Tudor Tuesday: Carriage House, Louisville, Kentucky

The best example of Tudor Revival architecture I’ve seen recently wasn’t the typical 1930s house – but a former carriage house.

The two-story brick structure has every embellishment one could wish for in this style of architecture: arches, faux half-timbering, mullioned windows, sharp gables and a steep roofline.

When the Caulfield & Shook studio documented the building in 1950, located in what is now the Cherokee Triangle Historic District, it had not yet been converted into a single family dwelling.

The ivy-covered exterior and the shadowy interior of the carriage house are captured in a series of wonderful black and white photographs.

The large structure had rooms for carriages and vehicles, and possibly stalls for horses. The upper stories would have been the living quarters of the domestic staff – a groom (maybe) in the early days, and the chauffeur.

The carriage house was historically associated with a house built for William Carrier Nones between 1905 and 1908 on Longest Avenue. Nones, a native of Connecticut, was quite the mover and shaker in Louisville at the time, and had the money to build such an elaborate outbuilding. (Most carriage houses, while thrilling to an architectural nerd like myself, aren’t quite this showy.)

He was President of the Kentucky Wagon Works, helped found the Louisville Tuberculosis Association (Waverly Hills Sanatorium), served on the Sewer Commission, and lent his voice to many civic concerns. In 1910, Nones, a Civil War veteran and widower (two wives predeceased him) lived in the house with his two adult daughters, a niece, a cook, servant, and chauffeur.

I think the carriage house is the more compelling piece of architecture.

Nones’ previous house on Cherokee Road was designed by prominent local architect D.X. Murphy in 1882. While I have nothing against this turn-of-the-century dwelling, all of the flourishes and architectural imagination were saved for the carriage house. The house is a bit…staid in comparison.

By the time the neighborhood was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, the carriage house had been “converted into an attractive residence.”

In 1981, the University of Louisville Foundation bought the main house (now known as Amelia Place) to serve as the President’s residence. In the 21st century, the use of this house – or lack thereof – became something of a local controversy.

According to a 2015 article in the Louisville Courier Journal, the house wasn’t really the home of the University’s president (no real surprise here). *”The prime, 1.6-acre tax-exempt property at 2515 Longest Avenue is owned by the University of Louisville Foundation in the sought-after Triangle, a local preservation district, and also includes a renovated, two-story carriage house at Ray and Ransdell avenues.”

The U of L foundation, “with a donation from philanthropist and businessman Owsley Frazier, then bought the carriage house for $750,000 in 2007. It was renovated by Bittners and Rateau Construction.”

Both buildings were used, according to U of L, for fundraising activities.

Apparently sensitive to the mild furor over these expensive historic homes sitting empty most of the time (or at least sensitive to one of the many scandals that dogged the university in the second decade of the 21st century), in 2018, the new president at U of L, Neeli Bendapdui, was required to live at the house as part of her employment contract.

I’m just happy that this amazing former outbuilding still stands and looks so great! Adaptive reuse is the ultimate recycling of historic buildings, and no matter how an educational intuition uses a building, I think we can all be glad that these pieces of historic architecture are still with us.

 

 

 

 

 

*”U of L owns Highlands mansion, but nobody’s home” 27 October 2015 by Martha Ellson. https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/highlands-crescenthill/2015/10/27/mansion-home-away-home-uofl-president/74472614/