Every historic building has a story to tell
Too often, historic buildings are lost to the siren song of redevelopment, bulldozers sending dust and debris flying so quickly that it is hard to believe that generations of people used and occupied the structures so quickly tumbled to the ground. When I read in the paper this morning that the building at the corner (read more)
It’s been years since anxiety gripped me about getting lost in Kentucky. Back when I succumbed to those fears, it was my driving skills that should have caused nervousness, not the likelihood that a wrong turn would result in me getting hopelessly lost for days. County roads meander like a crop of morning glories across (read more)
A recent article on Facebook listing 12 beautiful barns in the Bluegrass caught my eye the other day. Excited, I clicked, scrolled, and then I sighed. While I am always happy to see articles extolling Kentucky’s amazing buildings, I didn’t think this list was…all that great. I am in a different position than many when (read more)
Categories: Barns, Farming, Historic Preservation, Kentucky architecture, Log construction, Mercer County, Vernacular
Tags: barns, farming, Kentucky barns, Log construction
My parents inflicted a succession of ugly, misshapen station wagons upon us hapless children during my formative years. The one I remember most vividly was a putrid shade of pale yellow, appeared longer than a school bus, and was known as “the Tank.” It was in the Tank (the way back- station wagons in those (read more)
The familiar landscape is the one that often receives the least notice. But when that landscape changes, the disorientation strikes with ferocity, and a palpable sense of loss. For all my love of crossroad communities – places not quite a town, grown organically at the intersection of two roads – the one closest to me (read more)
Categories: Clark County, Country Store, Crossroad communities, Kentucky architecture, Vernacular
Tags: Clark County, Crump, Dykes, Sewell Shop
When I talk to people about vernacular architecture, I catch myself comparing it to messy but delicious experiments in the kitchen, or unexpected adventures, or exploring a brand new place. Sometimes, you might cook up some comfort food. Or you could create something brand new. Local builders took familiar ways of buildings, house plans they (read more)
On a rainy, rather foggy March day a few years back, I was in the field, scoping out Casey County for a possible survey of historic buildings. It was not a day to wander about and take photographs – the typical two-lane Kentucky roads that hugged the creeks dipped perilously close to the rain-swollen waterways, (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Casey County, Historic Preservation, Kentucky architecture, Log Houses, Vernacular
Tags: Casey County, log, timber-frame, William Clark Quantrill
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)
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
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