While her primary residence is in KC near her work, on weekends, she and her daughter, Star, make the 45-minute drive up to Weston, where Jo Marie renovated a century-old farmhouse with as much ease as she makes a salad.

Both chefing and designing are natural extensions of her love for entertaining and the good life. In fact, she launched a third brand to merge the two passions—Midwest Maven.

“For me, creating food and spaces are whole processes of being surrounded by wonderful things—and the moment something is created, I can share it with others,” she says. 

The same is true of her private getaway, although it’s more of a respite for her to recharge.

“I never relax, but here I can,” Jo Marie says.

She knocked out every wall in the four-room footprint to modernize the house while salvaging its essence.

“I was originally just going to raise the kitchen ceiling, but if I’m doing one, I might as well do them all,” she shrugs, adding, “When I get an idea in my head and see a carrot, there’s no stopping me.”

She also ripped out all the old wiring, plumbing, systems and floors so that it’s essentially a new house. The newly reorganized floor plan includes luxury lifestyle elements like a mudroom/laundry room and a large screened-in porch across the back of the house.

“It was an organic process that moved quickly,” Jo Marie says. “It took about 10 months during COVID.”

Built in 1922, the house is not listed on the historic registry—as so many homes in the vicinity are—but Jo Marie is active with the Weston Chamber of Commerce and local community.

Chamber vice president/director Lorri Stanislav, who puts together many of the city’s homes tours, has taken note of the extensiveness of Jo Marie’s renovation. “No one has done it to this level,” Lorri says.