Tag: BGT

An Immigrant’s Success: David Ades and the Ades-Lexington Dry Goods Building

Ades Dry Goods Building – Lexington, Ky.

At age 13, David Ades left his native Russian homeland ca. 1895. Born in Kovno in what is modern-day Lithuania, Ades arrived penniless at the port of Baltimore, Maryland but was destined to join his brother in Lexington, Kentucky. Brother Simon owned a wholesale dry goods business and employed his younger brother for $2/day and board.

Signature of David Ades

David thrived. In addition to a full work day, the young Ades attended night school taking instruction from names like Breckinridge, Hunt, Clay, and Gov. Morrow. By the spring of 1908, Simon had announced that he as leaving Lexington for Louisville; within months, it was known that David would succeed his brother in Lexington’s wholesale dry goods market.

Within a year, David Ades had relocated the family business from Short Street to the 400 block of West Main and had broken ground on a four story building at 237-239 East Main Street. Occupation began in August 1910. According to Kentucky History (1922), business growth surpassed all “sanguine expectations.”

Despite his business successes, personal tragedy struck in 1911. Sarah Fox, his wife originally of Baltimore, birthed their first child. Premature and stillborn.  This must have caused much grief and dispair, but it did not appear to shake Ades’ resolve. He and Sarah went on to have other children and he continued to grow his dry goods empire. David Ades also was quite involved in the community, with Masonry, the Odd Fellows, and the Elks. Absent from the laundry list of community accolades in Kentucky History is any mention of Ades having been a founding member of the Ohavay Zion Synagogue or his important role as a leader in Lexington’s Jewish community in the early twentieth century. He also served on the planning commission and later, as a city commissioner of Lexington.

In 1925, Ades acquired a controlling interest in the Lexington Dry Goods Building – and with it, put his name on 249 West Main Street, our subject building. By year end, Ades had consolidated his wholesale dry goods businesses under the name Ades-Lexington Dry Goods Company.

Lexington Dry Goods Building
from the Asa Chinn Collection (KDL)

The original 249 West Main Street – the Ades Dry Goods Building or the Lexington Dry Goods Building – is a 5 story, 5 bay brick commercial building in the Chicago School style. A 3 bay addition was constructed in in 1920. After David Ades died in 1965, the Ades family ultimately closed the dry goods business (1977) as it was out of fashion and converted the building to storage. In 1987, the structure was sold to be redeveloped as a mixed-use residential/ commercial structure.

Ultimately, the residential units were removed and today it is the home of Portofino’s, the Thomas & King Company, and Cornett Integrated Marketing. The redevelopment was completed under the direction of Omni Architects, and representatives of Omni, Thomas & King, and Cornett were all available for questions and to discuss the building during our January 2013 Blue Grass Trust deTour of the building. Each of the occupants, was passionate about being downtown and found terrific benefit in being in a historic structure that had been transformed for today’s use.

Thomas & King Mail Room

In the Thomas & King mail room, as well as other first floor areas, the original tin-stamped ceilings remain visible while the high ceilings make what is normally a tight fitting area seem spacious.

The building rests upon a raised basement with a stone facing above the sidewalk. Above the total eight bays of the first floor are glass transoms which rest below a “masonry band in a simplified running dog motif across the entire façade at the base of the second story windows.” Architects of the original structure were Herman L. Rowe and Arthur Giannini, the former being the “dean of Lexington’s late 19th century architects” and the latter being his partner in later years.

Additional pictures can be found on flickr.

Sources: ancestry.com, Bricks+Mortar, Downtown Building Inventory, Fayette PVA, KDL, Kentucky History, NRHP.


The Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation hosts a monthly deTour for young professionals (and the young-at-heart). The group meets on the first Wednesday of each month. Our March 2013 gathering will be at the Federal Building on Barr Street. Join us there at 6:30 p.m.; learn more details on Facebook! You can see Kaintuckeean write-ups on previous deTours by clicking here.

“Preserving Boyle County for Generations to Come”: The Boyle Landmark Trust

Merchant’s Row – Perryville, Ky.

Last autumn, our collective attention turned to Boyle County. Within one week, this small central Kentucky county hosted both 2,000 Civil War reenactors and thousands more visitors for the Battle of Perryville’s sesquicentennial celebration as well as the hundreds of political and media luminaries assembled for the Vice-Presidential Debate.

