Basketball inventor James Naismith’s Lawrence home goes on market again

The Lawrence house where basketball inventor James Naismith lived and died is back on the market, putting one of the city’s most recognizable sports landmarks in play and raising a simple question for Douglas County: who gets to shape what survives next at 1515 University Drive?

The property, known as the Fernand-Strong House, sits in University Heights near the University of Kansas campus. Built about 1872 as a wood-frame Italianate house, it grew with a large historic addition around 1905 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 2, 2008. The Kansas Historical Society lists former KU Chancellor Frank Strong and Naismith among its notable owners, tying the home directly to the university’s history and to the man who invented basketball.

Current listing material says the house has been stewarded by just seven families since 1887, which would make the next buyer only the eighth family to hold the address in nearly 140 years. Public listing pages describe the home as roughly 2,907 to 2,915 square feet, with five bedrooms, three bathrooms and about 0.8 acres. The Naismith House website frames the sale as a chance to own part of KU history, and the property’s setting steps from campus gives it both symbolic and practical value in a neighborhood where university ties still shape property identity.

This is not the first time the house has drawn attention. In 2018, it was marketed for $300,000. At that time, owner Lew Llewellyn said his family was the third to own the house and that he had bought it in 1965. A FOX 4 Kansas City report said Naismith lived there for nine years after he built it, and that the home had been on the market only once in more than 50 years. That history helps explain why the listing lands as more than a real-estate transaction.

For Lawrence, the sale is a test of whether a house linked to one of the city’s most globally known figures will remain a visible piece of local heritage. The National Register listing offers recognition, but the next owner will determine whether the Fernand-Strong House stays a preserved marker of KU and basketball history, or becomes just another elegant old home near campus.