The Demise of the Orlando Brown Summer Home, Frankfort, Kentucky

Ten years ago, I wrote my first National Register of Historic Places nomination. Since then, I’ve authored dozens – and to the best of my knowledge, not one of those buildings has been torn down. Until now. Last week, I heard that a small Gothic Revival house in Frankfort, Kentucky, once part of a large farm owned by the Orlando Brown family in the 19th century, is scheduled to be demolished.

The Brown-Henry House, Frankfort, Kentucky.

The house is situated on a hill overlooking Holmes Street, which was originally a portion of the turnpike connecting Frankfort to Owenton, seat of Owen County, Kentucky. The dwelling is less than two miles from West Main Street in downtown Frankfort, but was outside of the city limits until 1950.

The Brown-Henry House (dubbed that for the two families that owned the house the longest) has been referred to locally as the “Orlando Brown Summer Home” and until the last decade of the nineteenth century, was a rural property on the fringes of downtown Frankfort. The house now sits in a neighborhood of late-nineteenth and twentieth century development.

The 1882 atlas of Frankfort – the house in question is the lower red circle.

In the January 4, 1873 issue of The Triweekly Yeoman, an article entitled “Improvements During 1872” noted that in that year, “Colonel Orlando Brown’s fine brick mansion, in the northeastern suburbs on the Owenton turnpike, was built at a cost of over $6,000.” This “mansion” was substantially smaller than the Greek Revival dwelling that was the main home of this branch of the Brown family (a Gideon Shyrock design), now a historic house museum along with Liberty Hall.

The Orlando Brown House on Wilkinson Street in Frankfort, Kentucky.

The smaller Gothic Revival dwelling was built by Orlando Brown, Jr., although the land on which the house was built had long been in the Brown family, and was a productive working farm.

Orlando Jr’s house was modeled after the antebellum summer home of his uncle, Mason Brown, located on the Kentucky River in Owen County.

The Mason Brown House in Owen County, Kentucky.

At one time, there was likely an earlier house on the Brown farm, with an antebellum “summer house.” A handful of wealthy families in Frankfort maintained a primary residence in town, while also owning a home on a farm or large parcel of land on the hills around Frankfort.

The Mason Brown House (ON-21; NRIS 98000325) in Owen County, situated at a landing known as “Blue Wing Landing” was “principally used as a country estate by the Brown Family in the 1850s and 1860s. The trip by Kentucky River steamboat was an easy one, especially after a series of locks and dams were completed in 1842. Kentucky politicians and guests were entertained and friends and relatives from Louisiana and the Deep South came to this area in the summer.”[1]

The small, central passage house stands in stark contrast to the stateliness and large scale of Mason Brown’s home in downtown Frankfort, Liberty Hall, though its design was in keeping with the time. Gothic Revival dwellings were being constructed or existing homes were remodeled in the style all over Frankfort in the 1850s and 1860s.

The Brown-Henry House.

The “Cliffs” (demolished) was the summer home of the Robert Perry Pepper family, located east of the Brown-Henry House, near the current day Cove Spring Park in Franklin County. Located on a bluff overlooking the city of Frankfort, the house took advantage of the cave situated “up [the] hill that would have poured its cool air down on the grounds.”[2] The home site is located “under the fill of the Wilkinson Boulevard Connector.”[3] The home was single story frame building with an “Adirondack” air, with “wide porches and rails made of branches.”

Another summer home in Frankfort belonged to the Blair family. This family settled along Benson Creek, purchased a tract of land near the mouth of that creek, and dubbed it “Bellepoint” as the “land came to a point where the Kentucky River and Benson creek joined.” Francis P. Blair, who served in Andrew Jackson’s Administration, built on this site a “substantial log house which became his summer home.” It is not known where the main house of the Blair family was located.[4]

Detail of bargeboard trim on the Brown-Henry House.

Orlando Brown Jr. and his family did not get to enjoy their Gothic Revival dwelling for long. Following the death of his father, Orlando Brown Sr., and the Civil War, the Brown family fortunes began to decline.

Orlando, Jr., was charged with providing for his sister Euphemia, who had been deemed insane and “wholly incompetent for the transaction of ordinary business.”[5] In addition to providing for his sister, Orlando, Jr., was still sorting through the intricacies of his father’s estate, as well as that of his brother Mason, who had left all of his estate to Orlando, Jr.’s, young son, Mason P. Brown. Additionally, Orlando’s stepmother, Mary C. Brodhead Brown, died in 1874.

During this time, Orlando, Jr., sold the lot located between the house in downtown Frankfort that bears his father’s name, and Liberty Hall, in which his cousins resided. The parcel was purchased by William Chinn, who built an imposing two-and-one-half story brick Italianate dwelling. (The Chinn-Sutterlin House was demolished in the 1960s to unify the Orland Brown House and Liberty Hall.) Toward the end of his life, Orlando, Jr., sold three lots behind the house at the corner of Wilkinson and Wapping.

Root cellar behind the Brown-Henry House.

The house and farm were sold out of the family in 1886 to  L.B. Marshall. The new owner farmed the land for a while, and in 1889 platted “Thorn Hill Park,” the very first platted subdivision in Franklin County. Thorn Hill Park encompassed around 48 acres, bounded by the Owenton Turnpike Road (Holmes Street) to the east, Dailey to the north, what would become Fifth Avenue on the west, and College and Swigert on the south. Marshall carved the land up into 181 lots which measured 50 feet wide with varying lengths, depending on where they fell within the overall plat. The streets were 50 feet wide and the alleys were 16 feet wide.

Plat of Thorn Hill Park, Frankfort, Kentucky.

The Owenton Turnpike corridor began to develop at this point, and along with Bellepoint, “attracted substantial working class populations.” By 1900, the dirt roads in both communities were “lined with small vernacular cottages perched on narrow lots carved out of the hillsides.”[6] It was around this time of growth that L.B. Marshall also experienced some financial hardship, and sold some of his remaining land. The deed lists the sale as coming from Farmer’s Bank, which suggests a Master Commissioners Sale or a bankruptcy. The buyer was Mrs. A. C. Henry, whose husband began operating a meat store on Broadway in 1886. Mrs. Henry purchased the 55.68 acres in 1902. The Henry family were the next longest term occupants of the dwelling after the Brown family.

The environment of the Brown-Henry House changed dramatically from its construction to when I first encountered it several years ago. The house served as rental property for much of the period after World War II. I wasn’t able to go inside the house, which made writing the nomination quite difficult – but the hope was with the listing of the property, someone could utilize historic tax credits to restore and rehabilitate the dwelling.

Sadly, it appears that dream will not materialize, and the house will be razed. The legacy of the Brown family, and of rural summer homes, will be lost to all but memory.

[1] William H. Chatfield. “Mason Brown House.” Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. On file at the Kentucky Heritage Council. Listed 1998.

[2]  Personal Conversation with Patrick Kennedy, Pepper family descendent.

[3] Ibid.

[4]Kramer, Carl. Capital on the Kentucky: A Two Hundred Year History of Frankfort and Franklin County. Frankfort, Kentucky: Historic Frankfort, 1986, 76.

[5] Appointment of Guardian for Euphemia H. Brown, July 3, 1868, Hamilton County, Ohio. Item number 6 in a transcription of a typed will prepared by Beth Carter from papers provided by Russ Hatter in May 2010. Said document in possession of the Liberty Hall Historic Site.

[6] Kramer, 214.