Matthew P. Motley House, Warren County, Kentucky

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 – the typical child’s drawing of a house. But the actual house occupying my thoughts while I drew is far from typical or average or standard.

From a distance, the two-story, one room deep frame dwelling looked like many other 19th century farmhouses across Kentucky. But as we neared the front of the house, I rapidly reassessed that conclusion.

A five-bay wide house is common – but not one with three sets of doors on the first and second stories. Each room has a door to the exterior, opening onto what was likely a full-width two-story porch. The second story porch was still in place, but with a fairly modern metal balustrade.

If the Motley House had possessed two front doors, in a four bay wide arrangement, I would not have been that intrigued. But this – a window/door/door/door/window arrangement on both stories of the facade – perplexed me.

But despite the dizzying number of doors on the facade, the interior plan of the Motley House smacks of traditionalism  – it’s a straightforward central passage plan.  This house plan, which had become the preferred house plan for middling and prosperous Kentucky farmers by 1850, a centrally placed hallway stretches from the front to the rear of the dwelling, with a room to either side.*

So replace the windows on either side of the centrally placed entry door on the plan above, and you would have the Motley House.

And the questioning begins…why? Why built a fairly typical house with such an typical arrangement of windows and doors? Who did it serve? Where did the idea come from?

Matthew P. Motley was born in Allen County, Kentucky on September 2, 1827.  Shortly after his marriage to Sarah J. Knowles in 1853, Motley moved to Warren County and built this dwelling. A large sawmill on his farm (which would eventually encompass 550 acres) provided the milled timber for the house.

A late 19th century biographical sketch of Motley provided this sketch of the man behind this remarkable house: “He began his life at wagon-making and blacksmithing, and later engaged in farming and at the carpenter trade. He is not a member of any society religious or otherwise, but neither swears nor uses tobacco in any form, and was never under the influence of liquor in his life. In politics he is staunch Democrat.”**

And that is about all of the background I could glean about Matthew Motley. Census records shed no light on the multiple doors on his house – he only had three children – and there is no hint that he was running an inn or a tavern, in which it would make sense for every room to have its own door.****

Did Motley, in his travels, come across a similar building and use it for inspiration? Was he simply seeking the best in air flow and circulation of people? Motley’s father was from North Carolina, and I did wonder if there was a connection in that direction.

The Humphrey-Williams House in North Carolina (above photo) has similar fenestration, at least on the first story, and also has a central passage plan. But without knowing more about Motley’s life, this is just idle speculation.

Based on what I could tell from both the exterior and interior finish of the Motley House, the openings are original.

The woodwork is a very restrained Greek Revival, with four panel doors and Greek Ear trim. All of the main rooms on both floors were heated – the second story rooms likely had stoves.

This may seem like an exercise in useless conjecture by an architectural historian on Christmas holiday…but I’ve yet to see another house from this period built like the Motley House that didn’t have some sort of public (such as a tavern) use.

And I will never get another chance to scratch my head and try to puzzle out the mystery – for this past fall the Motley House was taken down and shipped to Georgia, where it is rumored to be reconstructed.

One of the best parts about this blog is finding the kindred spirits who are also obsessed with historic architecture – so I put the Motley House out there for speculation, theories, and questions.

Although Warren County, Kentucky, is full of historic sites – the Motley House was sadly never documented by the Kentucky Heritage Council, the State Historic Preservation Office, so there are no secondary records to consult – only my brief visit two years ago.

I wonder if the “new” old Motley House, rebuilt somewhere in Georgia, will look anything like the original? And will it, in another 150 years, be puzzling someone else?

 

 

*A central passage plan can also be double pile – with two rooms on each side of the passage.

** Battle, J.H., William Henry Perrin and G.K. Kniffin. Kentucky Genealogy and Biography Volume II, third edition, 1886.

***Many thanks to Gardens to Gables South-central Kentucky Representative, J. Eric Thomason, for introducing me to the Motley House and keeping me abreast of its fate.

****After the initial publication of this post, I heard from a Motley family descendant, who confirmed that the house was built as a turnpike inn – the family lived in the back portion (ell) of the house.