James B. Nutter Sr.

Nutter and his family lost their home in 1940, amid the Great Depression, and moved into a rental house. At age 12 Nutter was delivering fliers for local politicians. At 13 he was working 30 hours a week at a library – re-shelving books and cleaning up – for $30 a month. He opened a savings account with $50 after his second paycheck.[5] Nutter earned a business degree from the University of Missouri in 1949, after serving 1½ years in the U.S. Army at Camp Stoneman near San Francisco.[6]

Nutter founded James B. Nutter & Co. in 1951, working out of his home. He was one of the first real estate professionals in Kansas City to get into government-backed Veterans Administration home loans, which became a mainstay of his company.[6] In the 1950s and '60s, his company was one of the first to make home loans in black neighborhoods and to single women on a large scale.[6] In 1964, with foreclosure rates on the rise, his company created a forbearance program to help borrowers who were behind on their house payments. In 1995, he was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the board of directors of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.[7]

During the subprime mortgage crisis in 2006 and 2007, the financial media recognized him, his son, Jim Jr., and their company, as examples of fiscal responsibility for refusing to get into subprime loans.[6] The company was a pioneer in reverse mortgages, having initiated the nation's first Federal Housing Administration-insured reverse mortgages in 1989.[8]

Some of Nutter non-profit donations include Habitat for Humanity; Mayo Clinic; Kansas City's Children's Mercy Hospital; the Central Library (Kansas City, Missouri), Harry S. Truman Library Institute; Kansas City Central Library; Boy Scouts of America (as a boy he earned the rank of Eagle Scout); Saint Luke's Hospital; Little Sisters of the Poor; and Wayside Waifs animal rescue.[9]

Named for him are the James B. Nutter Sr. Family Information Commons at Ellis Library on the main campus of his alma mater, the University of Missouri; the James B. Nutter Family Classroom in the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri-Kansas City,[10] and the Nutter Ivanhoe Neighborhood Center and Park in the urban core of Kansas City.[11]

Nutter acquired a wide swath of older homes in Kansas City's historic Westport neighborhood and turned them into a collection of eclectic, entrepreneurial office spaces known as Nutterville. The formerly drab houses are now painted in bright colors and surrounded by flower beds. The work has included the renovation of the historic Nathan Scarritt House at 4038 Baltimore Ave.[12]

Nutter's renovation of the 1847 Nathan Scarritt House and his creation of Nutterville earned him a 2004 Annual Recognition Award, in the historic preservation category, from the Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society.[13]

In 1979, Nutter helped spearhead a successful drive to win approval for a bond issue to replace an aging jail, atop the Jackson County Courthouse in downtown Kansas City, where inmates had to be hosed down to relieve their suffering in the summer heat.[6] Nutter's support for racial equality has extended beyond the workings of his mortgage business. For example, in 1964 Nutter canvassed his own neighborhood to help pass a city ordinance that made it illegal for shops, hotels and restaurants to refuse service to black patrons. His was one of only two predominantly white wards to vote in favor of the ordinance.[14]

In November 2012, Nutter received the Harold L. Holliday Sr. Civil Rights Award from the NAACP’s Kansas City, Mo. Branch.[6]

As a young man, Nutter got to know President Harry S. Truman, fostering a lifelong interest in local, state and national politics. Nutter has long been one of Missouri's largest contributors and strongest advocates for Democratic candidates, including Emanuel Cleaver II, when Cleaver was elected Kansas City's first African American mayor in 1991. .[15]

Nutter and his wife Annabel had two children: Nancy Nutter (deceased) and James B. Nutter Jr. [16] Nutter Sr. died on July 7, 2017, in Kansas City.[17]

• Company website