Harkins Law Office, Prestonsburg, Floyd County, Kentucky

I first thought this monumental building must be a post office or perhaps a Carnegie library. Although it is a landmark building in the downtown streetscape, the yellow sandstone (quarried locally) Neoclassical beauty was built in 1914 as the law offices of the Harkins family, headed by patriarch Walter S. Harkins.

The Harkins Law Office, Prestonsburg, Kentucky

The elder Harkins, a contemporary of John C. Mayo in nearby Paintsville, made his fortune from coal mining. Harkins spared no expense in the construction of this jewel box of a building, which bears little resemblance to its neighboring commercial buildings in downtown Prestonsburg.

View of the impressive portico, circa 1987. Image from the files of the Kentucky Heritage Council.

Every aspect of the design – the portico, the details of the facade, the green tile roof – convey the wealth and power of the Harkins family.  It was possibly designed by the architect Edwin Stamler of Paris, Kentucky (who studied with the Cincinnati architect Samuel E. des Jardins), but no definitive proof of this has been found.

The facade of the building.

When constructed, the law office stood next door to the Harkins’ family mansion, which was demolished in the 1960s.

A circa 1907 postcard image of the now-demolished Harkins house.

What a statement the two buildings must have conveyed as they surveyed the street, side-by-side: the house embodying all of the asymmetry and ornamentation of the late 19th century Victorian era, and the law office serving as a model of a new architectural sensibility.  At least the latter remains, splendid on its corner, redolent of another age.