In 1890, William Miller, a 37 year old native of LaRue County, and a cashier at the newly formed LaRue County Deposit Bank, set about building a house for his family. Although there is little information available about the builder or the origins of the design, Miller’s house was certainly a fashionable statement for the day, and remains an eye-catching building today.
The facade of the William Miller House in Hodgenville, Kentucky.
LaRue County was only about 10 years older than Miller when construction on his house began, but the county seat of Hodgenville was in the middle of a growth spurt. In 1888, a branch line of the Illinois Central Railroad connected Hodgenville to Elizabethtown, and the town’s role as a shipping center for agricultural products increased dramatically.
Section of the 1895 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Hodgenville, showing the downtown business district.
A year after the railroad arrived, two banks opened in Hodgenville: the LaRue County Deposit Bank and the Hubbard and Muir Bank. The public square, with the brick courthouse at its center, rapidly grew in size, with frame and brick buildings serving as stores, hotels, banks, and other establishments.
The former home of the LaRue County National Bank, the successor to the LaRue County Depost Bank. The original bank building was destroyed in a fire that ravaged the town in 1914. Photograph by Phil Thomason, National Register of Historic Places files.
Miller’s two-story frame house has the typically asymmetrical footprint and exterior flourishes of the Queen Anne style. A one-story octagonal tower, topped with a conical roof, perches on the southeast corner of the facade. The second story of the house is clad (mostly) in fishscale shingles, but the most delicious feature is the recessed porch on the second story, cozily located under a horseshoe arched opening.
A detail of the second story porch – wouldn’t you like to have a comfy seat up there?
In 1910, Miller (by then the President of the Farmer’s National Bank) and his wife Alice lived in this house with two nieces – Laura Davis, age 16, and Alice Davis, age 12. Their only son, Franklin Lee Miller, born in 1879, had died years earlier in 1897.
It’s always fun to drive through a Kentucky town and spot a historic house in such good condition and looking much as it did when originally built. From the attic window to the welcoming porch, the William Miller House is a celebration of popular late-19th century architectural trends.
Beautiful home!