Tag: walkLEX

Col. George Nicholas Historic Marker – Lexington, Ky.

As the wilderness of Kentucky was becoming settled, our collective hero-worship turned from the pioneer to the war hero and statesman. An accomplished Virginia attorney even before he crossed the Appalachians, George Nicholas helped bring Kentucky from wilderness to statehood.

Col. Nicholas from the C. Frank Dunn Collection (KDL)

President Washington appointed Colonel Nicholas to be the first United States Attorney for the District of Kentucky. Under the Judiciary Act of 1789, Kentucky (a judicial district of Virginia consisting of nine counties) was designated as one of the thirteen original judicial districts. Washington’s appointment of Nicholas occurred on September 29, 1789, and Nicholas dutifully followed his nation’s call to Kentucky whereupon he settled in the then-seat of government: Danville.

For seven years and through nine conventions, Kentuckians had sought statehood independence from Virginia. Now in Danville, Nicholas joined the call. A statehood petition was granted in 1791 and a state constitutional convention was called in April 1792 to prepare a constitution for the new Commonwealth. Five representatives from each of Kentucky’s nine counties came to Danville to accomplish this goal. As one of Kentucky’s leading legal minds, Colonel Nicholas was called upon to serve as chief draftsman of the document. For this, Nicholas is known as the “Father of the Kentucky Constitution.”

A great debate at the constitutional convention arose over the issue of slavery. Nicholas favored slavery and its legal merits, but at least one member of the convention resigned when Nicholas’ draft included language that protected slavery. Found in Article IX of Kentucky’s first constitution, the provisions prohibited the legislature from passing laws “for the emancipation of slaves without the [prior] consent of their owners” and a “full equivalent in money for the slaves so emancipated.” Article IX did at least forbid the “inhumane” treatment of slaves and it also prohibited the commercial slave trade.

Nicholas’ constitution also lacked mention of taxation, education, or a scheme through which to amend the constitution. In today’s Kentucky, this is hard to believe as we face an amendment to our state constitution on almost every visit to the ballot box. These deficiencies and the inability to amend led to calls for a new constitutional convention which was finally convened in 1799; this convention produced Kentucky’s second constitution which was largely based on Nicholas’ work.

On June 15, 1792, Nicholas was appointed by Governor Isaac Shelby to serve as Kentucky’s first attorney general. He stayed in this position for only six months before retiring from public life and to Lexington where he continued to practice law. In 1799, Transylvania University was established as such and with it came the first law school in the west; Colonel Nicholas was appointed as its first law professor. 

Bond House at 209/211 North Limestone Street – Lexington, Ky.

Nestled between Columbia’s Steakhouse and the Lexington Beerworks sits the Bond House. Of Georgian Revival design, it was constructed in 1909 by owner C.E. Bond of Lawrenceburg with architectural design being possibly attributed to John V. Moore. In the early twentieth century, Mr. Bond acquired several landholdings in Lexington including this parcel as well as parcels on both East and West Main Street. Like many of the buildings in the area, the Bond House typifies urban mixed-use architecture with first-floor commercial and upper-story residential occupancies.

Bond was well-known in his Lawrenceburg home as he was a builder and the president of the Lawrenceburg National Bank. The third Anderson County Courthouse, built in 1861, was remodeled in 1905 by Bond; it, however, burned to the ground in 1915. The fourth and present Anderson County Courthouse was constructed using stones from the earlier courthouse. C.E. Bond sold this Lexington parcel in 1913 to brothers James E. and John P. Slavin.

As is often the case, little is known of James E. Slavin. But I discovered a most emotional tale when querying John P. Slavin.

In January 1906, “combined fortune and misfortune of death, a joy mingled with grief, fell upon the home of Fireman John P. Slavin and wife Saturday. During the early morning hours Mrs. Slavin gave birth to a fine boy, but Friday afternoon their son, Thomas Lyons Slavin, aged five years, died.” Lexington Leader, Jan. 7, 1906 (sec. 2, p. 7 col. 4). It was scarlet fever that had taken the life of the young five year old. Then on January 16, 1906, this was printed in the Lexington Herald: “John Joseph Slavin, infant son of Fireman J.P. Slavin, died at the home of Mr. Slavin on Georgetown street, Sunday night at 9:30 o’clock. This is the second death in Mr. Slavin’s family in the last ten days, he having lost his five-year-old son Wednesday a week ago.”

