Every historic building has a story to tell
Affordable housing is a pressing matter – crucial even – for most communities in this country. So it strikes me as asinine that a well-built, conveniently located 12-unit apartment building in Lexington (1320-1324 Versailles Road) is slated for demolition – for another gas station? I am not sure how the Planning Commission thinks this will (read more)
Categories: Demolition, Fayette County
Tags: #lexingtonky, #lucillecaudilllittle, #wreckingballwatch, demolition
A valuable piece of Lexington history was lost earlier this year when 504 and 506 Euclid Avenue were demolished. I was able to photograph 506 Euclid (and its tiny addition, 506 1/2) before it was felled, but I have few photos of 504 Euclid Avenue, once home (from 1938-1991) to Brooking’s Restaurant, famed for their (read more)
An oft-told family story is the shock and vertigo experienced by my mother when she moved to my father’s hometown. The paternal side of my family takes its cousins VERY seriously – even today. Her mother-in-law, trying to acclimate her to life in the community, introduced her around, but it was all a bewildering maze (read more)
Categories: Kentucky history, Oral History
Tags: #familystories, #kentuckyarchitecture, #kentuckyhistory, #oralhistory
In the fall of 2020, mired in the uncertainty of the world and convinced we might never venture off the farm again, my daughter and I ordered some tulip bulbs. Tulips, while beautiful, have never been a mainstay of any of my gardens. They are too expensive to be treated like annuals, and yet that (read more)
Category: Kentucky Gardens
Tags: Gardening, Gardens, Kentucky gardener, tulips
It’s National Library Week and I feel the urge to ruminate on the public library, one of the most valuable institutions in this country. My love affair with the public library started very early, and fittingly it was with a historic house repurposed for use as a library. Once you walked in the front door, (read more)
Category: Montgomery County
Tags: #NationalLibraryWeek, libraries, library, public library
Over the years, I’ve learned that if I don’t stop when I see an intriguing building, I may never get the chance again. It’s been years since I regularly traveled south of Lexington, so two visits to Danville in less than a week provided a reacquaintance with a corridor that has grown – well, it’s (read more)
Category: Jessamine County
A Pandemic has a way of changing everything, even buildings. During the Influenza Pandemic of the early 20th century, the lack of adequate medical care in many Kentucky communities literally meant life or death for a large portion of the population. Members of the Elks Lodge in Middlesboro, Kentucky, occupants of a new and handsome (read more)
Categories: Bell County, Demolition
Tag: Middlesboro Hospital
Despite staggering changes over the years, East Main Street in Lexington retains some delightful early 20th century houses. One of the most picturesque is a 3.5-story brick and frame ode to the influence of the Shingle style. No matter the season, it brings a smile to my face, but especially as the world begins to (read more)
Category: Fayette County
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
The loss of the 1890 census, any historian or genealogist will tell you, was devastating. When a fire broke out in the Commerce Building in Washington, DC in 1921, I don’t imagine many people thought about the results of that conflagration, and the destruction of the information gathered in the Eleventh Census. For me, trying (read more)
Categories: Kentucky architecture, Montgomery County
Tags: #shotgunhouse, Shotgun house
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