Six years ago, when I launched this blog as a platform for my musings about historic buildings and landscapes, I spent a hot June day walking the length of Main Street in Paris, Kentucky – from 19th Street to Second Street. I captured a great many images: churches, public buildings, cottages, festooned Queen Anne houses, and a tiny concrete block building constructed in front of a 1.5-story frame house with two front doors. When I drove out of Paris yesterday, dodging the roadwork on 68, I noticed that both buildings have been demolished.
The concrete block building and behind it (underneath some wonderful shade trees) the house.
When I first encountered these buildings in 2015, both had been vacant and neglected for quite some time. Most people wouldn’t give the buildings a second look. I was intrigued, however, by the notion that some long-ago homeowner decided to take advantage of the busy street and operate a business out of his front yard (a very common practice in both urban and rural areas).
The house, looking northeast.
The mid-20th century commercial building was diminutive, with a pleasingly shaped stepped parapet wall above its two bay wide facade. It was built between 1952 and 1956, if the shadowy aerial photos at which I squinted can be trusted.
According to the scant background information I uncovered, it was once a liquor store known as the “Drover’s Inn.” The name delighted me, as I’ve spent many hours of research into the lives of 19th century livestock drovers (among them my great-great-great-grandfather). When the concrete block building was constructed, it was across the street from the Bourbon County Stockyards – so the name was an obvious connection to the livestock trade.
South elevation and facade of the former Drover’s Inn.
Tucked behind the Drover’s Inn was the 1.5-story, four bay wide frame house – with two front doors. (I am working on a post about the why of two front doors in historic houses in Kentucky, but haven’t managed to complete it yet).
A year after I first spotted this pair of buildings, I went back with an intrepid cousin and Paris native. Together we skirted around the house so I could take pictures and even made our way to the courthouse to discover the owner’s name. That nugget of information didn’t provide much in the way of clues, as the property owner was the possessor of a great many parcels, several of which were as careworn and forgotten looking as these specimens.
The doors in question.
The two doors rested unassumingly behind a porch with lovely Ionic columns on rough cut stone piers. Full length wood screen doors covered what are typical Craftsman-era (1930s or so) entry doors – I had the same door on both of my bungalows.
I imagine the inside had two front rooms alongside one another, with a door opening into each. A staircase may have been located along the partition wall or at the back of one of the rooms.
A better look at the porch and the facade.
The central cross gable on the facade accentuates those two doors clustered so close to one another. The house, clad in weatherboards, promised many stories.
One side of the rear ell of the house.
I didn’t dig further and investigate those stories. Later that year, my oldest child was born, and ever since, accomplishing much of anything has been a challenge! (Her younger brother deserves some credit for distracting me from research as well.) But I remembered the buildings and I immediately noted their absence.
The streetscape view prior to demolition, if you are headed out of Paris toward Lexington. (Thank you Google maps.)
If my memory serves, there was one more historic house on an adjacent parcel (on the south side). That small frame T-plan with its gable of fishscale shingles, was as weathered and worn as its companions. All three buildings, a tiny section of Paris history, are all now wisps of memory.
Another victim sent to the landfill.
As I stated previously, these were not the sort of historic buildings that commanded attention, especially not in their later years. Vernacular architecture is sometimes more utilitarian than ornamented and flamboyant. I probably liked them more for their lack of architectural flash.
How many structures like these end up in our landfills each week? And who is left to mourn their passing?
Why do towns ignore property neglect? I look forward to learning about the two front door history. It sounds like an early version of a duplex.
Wonderful post, as usual. Thank you.
I would point out that those are not purely ionic capitals – they are actually scamozzi. This is perhaps a subset of the ionic order, but I think they are more accurately understood when they are described simply as scamozzi capitals.
Technicalities of the language!
Oooh! This is a term I don’t know at all! Thank you!
The home was in great disrepair and was not taken care of. Full of pest and other animals.
The inside floor has collapsed in places and there was no option of a rehab.
I know the property well, my home is the brick house next to it .
I knew a young boy who was shot trying to break into the liquor store part of that photo he lost a finger in that dumb move.
When this liquor store was first built it was directly across the street from the Bo Co Stockyards, there was also a restaurant a couple hundred feet to the south of this block building. Interesting point no one had told you was the liquor store was owned and operated throughout its total occupancy by then Judge Fred Laycock. He sell you liquor on Saturday and pass sentence or fine on you on Monday for Drunk and disorderly if you ran afoul of the law.
The name makes sense then! Thank you so much for your comment! I don’t imagine the Judge lived in the house – was it rented out?
the doors may have been the l9th century version of a duplex or possibly
a space shared with a tenant. who knows? I enjoy your blog, Janie-Rice
Fred Laycock owned many properties in Bourbon County and he left them all in gross dilapidation. He had a farm in the county that had a once-glorious Queen Anne house (its name was Dorfrelincock) that was in as bad (if not worse) disrepair as the buildings in town. Who can understand the psychology of a person who gathers pieces of property but has zero degree of responsibility toward caring for them? and no, he would not sell them.
Kathleen
The Drover’s Inn, built in the 50s to serve the stockyards across the street is a reminder of the complex that developed here in the 1850s: there was the municipal cemetery, its McMurty gate (still there), stockyards and railroad loading chutes across the road, and side by side with the Agricultural society fairgrounds which boasted a McMurty floral hall. Later there would be a trotting track. What spawned this complex…then really in the country outside Paris, was the arrival of the rails from Lexington, 1853?, and Cincinnati (1856). They made Paris a livestock center, both sales and showings (this was the years of the shorthorn boom) coupled with a Mt. Auburn inspired memorializing cemetery and a few gothic cottages scattered around (one or two still exist). Interestingly, the rr passenger station was downtown near the courthouse.
The little liquor store built in the 50s I believe, along with Mrs. Thomas’ restaurant down the street opposite the school, were reminders of the presence of the stockyards, which, together with the memorial cemetery across the road, reflect the rather remarkable change which took place in the town here in the 1850s. Add to it the agricultural fairgrounds, approximately where the Woodford Spears mill is, and you have a social focus for the community outside the town in effect. Add in some suburban gothic cottages for effect! I think the cemetery with its McMurtry gate may have been first, he did plans for a floral pavilion at the fairgrounds as well. But the real cement which brought all these together, I believe, was the arrival of the railroad from Lexington in 1853 and its joining with the rails from Cincinnatian I believe about 1856. The focus was on the stock loading chutes and the complex, with the ag. fairs, underlies the great role Paris played in local agriculture, exceeding Lexington even because of its rail connections north and west. Interestingly, the rr. station was downtown near the courthouse.
I drove by this property many times while I lived in Bourbon Co and often wondered what the story was…
And never knew the stockyards had been across the street.
Looking forward to the two front door piece!
in this town, this happens all the time. no attempt made to sell, give away on contract or repurpose. one just looks up one day and it is gone, and very quickly, with no notice, at that.