In 1937, a very unique house was constructed of local stone in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. James Cox, the property owner, hauled local redstone from a quarry on Maxey Flats Road, southeast of Flemingsburg. I don’t know whether he was inspired by a design he saw published somewhere, or whether the fanciful dwelling he constructed sprang from his own mind. No matter the source, the house is a delight, and quite unlike its neighbors.
The facade of the James Cox House.
A corner tower anchors the two main wings of the house, with a door nestled against its side. Maybe the tower contains a curving stairway? It looks as though it has a long, narrow steel casement window. Walls curve out from the the gables, forming a courtyard around the tower.
Archways in the wing walls.
Arched openings pierce the wing walls that extend out from the facade gable, and curved steps lead down to a driveway. It’s quite a large house, but the mass is disguised by the façade.
The sun was in the absolute wrong spot in the sky when I took these pictures, but I’d rather have poor quality photos than none at all. I don’t know anything about the personal story of Mr. Cox other than it looks as though he worked for the Post Office in the 1940 census. I’d love to know more about this highly creative and individualistic historic house!
He was quite a character. Taught water sking up into 70s. If I remember correctly, he used to ski either with one ski on his feet. His wife taught me in High School.
When I was little we all called it Santa Claus house. My daughter said her imaginary friend lived there. I lived just below the house on Garr Ave. Flemingsburg.
There is a private lake in Fleming County and Jimmy built a cabin there. He started with the fireplace and built the cabin around it. He used surplus materials from WWII that he acquired from a nearby Army depot.
I own this house. We were told it was the butcher house for the street when built. The basement has a built in kitchen set up. The house out back has the original quick and deep freezers still mostly in tact. All original hardwood throughout the home with a spiral staircase in the tower that includes a hand beaten cast iron railing. The living room contains a large open stone fireplace with an arm to hang pots on. As with any old home, it needs some repairs and upgrades. It was rented out for many years but we are slowly trying to fix it and bring it back to its former glory.
Awesome. Good luck on your renovations. Is this location close to the Ark ?
I should have also added that the archway in the courtyard is a window. 😊
Mr. Vencil Eldridge might be able to add to this, I’m not sure. His in-laws, Jesse and Kathleen Craft lived a couple of houses up and I remember discussions about this house when I was younger.
I would love to see what the inside looks like?
The stone for this beautiful home was imported from Michigan. The tower is a spiral staircase. Each tread is a single oak beam suspended from the wall to create the spiral.
The home was originally adorned with copper gutters light fixtures adding to it’s already unique and stately appearance.
I’ve always loved this house. It looks like a mini castle, or like it should be in a different time frame
They had a daughter name was Joan. I don’t know who she married or where she is, I’m sure she could tell you a lot about it if she could be located. I went inside with her once when we were little girls all I can remember about it was we went up in the tower. I always loved this house.
This post is a little rambling and jumps around. Sorry. Everything below is as memory serves, so I hope I have all of this right.
James S. Cox was my grandfather. If I remember the story right, the stone above the fireplace was brought in from Maxey Flat with a block and tackle. This was before Maxey Flat became a nuclear waste dump so the stone wouldn’t be radioactive 😉
Speaking of “radio” and “active,” the house had a little TV tower right outside the back porch with an antenna aimed at Cincinnati, and my dad and uncle would watch ball games when we visited. They could pick it up as well as any local cable system could. IIRC, Jim Cox may have been the first on the block with a color TV set as well. He was also the first person in the area with a radio that he built himself in 1920 (way before the house.) He could hear at least as far as KDKA in Pittsburgh. It could also transmit about fifty miles as a telegraph.
I do Morse code today, with a radio that I did not build, but it can get most of the way around the world on a piece of wire about 150′ long.
Jim Cox worked at Spencer Electric, and that is where my parents met if I recall that correctly.
He had also built his own airplane and flown it. There was an old propeller hung out over the back porch while we were children. I don’t know if it is still there or not.
When my sisters, cousins, and I were children, we were fascinated by this old telephone intercom system in the upstairs master bedroom that he had installed where one could call the kitchen downstairs or the now dilapidated shop down the hill, or the little house, where his mother lived. I’m 56 and have never seen any other in-house intercom like it. His mother died in 1964. The freezer mentioned was put in during WW2 and it saw eleven families through the war.
I actually (believe it or not) remember going there, as a toddler. The stone steps outside were huge to me and I couldn’t walk up them. I had to kind of climb each step like one would climb over a fallen tree in the woods.
In the basement, there was a darkroom, as he had also been into photography. He was also a collector of Ray Harm prints, and we had a lot of “fun” finding places for those after he passed. They weren’t worth a lot.
Inside the tower is this wooden spiral staircase with an iron hand rail. I was always drawn to this staircase, because me having been a kid, I’d seen no other house with this sort of thing. We lived in a flat, boring ranch house.
Most of the doors are handmade walnut. The dining room and kitchen are “terraced” and if I remember, the dining room floor is wood and so is the wall opposite the window. I remember the bathroom off the dining room being this very shiny, tile bathroom. That’s been so long ago so I could be mistaken. The kitchen was tiny but my grandmother could cook things better than any restaurant ever could and had passed that down to her daughters.
Outside in the driveway, there used to be a gasoline hose attached to a tank in the basement close to the stone steps. He was a mailman and must have been able to purchase gasoline in bulk. I’ve never seen anything like it at any other house, ever. He did not drive a mail jeep, but his own car, which he set up to be able to drive from the passenger seat so he could deliver the mail.
Back then, the neighborhood down the hill from the house wasn’t there, and he owned the plot of land behind the shop and the house. Visiting was almost like going out in the country since it looked more like farmland.
I don’t know what Charity Andrews means by “butcher” house, but I’ve never heard a single thing about my grandfather having been a butcher.
As far as teaching skiing, he taught both my sisters to ski, and one of them was really good at it. I learned to ski but can only do basic one-ski or two ski skiing, no tricks.
Jim Cox’s mother’s maiden name was Elizabeth Alexander Andrews, so I’m wondering if the new owner is related.
Back in the eighties I was the clerk for auction there. I can’t remember lots of details but I bought big price of driftwood. Lots of interesting items.
I grew up across the street from this home. It was beautiful on the inside and the workmanship was extraordinary. My understanding was the Mr Cox’s father in law helped in build the house. His last name was Parker. The living room ran the length of the house at the back and the covered patio off the living room was of stone. The stair cases circular and ran inside the tower. As a child, the home amazed me with its beauty and “new” things-like bar type sink in dining room, doors that were beautiful handcrafted doors, etc. Jimmy Cox was a craftsman. The building in the back did have freezers and he had a number of clients that rented space from him in the building. Mr Cox fixed the building up for his mom an she lived there a number of years. We neighbor kids played a lot of Monopoly on the patio in the summer and a lot of games in the back yard.
I grew up across the street from this home. It was beautiful on the inside and the workmanship was extraordinary. My understanding was the Mr Cox’s father in law helped in build the house. His last name was Parker. The living room ran the length of the house at the back and the covered patio off the living room was of stone. As a child, the home amazed me with its beauty and “new” things-like bar type sink in dining room, doors that were beautiful handcrafted doors, etc. Jimmy Cox was a craftsman. The building in the back did have freezers and he had a number of clients that rented space from him in the building. Mr Cox fixed the building up for his mom and she lived there a number of years. We neighbor kids played a lot of Monopoly on the patio in the summer and a lot of games in the back yard.