The R. J. Law House, South Ashland Avenue, Lexington, Kentucky

Familiarity may breed contempt, especially in the context of standstill traffic, but for years I’ve sat at the corner of South Ashland Avenue and East High Street, stopped by a red light or an endless line of cars. My  familiarity with this location has only increased my appreciation of the late 19th century house that commands the northeast corner. Long before this block of South Ashland became a historic district and a sought-after address, it was the home of the Lexington Brick Company, “beyond the city limits” and “on Tates Creek near the tollgate.”

Reorganized in 1885, the brick company yard took up both sides of South Ashland Avenue from approximately Central Avenue and Fincastle Road to High Street.  In August 1888,  residents near the brick yard raised a “holy howl and kick” about the “vile smelling cough-producing vapor” produced by the burning of petroleum.* The brick company decamped to Walton Avenue the next year.

Prior to irritating their neighbors , the company platted its land along Ashland Avenue and recorded the plat, “the subdivision of part of Woodland”  on May 1, 1886. That very same day, the company sold a lot to the manager of the company, a Wisconsin native by the name of Robert James Law. Shortly thereafter, Law contracted with the Williamson Company of Lexington to build a house for he and his family.

Despite my best efforts, I failed to turn up any notice of the house being under construction. The only thing to attribute the dwelling’s construction to the Williamson Company is from the 1903 Views of Lexington and Vicinity, published by a principal of the firm, J.R. Williamson. In a montage of seven black and white photographs, the Law House, identified as the “Cor. Ashland Avenue and High Street,” is depicted as built by Williamson.

While not perhaps the most elaborate of the houses the company built, the Richardsonian Romanesque influence of the dwelling and its site imbue it with a rather grave majesty that I find most arresting.

The projecting front gable on the facade contains the recessed double door entry, contained within an elaborate surround with highly detailed pilasters and a bracketed entablature. I understand the reason for storm doors at the door surround, but oh, it does diminish the beauty of entryway.

Perhaps the allure of the facade lies in the juxtaposition of the very squared off entryway bay and the round lines of the adjacent elliptical, two-story bay with its conical roof – the whole affair topped with a slate hip on gable roof and delightful brick chimneys.

Two-story polygonal bays are located on the side elevations, further emphasizing the sense of movement and the complementary angles of the house.

Law lived in the house with his wife, Katie Worthley Law, and two children. He moved in the expected business and social circles of the day, serving on a committee of the Chamber of Commerce, and heading investment groups in Lexington.

My newspaper research took a sobering turn in July 1890, a few lines of type that made me swallow hard, and devastated the Law family. On July 27, 1890, the Law’s three year child – I don’t know if it was a girl or boy – died from swallowing lye.

I can’t imagine how this tragic accident shaped the Law family. By June of 1892, the Law family home, with eight rooms, bath rooms, pantries, closets and a dry cellar, was for sale, and Law, his wife, and their surviving daughter, Leila, left Lexington.

The listing for the house doesn’t appear after August 1892, and for the next decade, there was a flurry of different residents. It wasn’t until 1906 that the dwelling was occupied by the same resident for more than a handful of years. That year, Alexander T. Parker, a “gentleman of the old school,” moved into the house. Parker, a retired businessman, was said to possess one of the best private libraries in Central Kentucky. This fact endears Parker to me, as do the accounts of his strawberry patch in his garden at 298 South Ashland Avenue.

In November 1922, Parker, ” one of the oldest citizens of Lexington, ” died. His widow, Virginia, continued to live in the house until her death in 1927.  The house then became the home of her sister, Sallie T. Smith, but was auctioned off in 1933, and purchased for $6,025 by Elmer A. Deiss.

Sallie Smith remained a resident at 298 South Ashland Avenue (perhaps renting?), and when the house went up for auction in 1939, it was still advertised as part of the estate of Mrs. Virginia T. Parker.

Frank Christian purchased the house for $9,600, and the dwelling was then carved into apartments – four, I believe. There was basement apartment, one large unit on the first floor, and two units on the second floor. A listing in the fall of 1940 described three large rooms for rent, with a tile bath, garage, furnace heat, and a private entrance.

The first floor apartment consisted of six rooms, with three bedrooms – only available for rent to adults in 1954.

South Ashland Avenue was included in a large historic district, the Woodlands Historic District, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. It is also a local historic district, with a H-1 overlay that protects the exterior of the historic buildings.

Early in the 21st century, the exterior of the Law House was lavished with attention, and in 2006 it received a “Residential Rehabilitation Award” for exterior renovation from the Lexington Fayette County Government Historic Preservation Commission. I believe the house is two residential units now – but no matter its interior configuration, this spot is one of my favorite corners in Lexington, and I never mind waiting there for the light to change.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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