William Vanarsdell House, Bethel, Bath County, Kentucky

When I was in elementary school, I sometimes rode the school bus home, a long and circuitous route that took me across the county line, and past a landscape of farms and old houses. The images of those buildings and the feelings they engendered linger with me still. When I posted a photograph of this house on Facebook the other day, one reader’s comment read “rode the school bus by it every day and it was lovely.” This wistful reminder of the other life of a now-abandoned house  struck me profoundly, given my own days of gazing out the school bus window.*

The William Vanarsdell House, near Bethel, Kentucky. April 2020.

Due to our current stay-at-home lifestyle during the COVID-19 pandemic, I am sharing many older photographs, as I’m not out and about Kentucky at the moment. The photograph in question came from a county-wide survey of Bath County, Kentucky, that I oversaw in 2006-2008.

The same house, summer 2006.

The aura of decaying beauty rings a chord with many people.

On a whim, intrigued by the reaction to the house, and inspired by the sun after a few days of cold and gray skies, I packed up one of my small co-workers,  stopped and collected my father, and we went for a drive. (My love of drives, exploring, and gawking out the window is all due to my father.)

This painting of the house (by Paul Lewis in 1974) appeared in the “Memories of Bath County” calendar, 1975-1976.

I didn’t survey this house myself, so all of my observations are based on viewing it from the road, and from the information collected in 2016. The owners at the time had purchased the property in 2016, and presumably built the new house on the east side of the historic house. No one lived in the historic house even then.

View of the facade and west elevation, April 2020.

On the 1884 Atlas of Bath and Fleming Counties, Kentucky (published by D.J. Lake and Company of Philadelphia), a “W. Vanarsdell” is marked as living in this location – and a house was present at the time.

The Vanarsdell name has deep roots in the Bethel area – one of the early residents was O. M. Vanarsdell (relation to this Vanarsdell is unknown).

Section of the 1884 Atlas showing the Vanarsdell House.

In the 1870 Census, William Vanarsdell, then 48 years old, was recorded as living in Bethel, Kentucky, and plying his trade as a blacksmith. He lived with his wife, Ann (or Anna, an Arrasmith prior to her marriage), and their son, Levi (born around 1856-58).

His real estate was valued at $9,600, not an insignificant sum at the time, and his personal estate was valued at $1,000. William was born in Bath County, Kentucky around 1822.

Rear and east elevation of the house, summer 2006.

According to the information collected from the property owners in 2006, the house was built by a Vanarsdell around 1841. Without being able to conduct a chain of title deed search, I have no way to confirm this – but the two-story, three bay wide, single pile frame house does appear to date from the mid-19th century.

This mid-19th century house in Mason County, Kentucky, has the more typical five bay wide facade.

The basic form of the house – a central passage, two-story, one room deep – was well-entrenched in rural Kentucky by 1850. Of course, houses with that layout had been built in the state from the early 19th century as well.

The porch that still stretches across the facade of the Vanarsdell House is a later change; it is likely that the dwelling originally had a two-story portico centered on the facade. Although it is more typical to find five bay wide houses from this time period (roughly 1840-1860 is the date I would give the house without archival research) – that is, a facade with two windows to either side of a central doorway – three bay wide examples do exist.

This two-story, three bay wide house in Mercer County has a Greek Revival-esque portico centered on the facade. This house was built around 1862.

If you look closely at the Vanarsdell House, you’ll note that despite the flowery spandrels and brackets of the porch, the door surrounds on the first and second stories are stock Greek Revival in style, with a fairly wide and weighty expanse of engaged pilasters – the two framing the door opening are fluted, while the outer two are not.

A detail of the central bay, showing the original Greek Revival detailing around the doorways. April 2020.

Did William Vanarsdell build this house? It is doubtful that he would have built such an imposing house when he was barely 20 years old – and if he was born in 1821/22, then the date of 1841 is not likely. He could have purchased the house at a later date from the original builder/owner, or perhaps the house was built in the 1850s. William married in 1848, so building a house for his family after that date – when he might be more established in his trade – makes sense.

From the 1884 Atlas.

Although recorded in the 1870 census as a blacksmith, by 1880, he is listed as farmer.** On the business notices for Bethel in 1884, a William Vanarsdell is included in the advertisements as a “dealer and grower in nursery stock.”

In the census for that same year, an African American family is listed on living on the Vanarsdell farm, perhaps as tenant farmers. Jeff Botts, his wife Cassandra (listed as a cook) and their four children lived and worked on the farm alongside the Vanarsdell clan.

Rear elevation of the house, summer 2006. Was this semi-detached building the original kitchen, perhaps with a loft for sleeping space?

Anna Arrasmith Vanarsdell died in 1880, and her husband William died in 1906. Their son, Levi, continued to live on the farm with his father and his family (wife Edna and three children), until selling the farm and house to the Whaley family around 1912.

Levi sold the farm and apparently moved away from Kentucky, as he died in Oklahoma in 1942.

The Whaley family (another old Bethel family) owned the house and farm for most of the 20th century, and many people know the dwelling as the “old Whaley place.”

A late-19th century outbuilding associated with the house, summer 2006.

Our brief outing in the welcome April sunshine was enjoyed by everyone in the car, and I was surprised to find the Vanarsdell House still standing. I don’t hold much hope for its continued existence, however, unless someone takes immediate action. It makes me sad to think of how lovely it once was, and the family noise and clatter that once rang within its walls. Now only the wind whistles through, as vines and weeds take root, and the walls crumble from neglect.

*One of the houses I spied from the schoolbus window is the now the house I call home, built by my great-grandmother’s first cousin in 1901.

** In the 1880 census, John Arrasmith Jr. was the next-door neighbor to the Vanarsdells.