Every historic building has a story to tell
As I’ve groused many times before, the problem with taking so many photographs of historic buildings is labelling those photographs. But how to choose the best sort of label/name that will survive changes in ownership, land divisions, or (most frightening) technology changes that render my thousands of photographs obsolete? This point was driven home to (read more)
Three years ago, I wrote about a photographer named Theodore Webb, and the work he carried out for the Historic American Buildings Survey. Today I had the pleasure of browsing the HABS collection (looking for something else entirely), and came across the jaw-dropping documentation of Rose Hill, a Federal-style house (with later stylistic modifications) in (read more)
Category: Fayette County
Tags: #lexingtonky, #Libraryofcongress, HABS, Rosehill
It’s taken five years, but a bungalow and Tudor Revival style house on Nicholasville Road are now piles of rubble. Due to strident owner opposition, these properties were removed from the boundaries of the Pensacola Park H-1 District in Lexington, Kentucky, when it was approved in 2019. Their demolition may have long been in the (read more)
Category: Fayette County
After several years of vacancy, there might hope of rebirth for the former Epworth Methodist Church in Lexington, Kentucky. Located at the corner of North Martin Luther King Boulevard and Rand Avenue, the circa 1918 church has seen its share of different users, and a new development plan proposes to convert the church into 20 (read more)
I feel vaguely guilty for daydreaming about a historic building torn down over 40 years ago – a building I never saw – when there are so many languishing historic buildings across Kentucky that deserve attention. Yet in the course of researching something else (always the case!), I came across a photograph of this house, (read more)
Category: Fayette County
Tags: #chilesburgky, #housemoving, #lexingtonky, #richardchiles
The Leonard Cox House stands out among its 19th century neighbors in the Northside Historic District. It’s not because of the hipped red tile roof (which is awesome), but for the Arts and Crafts/Prairie style influence of the 2.5-story dwelling, so clearly “other” from the Federal, Italianate, and Richardsonian Romanesque houses within the same block. (read more)
Category: Fayette County
Tags: #historicdistrict, #kentuckyarchitecture, #leonardcox, #lexingtonky, #prairiestyle
Happy #TudorTuesday and happy second day of Preservation Month! Today’s featured Tudor Revival building is a 1.5-story brick (veneer) house that is all angles and curves. The early 20th century house is located in the Pensacola Park Historic District,* on the south side of Lexington, Kentucky. This neighborhood has perhaps the best collection of popular (read more)
Categories: Fayette County, Tudor Revival
My husband likes to regale me with stories of how he went on his first “date” at age 10 to the Kentucky Theatre. The parents conspired to make this happen and delivered the young couple to the doors of the movie house. I have no idea what the movie was, as I am usually busy (read more)
Categories: Fayette County, Theaters
Tags: #kentuckyarchitecture, #kentuckytheatre, #lexingtonky, #moviepalace, movies
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
Stories and the people who created them enliven the most basic of buildings. Sometimes, of course, stories of personal tragedy envelop a structure like a cloud, and that cloud overshadows the most elegant and masterful of designs. So it is with Meadowcrest, an imposing Neo-Georgian house designed by prominent local architect Robert McMeekin in 1931. (read more)
Categories: Demolition, Fayette County
Tags: #hamburgplace, #JohnEMadden, #kentuckyarchitecture, #lexingtonky, thoroughbreds
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