Historic Houses for Sale: 262 Mount Sterling Avenue, Flemingsburg, Fleming County, Kentucky

Between 1902 and 1926, the Radford Architectural Company of Chicago touted itself as the “Largest Architectural Establishment in the World.” For as little as five dollars, prospective homeowners could purchase house blueprints, specifications, and a material list, and then work with a local builder and lumber yard to construct their dream home.

On a shady hillside above Mount Sterling Avenue in Flemingsburg, Kentucky, a Radford-designed house stands, almost identical to the drawing of the house in a 1903 Radford plan book. After being owned by only two families in 108 years, this shingled beauty is looking for a new family! 

Known as “House Design No. 121,” the plans for this dwelling first appeared in the book The Radford Ideal Homes: 100 Houses in 1903. The company would go on to publish more than 40 catalogs of house plans, technical and instruction manuals (like Radford’s Cement Houses and How to Build Them, published in 1909), and trade journals. But Ideal Homes was the company’s first foray into residential house plans for everyday Americans.

The houses in the plan book are mostly frame, one to two story, vernacular dwellings that are neither too plain nor too ostentatious. Design No. 121 features bay windows, a rambling and atypical roof with cross gables and a half-gambrel form with cornice returns, and a combination of weatherboards and shingles. These elements all blend together to create an appealing and approachable family house.

Most of the plans could be described by architectural historians like me as “picturesque.” That term might not mean much, but overall, most of the designs are inviting, homey, and seem to promise comfort and solidity. Natural light floods the home, and the hardwood floors gleam much like I expect they did in the years before World War I, when this house was built.

The plan for what would become the home of T. Hargis MacDonald and his family ran in a column in the Flemingsburg Times-Democrat in 1905. This house was built sometime between 1905 and 1912, as the outer limits of the streets around the commercial core of downtown Flemingsburg began to fill up with new single family homes. This lot was originally part of the parcel surrounding the Spates family home to the north of the MacDonald House.

The homes designed by Radford’s team of architects were described as “original, practical, and attractive house designs, such as 75 to 90% of people today wish to build.” And the plans met a receptive audience, as the United States was just a decade into what would be the largest home building period of so-called suburban homes since declaring its independence from England.

While the plans for this house cost $5.00, the estimated price for its construction was between $1,100 and $1,350. Based on inflation (and this is not the most accurate figure, but I am not an economic historian) that is equivalent to around $39,000.00 today.

MacDonald, a merchant in downtown Flemingsburg, lived in the home with his wife Lettie, and their three children: Lloyd, Marie, and baby T. Hargis, Jr. According to the 1920 census, the family shared the home (which encompasses around 1,600 square feet) with MacDonald’s parents, his sister, Nellie Louderback, her two sons, and two boarders!

Although I was amazed by how roomy the house is, with three nice-sized bedrooms on the second story (and each bedroom is blessed with spacious closets, something I wish my 1901 house possessed!), I’m not quite sure how essentially three families lived in the house. Of course, there is a full-basement (with a poured concrete floor) with windows and an exterior entrance, so perhaps that was utilized by some of the residents.

The MacDonald House does differ from the original Radford plan, with slight variations on both the exterior and the interior. The second story gables were built with paired windows instead of triple windows, and the upper sash does not contain tracery muntins (though it may have when first built).

Though the plan shows a fireplace, this version was built without one. Perhaps most importantly for modern families: the one bathroom in the original plan (on the second story by the bedrooms, which was very common in the early 20th century) has been joined by another full bathroom and a half-bath on the first floor. There’s also a shower in the basement!

The home stayed in the MacDonald family until 1978, when it was purchased by the current owners. In 1985, the house was listed as a contributing resource in the National Register of Historic Places Flemingsburg Historic District. This designation does not convey any restrictions on the house – but it DOES make it eligible for historic tax credits! A new owner could utilize historic tax credits for any number of projects: painting, new HVAC, a roof replacement, and the like.

This is the first Radford-designed house I’ve documented, and I have to admit I fell a little bit in love with it. It’s been well-loved and is remarkably intact, which pleases my architectural historian soul. But as the owner and occupant of an old house myself, I also appreciate that the MacDonald House has been sensitively updated, and with the right new owner – it will be a lovely dwelling for another 100 years.