Every historic building has a story to tell
My great-great-great-grandfather’s farm, originally christened “Mt. Pleasant” in the early 19th century, was renamed “Klondike” in the late-19th century, when one of his grandchildren headed to Alaska with dreams of striking it rich in the Klondike goldfields. We have a box of crumbling letters he wrote home to his mother, assuring her of his good (read more)
It’s been almost a year since my adventure among the country houses in England. The recent fire at Clandon Park in Surrey, plus the weekend spent with a friend from last summer, made me wistful for the grueling, yet exhilarating days of an Attingham scholar. The first country house (outside of our lodging at the (read more)
Categories: Country house, Historic Preservation
There’s few things more dangerous to an old house (or any structure) than water. As the heavens opened again a few minutes ago, and water plunged merrily from my overflowing gutters, I thought of how I used to watch the rain anxiously in my old house, as it tended to come through the porch roof. (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Historic Preservation, Kentucky, Kentucky architecture, Vernacular
Tags: abandoned, old houses, poetry
I learned this morning that a family friend passed away after a long illness. Terry White was a historian, a storyteller, and a wonderful man. A fixture of trips to Harrodsburg, my mother’s hometown, since I was a little girl, I relished our conversations then (he never talked to me like I was a child) (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Historic Preservation, Kentucky, Kentucky architecture, Mercer County, Vernacular
Tags: Harrodsburg, James Harrod, Mercer County
Memories have a funny way of not staying put. Earlier this week, there were some sly bumper stickers waiting for me on my front porch, poking fun at the yawning hole in downtown Lexington that is Centre Pointe. My life philosophy typically follows the “laugh rather than cry” method, and laugh I did. But rumination (read more)
The press in the past few days about the Lorillard Lofts building made me stop and think about tobacco. Not the tobacco barns or the fields I know well as the daughter of a farmer, but the impact that the burley tobacco industry had on Lexington in the 20th century. A few years ago I (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Farming, Fayette County
Tags: #burleytobacco, #kentuckyagriculture, #lexingtonky, #liggettandmyers
Although I would never willingly repeat high school again, there are some wrinkled, furtive wisps of memory I wish I could chase down. You look at the world differently as a teenager (beyond the hormones and the belief in one’s immortality) and I passed by so many enchanting landscapes and fascinating buildings with nary a (read more)
Politics in today’s world can be a disagreeable affair, to put it nicely. Historically the same is true, I think, but the difference was that occasionally the candidates had to work, either before holding elected office, or after. (I realize Jessie Ventura made quite a mark for himself as a wrestler, but he is a (read more)
I fall in love with a different house (or sometimes a commercial or industrial building) at least once a week. Madly, passionately, head-over-heels in love, with blissful, giddy thoughts of scraping paint, refinishing floors, and restoring the overgrown yard to my platonic ideal of an English Cottage Garden in Kentucky. My latest crush is the (read more)
Categories: Art, Historic Preservation, Kentucky architecture, McCracken County, Tourism, Vernacular
Tags: Artist Relocation Program, Greek Revival, Lowertown, Paducah
There are some abandoned buildings I’ve sadly grown used to seeing: houses, barns, stores, and old garages. Our crossroads communities across Kentucky boast these types by the hundreds (if not the thousands). For some reason, though, I encounter abandoned bank buildings less frequently. And I’m always surprised when I do. Banks exude an air of (read more)
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