TIP #525 MY DOMICILE, SWEET KENTUCKY DOMICILE Today I am going to look at little bit at Kentucky architecture - or, what did our Kentucky pioneer homes up to the 18th century look like? To get a better picture in our mind about our ancestors, we need extra information other than the dates as I have said over and over. Take a look at your pedigree charts. Do you see a name and a batch of dates? Like wooden stick people, one dimensional, they look back at us. In many of my tips, I'm trying to put life back into them via the written word and photographs/diagrams. Then, hopefully, when you look at that pedigree chart or family sheet you will look beyond the name and date and see them in your mind's eye as they go about their daily lives; the work they do, and today, the places they lived. I will divide our homes into various periods of time and you can place your family in the appropriate category. I will also divide this study into two categories: The folk architecture and the homes of the more monied. Folk architecture would be characterized by the more primitive, "meets the basic needs" style home. In other words, normal working people - farmers, blacksmiths, small town Kentucky. Their houses reflected their roots; British, Irish, central European. At first, many tried to style their houses much as they had known as a child and, as years passed, modified them based on the availability of materials, climates and money available. Soon their houses became American with their own individual styles, some bearing no resemblance to the past heritage. Single-pen: Most of the early houses were very small one or two unit buildings. The first was called a single-pen house - it has one main section, normally one story. Some had two stories with the second "floor" being a loft where many slept in large families. Most had just one room; some had a partition to divide the structure into two equal sized units making two rooms. It is hard to imagine the large families of the past co-existing into a one room cabin. A sample picture of a single-pen house can be found at: http://www.nwk.usace.army.mil/harryst/logcabin.htm (Harry S Truman's log cabin home in the Ozarks). A saddlebag house was built with two equal sized rooms built around a central chimney which served both rooms. A sample of this style can be found at: http://www.illinoishistory.gov/hs/Log.htm (Abraham Lincoln's home - space down the page to near the bottom for a better view). A double-pen house had exterior end chimneys. If there was an open passage between the two sections or "pens", then it was called a dogtrot house. Later many people closed in the dogtrot which created a central aisle or passage between the two units. A photo can be found at: http://www.texasescapes.com/CentralTexasTownsNorth/ComancheTexas/ComancheCou ntyCourthouses.htm (about 1/4th way down the page). I-house: A larger cabin style house was sometimes called an I-house. It had a central passage, is two stories tall and is only a single room in depth. These are found in Kentucky and Tennessee and indicated people of moderate money living in the country. An I-house which has been built onto many times is shown at: http://www.floydsfork.org/ht/ht_tylerbuildings.htm#The%20Main%20House The shotgun style house is found in some of the larger cities in Kentucky, particularly in Louisville was said to have been influenced by those who had seen African and Caribbean homes. It was one room wide and many rooms deep. See: http://bywater.org/Arch/shotgun.htm for some wonderful pictures and more descriptions. What were these homes built of? Normally, what was available locally. From logs to stone, brick, frame and vertical plank. Now, let's look at some more formal housing styles. As noted above, the early Kentucky pioneers came from many locations with the largest settlements being from Virginia, the Carolinas and Pennsylvania. With them came the knowledge of how their homes had looked on the eastern shores as well as in the Old World. 1780's. Stone and brick were the construction materials of choice. Residences many times took the form of a two-story, gable-ended structure. By the mid 1780's, brick was becoming more and more popular with the upper crust as more could be done with it. Houses built during this time period were called Georgian-Federal in their styling. The layouts were symetrical; the doorways were ornate and the house had many cornices. They had hipped roofs. http://www.wakefieldma.org/architecture.html Roman, Renaissance, Classical. Championed by Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson County's third courthouse which was built between 1810-1812 reflects this style of architecture. Kentucky was the first to develop this style; Matthew Kennedy designed, in 1814, a similar design for Transylvania College's main building; and the Roman Catholic Proto-Cathedral in Bardstown KY was built in this style in 1816. http://www.bardstown.com/~stjoe/ In the 1820's the Greek Revival style gained in popularity thanks to Gideon