The Falling-Down House at Sewell Shop, Clark County, Kentucky

Back before the Covid-19 Pandemic, daycare centers closing, and work from home, we commuted five days a week. A ritual developed of noting landmarks along our route, and no rural landmark was more popular (or sad), than what my toddler coined as “the Falling-Down house.”

The brick chimney on the western gable end crumbled first; its collapse leading to the disintegration of that end of the facade. February 2020.

Sewell Shop, a crossroads community on US 60 near the Clark/Montgomery County lines, has long been a familiar name to me. I first wrote about Sewell Shop– named so for the family that settled there in the mid 19th century – in 2015. A wonderful store once stood at the crossroads, and its demolition was part of multiple changes to the rural landscape.

The Crump-Dykes Store in 1976. Photo courtesy the Kentucky Heritage Council.

I watched the Falling-Down House crumble before my eyes for years. Built by the Sewell family, it was a typical central passage, single pile, three bay wide dwelling, with a two-story frame ell, and brick gable end chimneys. The central cross gable on the facade and the arched doorway on the second story are a nod to the lingering influence of the Gothic Revival style in rural Kentucky. The main entry door, with its transom and sidelights, gives a nod to the Greek Revival style.

The Sewell House, set on its path of becoming a ghost. June 2015.

I’m not sure when the two-story frame house was last occupied – in the second half of the 20th century, but I don’t know for certain when it was last a home.

Part of the 1877 Atlas of Clark County, showing Sewell Shop. Blue arrow denotes location of the house.

The house was the home of John Martin and Jennie Sewell through World War II. John was a farmer and blacksmith. Their daughter, Henrietta, and her husband lived in the house as well. I believe Henrietta, who died around 1977, continued to live in the house after her parents died.

The sag at the left side of the house is readily apparent. February 2020.

For a while, I wondered if the house had been sold and all of the Sewells had moved away or died out. Like so many old families, the name itself is gone, but family members remain in the area – and actually still own the land. Part of the former Sewell farm changed hands in 2013, and a new house was constructed some distance from the road.

Looking northwest at the house. February 2020.

It’s hard to take a home that has been empty for years (decades even) and restore it. I don’t blame the owners, even though I mourn the loss of the dwelling. Having had something similar happen in my family with a moldering historic house, I know how many factors play into the seeming abandonment of rural houses.

The site of the Falling-Down House, May 2020. Sometime after we began staying at home, the house was completely demolished and the site graded.

Explaining the fate of the Falling-Down house to my toddler was incredibly hard. Her questions of “why” left me stymied. I finally responded that we don’t always take care of things, and there are many reasons why – but that we can try better, all of us, as we move through life.