south, brightens the living room at the home of Ari Linden and Lara Giordano at 401 Indiana St.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Yellow paint and morning sun brighten Ari Linden and Lara Giordano’s second-floor bedroom in their home at 401 Indiana St.

photo by: Mike Yoder

This large bedroom at 401 Indiana St. may one day be shared by Rosalie Giordano, 3, and 4-month-old Lena Giordano.

photo by: Mike Yoder

A large, multilevel patio is located on the south side of Linden and Giordano’s home.