93 Iowa 717 | Iowa | 1895
Peter Beck and Amelia Beck are husband and wife and they have several children. On the twenty-seventh day of March, 1898, Beck was the owner of half a city lot upon which there was a brick building, in which he and his family resided and carried on a grocery store and liquor saloon. On that day;
It would be almost impossible to give a description of the buildings on the lot so that readers of this opinion, other than the parties and their counsel, would understand their location and the use to wMch each part was put.
We will state the facts in a general way. The half lot is twenty-two feet wide and a hundred and twelve feet long. It fronts on Main street. There is a brick building the whole width of the lot wMch fronts on the street and extends back some seventy feet. The building is two stories high with a basement, or cellar under it. Back of this building and adjoining it is a one story structure seventeen by thirty feet, so that there is a passageway five feet wide from a back door in the main building to the back of the lot, where there was a coal shed and water closet.
We think this finding accords with the evidence. Without setting out this evidence in detail, we will say that the cellar was used for the purposes for which the cellar of a residence’is usually adapted. Th'e canned fruits for the family and other provisions, and the wash tubs and other articles of household property were kept there and there was no means, of going to the cellar from the living rooms or to the back of the lot, except by going through the store room in the first story. There could not be the usual occupation of the resident rooms without the partial use of the store roiom. It is true there was an outside front door and a stairway in the first story to the rooms occupied exclusively by the family, but, as we have said, there was no entrance to the cellar except by going through the store room. The case in its facts is much like the case of Wright & Co v. Ditzler, 54 Iowa, 620, where it was held that the entire building was exempt as a homestead See also Cass County Bank v. Weber, 83 Iowa, 63.
II. Beck appealed from that part of the order or judgment which held that the annex or one story part of the building was not exempt as part of the homestead. There is no valid objection to this part of the judgment. The annex, as it is called, was not necessary to th e use and enj oyment of the homestead. It had an independent entrance from the side street and might be detached and removed without in any manner restricting or interfering with the. homestead occupancy.
Upon both appeals the judgment of the District Court is affirmed.