Shryock who designed the 3rd courthouse in Jefferson County. Other famous architects who designed in Kentucky were Maj. Thomas Lewinski (designing for the Kentucky arisocracy). http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/greekrev.html Gothic Revival was popular during the same time as Green Revival. Steep roofs, 1-3 gables, highly decorated, Gothic arches on windows. John Rogers built St Thomas Church in Nelson County in 1816; Hugh Roland designed the Roman Catholic Chapel of St Louis in Louisville (the earliest of this style found); Nathaniel Cook of Frankfort designed the Kentucky Arsenal in 1849-50 and the Good Shepherd Church in Frankfort (1850). http://www.military.ky.gov/kyngemus/by_armory/arsenal.htm By the 1840's and 1850's new building materials and techniques emerged; lumber could now be machine cut and machine-made wire was available. Cast iron along with terra cotta appeared and the buildings stated getting taller; those skyscrapers could be 5 stories tall! And, in the 1850's the Italiante style became popular. These buildings had low pitched roofs, overhanging eaves; the windows were quite tall and narrow; and cupolas appeared on the roofs. An example of this style would be the Customs House in Louisville (designed by E E Williams in 1853) and Lewinski's Deaf and Dumb Asylum in Danville KY (built 1854). Isaiah Rogers designed about 1852 and his most famous works here would include the Capital Hotel in Frankfort and the Louisville Hotel of 1854. http://architecture.about.com/library/bl-italianate.htm Also, in the 1850's buildings with cast-fronts appeared. John McMurtry designed the Elliott & Craig Building in Lexington. Miles Greenwood of Cincinnati manufactured the iron front in 1858. Henry Platt Bradshaw came to Louisville in 1859 from England and provided designs for the Louisville City Hall and the Louisville Steam & Power Co. But everything came to a slow halt in Kentucky for awhile. A period of depression hit in 1857, followed by the Civil War. As the country slowly rose to its feet, many of the older styles of architecture faded from popularity including Greek and Gothic Revival. Victorian eclecticism combined with the Gothic and the Italiante and what was known as the French Second Empire. Other styles flourished also: Eastlake, Queen Anne, Jacobean, French Baroque, Rococo, Moorish, Flemish, Venetian Gothic. See the following: Victorian eclecticism: http://www.victorianbazaar.com/homes.html French Second Empire: http://www.uvm.edu/~vhnet/histarch/haas05.html Eastlake: http://www.normal.org/HistoricPreservation/ArchitecturalStyles.htm (go down to Victorian cottage) Queen Anne: http://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,1607,7-151-9620_11154_11189-29348--,00.html Jacobean: http://www.totaltravel.co.uk/travel/london/chilterns/richmond-upon-thames/ph otos/ham-house French Baroque: http://www.madamebonancieux.com/fr_baroque.html Rococo: http://www.pitt.edu/~tokerism/0040/rococo.html Moorish: http://www.victorianweb.org/art/design/moorish/hackford1.html Flemish: http://www.explorenyc.com/Oldest-Newest/flemish.html Venetian Gothic: http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0001560.html The earliest Victorian architecture building in Kentucky was in Bourbon County, the courthouse, designed by Albert C. Nash from Sweden but residing in Lexington. From 1885 until 1900, the Chicago School of architecture was popular. This included Richardsonian Romanesque, High Victorian Gothic Beaux Arts and Colonial Revival. Henry Hobson Richardson developed the Richardsonian Romanesque which included round-toped windows and entrances; masonry walls of rough finish. The Fayette County courthouse of 1898 was built in this style. The High Victorian Gothic came to the states from England; introduced in Kentucky by Peter Bonnett Wright of New York. Other buildings in these designs was the 1891 Nelson County courthouse, the Hopkins County Courthouse (1892) Colonial Revival was popular from 1893 up to WW II. Sites to check: RichardsonianRomanesque: http://www.watsonschoice.com/GuideBook/Attractions/HistoricUniontown.htm High Victorian Gothic: See next Gothic: http://architecture.about.com/library/weekly/aa061200a.htm Beaux Arts: http://architecture.about.com/library/bl-beauxarts.htm Colonial Revival: http://architecture.about.com/library/bl-colonialrevival.htm Well, our tour of architecture in Kentucky has ended. Every house style existed in Kentucky and many still stand. Which house reflects your personality and pleasure? Me .. oh, I'm a country girl and I'll take a double-pen cabin with an enclosed dog trot any times. Additional information obtained from the Kentucky Encyclopedia, John E Kleber, University Press of Kentucky, (c) 1992, Second printing. (c) Copyright 27 Jan 2005, Sandra K. Gorin Colonel Sandi Gorin SCKY Links: http://www.public.asu.edu/~moore/Gorin.html Sandi's Puzzlers: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gensoup/gorin/puz.html Gorin Publishing: http://ggpublishing.tripod.com/