Every historic building has a story to tell
I grew up hearing stories about my paternal grandfather, a native of Bath County, Kentucky ,and the weekly trips he made back home to enjoy the “sweet air” of his home county. Years later, on my first county wide survey as an architectural historian, I spent weeks savoring that sweet air as I helped document (read more)
Category: Bath County
Tags: #kentuckyarchitecture, #nationalregisterofhistoricplaces, #sharpsburgky
Described as a “practical and popular three bedroom home,” this 1.5 story house is compact and so familiar looking – I feel as though I have passed it in neighborhoods across the country. But one important element that I would not have realized from the exterior is that this house – if it followed the (read more)
Category: Historic House Plans
The Christmas holiday season is quickly approaching (according to some radio stations and big box stores, the season began well before Halloween), and I love to feature historic buildings decked for the season. When it’s cold and gray, my spirits are lifted to see a gracious fanlight strewn with lights, or greenery festooning a porch (read more)
Category: Christmas
Tags: #christmasdecorations, #christmasdoors, #kentuckyarchitecture, Christmas
While traveling home from the beach last month, we spent a nervous half hour frantically trying to find a hotel room off of I-65 in Alabama. It was a Saturday night and traffic proved a nightmare – a nightmare which would balloon into epic proportions if two adults and two small children had to spend (read more)
Category: Ballard County
Tags: #historicarchitecture, #historichotel, #hotel, #kentuckyarchitecture, #wickliffeky
Someone once asked me how I find all of the historic buildings I share via this blog and social media. The easy answer is that wherever I am, I find the middle of town – the courthouse square and historic district – and explore out from that point. The best way is to walk, but (read more)
Category: Knox County
Tags: #barbourvilleky, #historichouse, #kentuckyarchitecture
Last Thursday, October 13, 2022, the former Olympia Christian Church in Olympia, Kentucky, collapsed. It’s been decades since hymns rang out in its sanctuary, or celebrations spilled forth from its double entry doors. Now it belongs to memory. I wrote about the church in a blog post in June 2019, when vines snaked up the (read more)
Categories: Bath County, Churches
Tags: #historicchurch, #kentuckyarchitecture, #olympiaKY, #ruralchurchesofkentucky, abandoned
I’ve been in my share of abandoned buildings. Some are so far gone, piled with debris and trash, that it is hard even for me to see a glimmer of the past, before the sliding, sad decline. Yet other vacant buildings are merely fixed in time, and their individual elements speak to speak so clearly (read more)
Categories: Abandoned houses, Casey County
There’s a two-story brick building – built as an inn and tavern in the early 19th century – located on the riverbank in Smithland, Kentucky. The facade is laid in Flemish bond, and is six bays wide, with two doors on the first story. A series of porches span the side and rear elevations, and (read more)
Category: Livingston County
Tags: #historictavern, #kentuckyarchitecture, #smithlandky #rivertraffic, #tavern
I’ve been scanning old photo albums lately, tumbling back into time as I turn each brittle page. Laughing faces, twirling girls, dogs that I almost recognize although they’ve been gone for over 100 years – and buildings that no longer stand. I’m lucky – the cousin that lent me this album to copy as part (read more)
It’s always a delight to feast my eyes on a historic house that is not only visually appealing, but is well-maintained and not a cause of worry for anyone with a soul deeply attuned to the vagaries of historic preservation. And some houses from the first decade of the 20th century offer such an exuberant (read more)
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