Published May 11, 2025 | Updated September 5, 2026

While most well known for being the residence of Warren Buffett, the house at 55th and Farnam Street has been home to many of the city’s richest and most powerful people. The house dates back to 1921 when it was built by George H. Payne for $25,000. The two-and-a-half-story home was designed by architect Charles Steinbaugh in the Dutch Colonial style.

Payne’s 6,570 square foot residence was constructed of brick and stucco. Inside the front door was an entrance hall that led to a living room with fireplace, conservatory, dining room, kitchen, large pantry, and breakfast room. The stairs led to a second floor with five bedrooms, sunroom, and four of its six bathrooms. The third floor held a large recreation space, while the basement had a laundry room, fruit and vegetable room, wine cellar, and sleeping quarters for a maid or chauffeur. Perhaps more notable was the considerable amount of money Payne spent landscaping the grounds.

Its original owner, Payne, was born in Illinois in 1864 and moved to Omaha in 1885. His first job was carrying water for a sewer gang near the Armour Packing Company in South Omaha. His first real job came as a clerk for the O.F. Davis Company where he slept in the back office. Oscar F. Davis was no ordinary employer; he spent 12 years working as a land commissioner for Union Pacific Railroad before opening his real estate business. It’s likely that Payne learned the business from his boss. By 1891, he started his own real estate company. Just ten years after that, he formed the Payne Investment Company, which kick-started what would be one of the largest colonization efforts in the western United States. Payne only lived in Dundee’s Evanston addition until 1925, at which point he relocated to the stunning home at 3402 Lincoln Boulevard in Bemis Park where he remained until his death in 1937.

Billy Nesselhous purchased the home with its beautifully landscaped grounds for his mother Martha Withnell. If the Nesselhous name seems familiar, it is because the former jockey was a key player in Tom Dennison’s political machine that dominated Omaha politics for nearly 30 years. Nesselhous owned the Budweiser Saloon, which also served as the boss’s headquarters. Nesselhous adored his mother and spared no expense buying the house for $75,000 and spending another $35,000 on furniture and pictures to fill the home. He hired six servants, which included a live-in maid and chauffeur. The house was often referred to as one of the city’s most beautiful.

After Withnell passed away in 1934, the man who had earlier been indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to violate prohibition laws as one of Dennison’s top bootleggers moved in. Nesselhous gave the third-floor recreation room a log cabin look by finishing it with logs. He loved to entertain and would often host parties in the space with “flocks of pretty girls.” Nesselhous’s time in the house was brief, having passed away three years later in 1937. While he left the house to his sister, Ida Cadwell, it was sold in 1939, likely to settle the estate.

Its fourth owner was Sam Reynolds. He started working at West Omaha Coal and Ice Company in 1908 when he was just 18 years old. He put his career on pause while serving in World War I in the U.S. Army Air Service. He returned home after the war ended and co-founded Allen and Reynolds Coal Company with partner Wood Allen in 1920. Four years later, he was a partner in the Updike Lumber and Coal Company as well as Reynolds Updike Coal Company.

The coal man also had a storied career in military and public service. During World War II, Reynolds earned the rank of colonel and served as the director of the Army Specialist Corps in Omaha from 1942-1943. Mayor Glenn Cunningham appointed him to organize and lead the city’s first Civil Defense Unit in 1950. Just two years later he led 35,000 people, the majority of whom were volunteers, to keep the Missouri River at bay as it flooded. In 1954, he was appointed by Governor Robert B. Crosby to the United States Senate to finish the term of Hugh Butler after Butler passed away. While Reynolds opted not to run for his own term, he did serve on the city council from 1957-1958. He moved outside the city and sold the home to Warren Buffett before passing away in 1988.

As its fifth owner, Warren Buffett was just 27 years old when he bought the home and would not take over Berkshire Hathaway until seven years later in 1965. While he altered the house in some manner in 1967, there is not much else published about it. Buffett made his fortune finding value where others didn’t while holding onto the company’s investments longer than anyone else. He applied that same strategy to the house that Payne built in 1921. Buffett paid $31,500 for it in 1958 and has lived there through market crashes and booms. The Oracle of Omaha, it turns out, was not difficult to locate.

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Sources

• Omaha World-Herald archives
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70885388/george-harrington-payne
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_W._Reynolds
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/37065712/oscar-f-davis
• https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/warren-buffetts-houses-inside-the-billionaires-properties
• https://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/articles/billionaire-warren-buffett-paid-31-143238890.html
• https://beacon.schneidercorp.com/Application.aspx?AppID=1221&LayerID=37105&PageTypeID=4&PageID=14212&Q=792829148&KeyValue=1026290000