J. M. Gardell
J. M. Gardell, who has been remarkably successful in handling large investments and in introducing capital to Cincinnati from other parts of the country, is recognized as one of the most prominent real-estate and loan brokers of the city. He is a native of Cincinnati, born in 1872, a son of John and Victoria Gardell. The father was for many years engaged in the wholesale mercantile business on Walnut Street and is now deceased.
Mr. Gardell of this review was educated in the public schools and from his boyhood has been acquainted with business affairs. For fifteen years past he has been actively engaged in the real-estate business. He devotes his attention principally to business property centrally located and has been instrumental in effecting the largest deals ever made by a real-estate broker in Cincinnati, some of them involving more than a million dollars. He negotiated the sale of the Columbia Theater property, on Walnut Street, which amounted to several hundreds of thousands of dollars; the sale of property on the north side of Fifth Avenue, between Vine and Race Streets, aggregating more than a million dollars; the Ohio Mechanics Institute, at the southwest corner of Sixth Avenue and Vine Streets, which called for five hundred thousand dollars; and he made a deal amounting to four hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in property on Main Street, between Canal and Hunt Streets; also transactions on Fountain Square brought the price of realty up from five thousand dollars a foot for inside lots to nine thousand dollars a foot. Most of his large negotiations have been concluded within the last two or three years and they have resulted in bringing many hundreds of thousands of dollars from cities in other parts of the country to Cincinnati. He has also been successful in effecting the establishment of manufacturing and business enterprises, among which may be named the large eastern firm headed by S. S. Kresge, which moved from an eastern city and now has two stores in Cincinnati, one of which is on Fifth Avenue, between Race and Vine Streets, in the center of the retail district, and the other on Main Street, just north of the canal.
In 1905 Mr. Gardell was married in this city to Miss Eleanor Vaske, a daughter of George Vaske, who was formerly a member of the firm of Van Wormer & Vaske, commission merchants. This firm is now retired from business. To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Gardell two sons have been born, Ellsworth, now aged four years, and Norman, aged two years. The residence of the family is on East Walnut Hills, where Mr. Gardell finds a welcome diversion from the cares of business in raising poultry. He attributes his success in life to habits of close observation combined with the ability to keep his plans to himself until the time for making them public has arrived. He is a close student of human nature and always keeps thoroughly informed as to the wants of investors. Mr. Gardell is an authority in the valuation of business property in Cincinnati and it is scarcely necessary to say that he is a man of irreproachable character whose work is as binding as his bond.
From Cincinnati, The Queen City, Volume III by Rev. Charles Fredric Goss, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1912