The Crawford-Haehl House, Louisville, Kentucky

I can’t say that I am a person who never forgets a face. It is rare, however, for my memory to lose hold on a historic building I’ve glimpsed – especially one that possesses some indefinable quality or architectural merit. If I am lucky, I tuck the image away in a folder (all electronic, of course) in the hopes that I will come back to it again – and for one endearing late 19th century brick house in the Parkland Neighborhood of Louisville, I actually succeeded.

Parkland, a neighborhood bounded by Broadway on the north, 26^th Street to the east, 34^th Street to the west, and Woodlawn and Wilson Avenues and Catalpa Street, to the west, is one of Louisville’s first suburbs. In 1871, the  the real estate firm of Morris, Southwick and Company auctioned off 1,072 lots  of this rural tract outside the city’s boundaries, after contracting with the Central Passenger Railway Company to extend tracks to the area.[1] The town of Parkland was incorporated in 1874, and 20 years later,  Louisville annexed the community.

The one-story, brick, hipped roof cottage would be striking even if it weren’t located on the busy southwest corner of Cypress Street and Dumensil. Dentils line the cornice, and the tall, narrow window openings have stone lintels and sills. Sadly, the brackets or block modillions once located on the cornice are gone, as is the beautiful porch (below photograph).

In 1886, Robert I. Crawford, a bookkeeper, was living in this house with his wife. What is now the main entryway was originally a handsome bay window. Cypress Street was one of the first areas in Parkland to be developed, and although the streetscape has changed a great deal, the 1300 block still contains some wonderful examples of late Victorian period architecture.

Crawford later dabbled in real estate development, selling lots in in the Parkland neighborhood. Cypress was one of the first areas to develop in the new suburb of Parkland.

For 50 years, however, this was the home of Charles Edward and Minnie Haehl, Jr.  The Louisville city directory lists Haehl in residence in 1910 – around the same time he began his long career with the Stewart Dry Goods Company.

In the 1930 census, this house, owned and occupied by Haehl and his wife (the couple appear to have had no children), was valued at $4,500.  Parkland, long since part of Louisville, was a predominantly middle to upper class Caucasian neighborhood. By the time Mr. Haehl died, however, residents had begun to stream from Louisville’s downtown neighborhoods to the suburbs.

The Parkland neighborhood lost nearly 25 percent of its population between 1970 and 1980, and the neighborhood demographics shifted from mostly white residents to a mostly African American population. This neighborhood was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

The Crawford-Haehl House is now a church, and as the photographs demonstrate, windows have been boarded up and resized, and some architectural ornamentation removed. The West End of Louisville has struggled for decades, and countless politicians and advocacy groups have worked to address some of the issues facing the residents.

I take solace in the fact that this little house still stands and is being used, and that there are many other well-built dwellings (or former dwellings) like it in the neighborhood. Neighborhoods change, grow, and shrink – who knows what the future holds?

 

[1] John Kleber. “Parkland,” in The Encyclopedia of Louisville. Ed. John Kleber. (Lexington, Kentucky: The University of Kentucky Press, 2001), 689.