John Coltrane’s sons file lawsuit to claim ownership of his Philadelphia home

John Coltrane’s two sons, Ravi and Oran, have filed a lawsuit claiming that they are the rightful owners of the jazz legend’s house in Philadelphia.

As reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer, the lawsuit contends that John Coltrane House, which is now a National Historic Landmark, should not actually belong to the family members of the late Norman Gadson, a jazz lover who bought the house in 2004 before he died in 2007.

Coltrane purchased the house at 1511 North 33rd St. in Philly’s Strawberry Mansion neighbourhood in 1952 and lived there until 1958 while using it as an alternate residence to his New York home until the end of his life. When he died in 1967, the house passed to his cousin Mary L. Alexander.

As the Inquirer reports, the Coltrane brothers’ lawsuit claims that Gadson “allegedly paid a third party for a sham deed to the Coltrane House.” According to the report, the complaint alleges that Alexander only held a “lifetime estate” interest in the house, meaning she had a legal right to live in the house until her death, but not to sell it.

“At worst, Norman Gadson was complicit in a fraudulent property sale that interfered with plaintiffs’ property rights,” the lawsuit viewed by the Inquirer claims. “At best, Norman Gadson was indefensibly oblivious … and as a result [Mary Alexander] duped him into paying $100,000 to purchase her life estate.”

Gadson had dreamed of turning the house into a jazz venue, Gadson’s widow Lenora Early told the newspaper in 2013.