Every historic building has a story to tell
My oldest sister insists I possess hoarder tendencies. I disagree, of course – I recycle my newspapers, you can see the floors in our house, and I regularly donate bags of stuff to Goodwill. But when it comes to photographs, the charge might ring true – I take lots and lots of pictures and squirrel (read more)
Categories: Bracken County, Historic architecture, Historic Preservation, Kentucky architecture, Schools, Vernacular architecture
Tags: Augusta College Echo Hall Association, Augusta Kentucky, Echo Hall, historic preservation, Kentucky Trust for Historic Preservation, National Register of Historic Places
Columns, I think, more than any other architectural element, are the stuff of dreams, glory, and status. Not too surprising, given that most of the columns we see on buildings around us trace their lineage back to Classical architecture, and those innovative Greeks and Romans. Columns are decorative and structural, and when used properly, can transform (read more)
Every profession has its own language and often, its own genre of books. I may be a bit partial, but the books I’ve known and loved dealing with architectural history must be among the best non-fiction tomes ever published. Naming just a small selection of those books is agony (there are so many! I love (read more)
Long before its association with clothing, chocolates, or the civil disobedience of actor Woody Harrelson, hemp (without the prefix “industrial”) was a mainstay of Kentucky agriculture. One of my ancestors grew hemp on his Montgomery County farm decades before the Civil War, and in 1869 Kentucky produced 7,777 tons of hemp fiber – over half of the country’s (read more)
My perception of barns took a sharp detour during the short time I lived north of the Mason-Dixon line in Pennsylvania. There, the complexity, grandeur, and beauty of what is known as the Pennsylvania barn* completely changed my understanding of this most visible of agricultural outbuildings. I felt the same way with my first glimpse of (read more)
Historic communities are, by their very existence, full of contrast – even if that diversity goes unseen by the modern viewer. I imagine there are many people who see West Louisville as a single neighborhood, unified only by economic disparity, fear of violence, and boarded-up buildings with openings left expressionless by sheets of plywood. This is (read more)
Have you ever noticed two historic houses side-by-side and thought they looked identical? “Twin” dwellings are common in early 20th century residential development in many Kentucky towns – often an example of small scale speculative development. Pattern books and catalogs from titans of the “mail-order home” business like Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward (among many others) (read more)
Monday morning deserves a dreamy Queen Anne-Romanesque Revival style house, I think… and the George W. Robson, Jr. house fits the bill! Cincinnati-based architect Samuel E. des Jardins designed this gorgeous dwelling for Robson, an affluent resident of Bellevue, in Campbell County, Kentucky. The 2.5 story brick house has massive stone arches over the second (read more)
The chain link fences have gone up, making visible the divide between what was and what shall be – from tired reminders of former neighborhoods to blank earth, littered by concrete and gravel. And with the demolition of these houses, one of the last vestiges of the Virginia Avenue neighborhood between South Limestone and South (read more)
Categories: Demolition, Fayette County, Historic architecture, Historic Preservation, Kentucky architecture, Lexington Kentucky History, Lexington neighborhoods, Vernacular architecture
Tags: Adamstown, demolition, Lottie Street, Lottie Street Presbyterian Church, Maxwell Street Presbyterian Church, Porter Memorial Baptist Church, University of Kentucky, Virginia Avenue, W.S. Griffing
My first trip through Union County, in Western Kentucky, occurred during a week of spring floods. Our plan to travel along small, meandering rural roads close to the river was often thwarted by standing water. Although our circuitous route missed the county seat of Morganfield, we did stop in the coal-mining town of Sturgis, established (read more)
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