Every historic building has a story to tell
The second story porch was what got me. That, and the roofline – gable on hip, with these curious gable attic dormers, festooned with brackets. Those elements and my penchant for deliberately getting lost – or wandering down side streets – led me past this imposing late-19th century brick house in Campton, Kentucky. The allure of the (read more)
The R.H. Wilson House in Greensburg, Kentucky, is a perfect example of one of the historic house forms I adore: a compact, brick, 1.5 story central passage dwelling – usually built during the Federal period. The Federal style is generally considered to be from around 1790 to 1825 in Kentucky, though certain elements of the (read more)
A giant silver coffee pot on the side of the road possesses a certain sort of magic, almost certainly the power to encourage drivers to conduct a hasty U-turn to make sure that what they saw was, yes – a building shaped like an enormous coffee pot. The metal clad, round building, with an attached (read more)
Bell bottoms. Beanie babies. Disco and the Atkins Diet. Fads are curious, strange creatures, and likely to reappear (especially in fashion) when least expected. I am not certain that this truism exists in architecture, for I have yet to spy the fad of octagon houses taking hold again. In mid-19th century America, the octagon house was (read more)
Categories: Architecture, Historic Preservation, Kentucky architecture, Kentucky churches, Kentucky history, National Register of Historic Places, Vernacular
Tags: #benjaminhenrylatrobe, #kentuckyarchitecture, #octagonalhouse, #octagonsinkentucky, #orsonfowler, #poplarforest, #thomasjefferson, #westvirginia
Storytelling is a selective art, and since buildings and landscapes form the foundation of my stories, I cannot capture them all. Yesterday afternoon, while perusing Facebook (you know you do it too…), I flinched at the photograph of a bulldozer tearing into a small house in Paris, Kentucky. The realization that I photographed that house (read more)
When the news media reports a winning lottery ticket, my imagination shifts into overdrive. My plans for my imaginary lottery spoils include buying up lots of farmland for preservation, endowing numerous non-profits, and buying my own country store (adjacent to my farm, of course). In the preface to Pills, Petticoats, and Plows, the late state (read more)
Categories: Architecture, Country Store, Crossroad communities, Historic Preservation, Kentucky architecture, Kentucky history, National Register of Historic Places, Vernacular, Warren County
Tags: Bowling Green Kentucky, Country stores, historic tax credits, Houchens, Thomas D. Clark, Warren County Kentucky
The evocative nature of abandoned houses permeated my childhood. I spent countless hours exploring forgotten houses on our farm, spinning stories in my head, and brandishing a dust rag at the curtains of cobwebs. Cleaning, I suppose, was my way to bring order to rooms given over to hay bales and critters. The Internet has (read more)
“I hear the train a comin’, It’s rolling ’round the bend…” The first two lines of “Folsom Prison Blues,” sung by Mr. Johnny Cash, not only brought the man in black fame, but it catapulted California’s second oldest prison into popular culture mythology.* There are no catchy mid-20th century songs about the 19th century stone (read more)
I didn’t grow up lazing away hot summer evenings on a spacious and shady front porch. (Those evenings usually found me, along with my sisters, weeding in the world’s largest vegetable garden, with 100-foot rows that stretched on into eternity…) As an adult, however, I’ve fully embraced my porch obsession, and I hope my next (read more)
I am not a trainspotter. That said, I completely subscribe to the romance of travel by rail (even having experienced the seediness of rail travel in many European countries) – a transportation option not readily available in the Bluegrass. Perhaps a tiny bit of the railroad is in my blood – after all, the railroad (read more)
Interested in a specific topic? Check out some popular categories below, or enter your search terms in the box.