The national attention received in October 2012 is not new for either Boyle County or its seat of government, Danville. The area’s history, for Kentuckians, is richer still.

Danville was the home to Kentucky’s first courthouse, the first U.S. post office west of the Alleghenies, and the ten Constitutional conventions which culminated in Kentucky becoming the fifteenth state (or fourth commonwealth) in the Union. The Virginia legislature established Danville five years before Kentucky achieved statehood. Lexington’s Transylvania University originated in Danville. Centre College was chartered in 1819.

Without a doubt, the history of Boyle County is rich.

And so, in 1971, the Boyle Landmark Trust (“BLT”) was organized “to put back into use historical structures so that they may better serve our community and illuminate their important educational, social and cultural function.” BLT was organized by Cecil Dulin Wallace whose wife, Lily, would lead BLT for over a quarter century. The original “landmark” was Mrs. Wallace’s family home – the Cambus-Kenneth House – had been won in a hand of cards by Dr. Ephraim McDowell years before.

Perryville’s Merchant’s Row was the first major project for the BLT. These beautiful structures stand at the heart of a historic crossroads and were recently revitalized once again through the Main Street Perryville Program. But without the earlier work of the BLT, historic Perryville might not have survived the twentieth century.

More recently, the BLT has continued its decades long restoration of the Willis Russell House. Long owned by various local organizations committed to its preservation, the BLT has informed the public about this historic property.

“People here in Danville had seen this log structure, didn’t even know what it was, had no idea what it was about, the history of it. They hadn’t been in it. It’s just been kind of lying dormant for a number of years,” said Barbara Hulette, the President of the Boyle Landmark Trust in an interview with WUKY-FM. Hulette, of course, is no stranger to The Blue Grass Trust; she was very involved in this organization prior to her move to Danville several years ago. Since, she has shown her dedication to historic beyond Fayette County in Boyle County and elsewhere. For these efforts, Hulette received the 2012 John Wesley Hunt Award from the BGT.

Willis Russell House – Danville, Ky.

Under Hulette’s leadership, the BLT has continued its efforts. Earlier this year, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet placed a historic roadside marker in front of the Willis Russell House, located at 204 East Walnut Street. Not surprisingly, the funds for this historical marker were raised and secured through the efforts of the Boyle Landmark Trust.

Russell had been a slave owned by Lieutenant Robert Edward Craddock who had served in the Revolutionary War. Craddock’s will, probated in 1837, emancipated his slaves and provided some of them, including Russell, with land. Willis Russell received a ca. 1794 log house in the town of Danville as well at 509 acres on the waters near the Rolling Fork River. It was in his home where Mr. Russell opened a Danville’s first school for African American children.

The work of Mrs. Wallace, and of those of the Boyle Landmark Trust who have and will continue to follow her path, continues to preserve “Boyle County for generations to come.”

This article originally appeared in the January 2013 issue of Preservation Matters, a tri-annual publication of the Blue Grass Trust.

The BGT’s Eleventh Hour Endangered Properties List

Since 1999, the Blue Grass Trust has created an annual list of “Eleven [historic properties] in Their Eleventh Hour.” Each property is selected on the following criteria: historic significance, proximity to proposed or current development, lack of protection from demolition, condition of structure, and architectural significance.

The BGT’s goal of highlighting these properties is to find long-term solutions to preserve them for generations to come.

In no specific order, the BGT has announced this year’s “Eleven in Their Eleventh Hour” this morning at the Hunt-Morgan House.

  • Greyhound Station on Loudon Avenue, Lexington. 
  • Old Fayette County Courthouse, Lexington.
  • Willis Green House, Danville.
  • Good Shepherd Church, Frankfort.
  • 151 Constitution Street, Lexington.
  • Ligon and Matthews Houses, Lexington.
  • First Baptist Church, Lexington.
  • 601 Boonesboro Ave., Lexington.
  • I-75 Connector Corridor, rural Jessamine and Madison Counties.
  • 412 W. Third and 445 W. Second, Lexington.
More information about each of these properties can be found in the January 2013 issue of Preservation Matters, a tri-annual publication of the BGT.