Every historic building has a story to tell
Here’s a little secret: In addition to the 496 blog posts on this site, I have a folder of 78 drafts. Most of them have no title, or identifying notations from the preview window, so I must click on each “no title” entry to discover what on earth I saved eight years ago and never (read more)
Category: Warren County
Tags: #bowlinggreenky, #kentuckyarchitecture, #motorcourt, #roadsidearchitecture
This post serves as a confession. Yes . . . I spy on my neighbors! Before you get excited and envision me hiding in bushes looking through windows; it is nothing like that. Instead I simply like to know who lives in a certain house, how many acres are in their farm, or what (read more)
Category: Warren County
Tags: #bowlinggreenky, #kentuckyarchitecture, #oldhouses, #PVA, #warrencountyky
As longtime followers of this blog might know, I am an architectural historian, with a day job, a family, a farm, and I maintain this blog in my free time. My career allows me to combine three of my greatest passions: being outside (and gardening!), writing, and old buildings. I’m not interested in being a (read more)
Categories: Abandoned houses, Abandoned Kentucky, Warren County
Tags: #abandonedhouse, #kentuckyarchitecture, #warrencountyky
The daffodils, yellow and bright against a gray February day, signaled to me to slow down. Then I saw the house, half hidden by trees, a small, frame, central passage dwelling on a stone foundation, with a brick chimney at either gable end. The weatherboard was still mostly white on the one-story house, but the (read more)
Categories: Abandoned houses, Abandoned Kentucky, Warren County
Tags: #abandonedhouse, daffodils, old homesite
One of my enduring Christmas habits is listening to Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” in a lamplit room alone with only my own memories. As Truman Capote recites in his high-pitched sing-song voice, with 2020 stripped to its barest essentials, and Christmas rapidly approaching, I cannot help but think of holiday traditions of years past (read more)
Categories: Guest Post, Kentucky architecture, Kentucky history, Warren County
Tag: Christmas
My grandmother, a lifelong Warren Countian who died in the same room in which she was born, often spoke of a great-uncle, ‘Tom-Doc.’ Call him what you will, Thomas Benton Greathouse was the family eccentric and/or black sheep. During my childhood, she would point out the location of his shack, on land later owned by (read more)
Categories: Allen County, Warren County
Tags: alms house, poor farm, Poorhouse
One of the things I love most about my profession is the chance to travel around Kentucky and talk to people about the historic places they hold dear – and see the buildings that make those places. So I am very excited to introduce my friend and guest author, J. Eric Thomason, an 8th generation (read more)
Category: Warren County
Tag: Guest author
I just spent some quality time on the floor with my toddler, drawing pictures of houses with (this is a very important fact) washable crayons. My drafting skills are not the finest, but I executed two renderings of a fairly one-dimensional dwelling, each house with a central door flanked by a window on either side (read more)
Categories: Abandoned houses, Warren County
I like to “collect” buildings by type, and the historic, small town bank is one I am always excited to find. Most are no longer in service, and many are crumbling. But a few sparkle with renewed life, and the Farmer’s Bank Building, now a cafe, is a bright spot for the community of Smiths (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
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