A beautifully detailed portico with Ionic columns and an entablature featuring Federal-period fretwork and guttae stands incongruously attached to a late 20th century metal commercial building in Mays Lick, Kentucky. This pairing is one of the most unlikely marriages of types I’ve ever seen.
Portico meets prefabricated metal.
The modern commercial building, at one time home to a local real estate and auction company, was constructed between 1995 and 2004.
The portico, cut down to fit and missing two of its supports, came from an unusual mid-19th century brick house located outside of the town of Mays Lick.
From An Illustrated Atlas of Mason County, Kentucky by Lake, Griffing & Stevenson.
The Burgess-Buckland-Latham House. Circa 1940 photograph by Clay Lancaster.
Most substantial rural houses built in Kentucky between 1830 and 1880 tend to be central passage plan dwellings, a floor plan that took hold in Kentucky prior to the Civil War and remained popular until the asymmetrical plans of the Victorian era nudged it out of the way.
A typical central passage plan, with rear ell. Drawn by William J. Macintire.
The Burgess House, however, is an entirely different kettle of fish. There are few straight-on views of the facade of the dwelling, which – as the reader may have guessed – is long gone. But luckily, noted architectural historian Clay Lancaster visited the house in the 1940s and again in 1964, and left behind a most helpful floor plan.
Plan of the Burgess House as drawn by Clay Lancaster.
Although Clay, in his Antebellum Architecture of Kentucky, seems more intrigued by the portico, I am floored by the interior plan – which is a double-pile side-passage plan. Side-passage plan houses are defined by the passage way being located on one side of the house. This is not the typical floor plan seen on historic Kentucky farms. The side-passage plan is more typically found in towns and cities, so seeing it in an agricultural setting causes my eyebrows to pop.
The house also had a high brick parapet wall that concealed the roof – which was likely of a front gable orientation. The chimneys were built so that the stacks straddled the masonry walls, with the appearance of being “half in and half out” of the wall plane.
Side elevation and facade of the Burgess House, circa 1964. Photograph by Clay Lancaster.
The windows on the first floor facade were elongated in the Italianate fashion, and had straight stone lintels and sills. A small two-story brick ell extended from the rear elevation, and a frame shed roof addition was tacked onto one wall of the ell in later years.
Interior of the parlor in the Burgess house. You can actually see Clay Lancaster in the reflection of the mirror. Circa 1940 image by Clay Lancaster.
There are differing accounts of the house’s early days. One source cites that John and Virginia Triplett gave the house, in 1862, to their daughter, Mary Triplett Buckland. The dwelling subsequently was purchased by Joel Laytham in 1876.
The staircase in the Burgess House. Circa 1940 photograph by Clay Lancaster.
However, Clay Lancaster recorded a different provenance for the house. When he photographed the house in the 1940s, Clay noted the original owner as Michael R. Burgess, a merchant in Mays Lick. When the deteriorating house was sold in 1966 following the death of Laytham’s daughter, Lydia Laytham Hawkins, The Kentucky Post cited deed records showing that the dwelling was “built by Michael R. Burgess on a 14-acre given to Burgess’ wife by her father in 1854.”*
Laytham, in these accounts, purchased the farm and house from a Burgess.
A detail of the portico.
Based on newspaper accounts, Joel Laytham’s farming operation was large and intensive. He built multiple barns in the 1880s and 1890s for his growing tobacco production and in 1880, had “a large and elegant stock scale” erected on his farm. In the 1880 census, Laytham is recorded in Mays Lick, along with his wife, Fannie and their five children: Lizzie, Maggie, Thomas, Frances, and Lydia.
Joel Laytham would live in the house until his death at age 94, after which the house passed to his youngest daughter Lydia. Unfortunately, Lydia took “little interest” in the up keep of the house, and “its condition steadily deteriorated.”
From the April 13, 1966 edition of The Kentucky Post.
In 1965, the house and farm were listed for auction. The house was described as an “old 8 room brick dwelling capable of being restored into a beautiful colonial farm home.” The house and 226 acres were divided into three separate parcels. Personal property was also to be sold and the lunch would be served by the ladies of Millcreek Christian Church. (This is when auctions were all day social affairs – so much more fun than the anonymous online auctions of today.)
From the April 13, 1966 edition of The Kentucky Post.
The house was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Phillips, who announced their intention to restore and then sell the dwelling.
I’m not sure what happened after 1966 and the Phillips’ planned restoration. Given that I spend more time than I should resurrecting the ghosts of demolished houses, I didn’t travel to Maysville and research the deed transfers.
The facade of the Laytham House, circa 2000. Photograph by Orloff Miller.
What I do know is that by the year 2000, the house was in a very sad state, and Orloff and Elisabeth Miller of Maysville – a dynamic archaeology and architectural historian team – stopped and took some of the last images of the house.
Side elevation, circa 2000. Photograph by Orloff Miller.
By 2005, the house was gone, all save the portico and its two fluted Ionic columns.
The portico and its unlikely new family.
That one architectural feature now vies with ads for Bud Light along US 26 outside of Mays Lick. So if you ever pass by and notice something odd – well, you know some of the story now.
Thanks to Tom Eblen for alerting me to this historic architectural fragment back in 2025!
*John Harris, “Hangout for Vagrants Becomes Mansion Under Master Touch.” The Kentucky Post, April 13, 1966, page 14.
