Tom Salter House, Garrard County, Kentucky

I appreciate architecture – that much should be evident to any visitor to this site. However, I strive to constantly be aware of what the façade hides – what the ornamentation may disguise – or how the dilapidated appearance of a building may mislead the passerby as to its story. Stories, of course, are the driving force behind more than just a visceral appreciation of symmetry, form, and craftsmanship. So when the story itself is ugly, or the beautiful dwelling built upon a hideous legacy,  can the architecture still be appreciated and still loved?

The west front of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.

Practically speaking, every building (just like every person) seethes with complexities. The web grows more dense and tangled when antebellum architecture is considered, especially those buildings funded by and constructed by enslaved peoples.

Thomas Jefferson, one of the more famous complex Americans of the 19th century, left behind a monumental built landscape. Monticello is supremely lovely and elegant – and yet within its walls, great hypocrisies played out. The story of Jefferson and Sally Hemings is now being interpreted, but the estate during Jefferson’s time must be understood as a highly engineered economic engine dependent upon the labor of enslaved laborers.

Facade of the Greek Revival Salter House in Garrard County, Kentucky.

These were not my thoughts as I sat in the middle of a road in rural Garrard County, camera in my hands, foot on the brake, and one eye on the rearview mirror.  I was, as I often find myself, breaking many basic laws of the road in order to get a picture of a house I had just driven past. (I may have also driven in reverse 50 or so yards back to the house in question.)

The brick Greek Revival house, five bays wide, was situated on a rise above the road, with a slightly wistful air in the fading autumn light, exacerbated by the dead ivy twining about one Corinthian column. The foundation of carefully cut and finished limestone glowed, and the central bays on each floor held exquisite doors with wide transoms, flanked by pilasters. It was a gorgeous sight, well worth the traffic hazard.

Facade and gable end of the Salter House.

It was only when I began digging about to learn something about the house by the side of the road that the image of the large brick house became less…alluring.  According to the National Register of Historic Places nomination,* the dwelling was built around 1838 for Thomas (Tom) Salter, a large landowner in Garrard County, and slave trader.

Most of Salter’s wealth derived from the slave trade, with sales conducted on the public square in the county seat of Lancaster. I can’t think about the horrors of selling humans like livestock without wondering at the same time what those enslaved peoples thought – what they saw – when they looked at Salter’s house?

Rear elevation of the Salter House, circa 1983. Image from the NRHP files.

The image reflected back at them would be the opposite of simple. Its hand-fired bricks intertwined clay with a legacy of pain, family separation, and injustice – and inhumanity. Most houses of this period across Central Kentucky were built in part by an enslaved labor force, even if the landowner owned few, if any slaves. Our historic vernacular landscape is as wrought with conflicting stories and traditions as any antebellum house of a former President.

Is the architecture still worthy of admiration? I think so – design, ornamentation, graceful craftsmanship – may transcend their origins. But in order to fully consider the entire building, those origins must be weighed and considered – and I don’t believe the story of the building can be told or understood without knowing those roots, as ugly and awful as they may be deemed. And slavery is one of the ugliest truths of all.

It gives my impromptu stop in the middle of the road a little more gravity, although this post is far from a weighty or appropriate treatment of the larger issue. It made me cringe, when I read about Salter’s occupation, and it made me think – and I spend my free time and professional life digging behind the carefully composed facade of buildings. There is always something new to learn, whether or not the learning is painful. And there is always  – if we are lucky – a new perspective to be gained.

*I didn’t take the time to check any other primary or secondary sources –  sometimes my blog must play second fiddle to the demands of my real job!