What a tragedy. I cannot imagine the grief that family suffered. This story reminded me of the humanity and the importance of the owners, common or otherwise, of the buildings that I’ve profiled on this site.

“The Bond House” ca. 1920/21. Photo: Asa Chinn (KDL)

With prohibition repealed at the end of 1933 by virtue of the 21st amendment, the Bond House became a storeroom for the Kentucky Distillers’ Products, Inc. On a Tuesday night in April 1935, eighty-eight cases of whiskey were stolen from the storeroom at 211 North Limestone Street. The loss was valued at $2,000 according to a police report.

In 1983, the Bond House was added to the National Register of Historic Places by virtue of its location in the North Limestone Commercial District. Proudly, the owners bear signage indicating both its National Register and Blue Grass Trust listings.

A half million dollar renovation in 1988 converted what was then a fireworks store and warehouse back to its mixed-use origins: four loft apartments and two commercial first-floor enterprises. Today, children’s boutique clothier Bella Bliss calls the Bond House home. Interestingtly, it was a clothier (V.L. Lingenfelter’s) that was housed in 209 North Limestone when Asa Chinn took the photo above.

Sources: Blue Grass Trust; local.lexpublib.org; National Register; Slavens.net

Lexington Beerworks (213 North Limestone) – Lexington, Ky.

Central Kentucky is quickly advancing its stature in the beer community. Danville has become a local leader on the craft brew scene and Lexington’s scene is improving on almost a daily basis.

Recently, Lexington Beerworks opened at 213 North Limestone – it is simply “the best place to be for craft beer lovers and brewers.” They have what may be an almost infinite selection of bottled beer and a rotating draft list that features the best beers from across Kentucky and around the world. On my first visit, I got my first taste of Danville’s Lore Brewing Company. Lore’s Winter Coatmeal Stout was rich and dark with a strong oaty aftertaste – quite good! The Lexington Beerworks keeps its followers on both twitter and facebook up-to-date with what is on tap.

Embracing social media and good beer aren’t the only things that Lexington Beerworks is up to. They also know how to pick a great, historic location. Built in 1905, the two-story 213 North Limestone has cast iron columns and rough stone lintel and metal cornices that hearken to the earliest days of the building.

In those earliest days, the building housed the Lexington Ice Cream Company which appears to have been the first such creamery in Lexington. Organized in November 1906 by A. L. Calhoun and others, it quickly became popular. By the summer of 1907, Mr. Calhoun had “built up a good business” and sold it to a H. T. Muir. Muir, a “prominent farm residing on the Richmond pike,” operated the ice creamery under the name Muir & Son so that his son, Chester, might become involved in business.

It would be in August of the following year, 1908, that “while engaged in selling cream in his concessionaire tent at the Colored Fair ground” that Henry T. Muier would be “seized with heart disease and drop dead.” By October, Mr. Muir’s estate would sell at public auction the ice cream and dairy plant to W. I. Hughes. Hughes was quite the entrepreneur with interests throughout downtown Lexington in cafes, confectionaries, creameries and more. He and his sweet tooth also represented Lexington in the state legislature and served on the city’s commission.

At some point, the ice cream business departed 213 North Limestone. In 1920, the building was occupied by a plumbing company. Restored in 1996, 213 North Limestone housed the Limestone Club until it closed in 2011. The Limestone Club was a small boutique ballroom that provided a terrific venue with its open space and wonderful “southern” two-story porch. The location (and the porch) were the perfect match for the beer trio Greg, Mike and Jason (the proprietors of Lexington Beerworks). If you like beer, you definitely must head over to Lexington Beerworks (213 North Limestone, Lexington).

Columbia’s Steakhouse – Lexington, Kentucky

On a Friday evening, Lexington police raided a popular Lexington restaurant, arrested twenty-one people and charged the restaurant’s owner with running a disorderly house. Things were no less “disorderly” two months later. Armed with reports of Sunday alcohol sales (in violation of state blue laws) and the sale of distilled spirits despite having only a beer license, the state alcoholic beverage control board yanked the beer license of Columbia’s Steakhouse. It was the spring of 1952 and Frank and Ray Columbia’s restaurant was in trouble. Opened in 1948, the steakhouse was already a Lexington institution.

The steakhouse was set up as a ‘front’ for the true operation: a gaming hall in the back room which was frequented by local officials and police. Today, that back room is referred to as “the Mafia Room.” Yes, the lore behind Lexington’s Columbia’s Steakhouse is deep. Walking into its North Limestone location, one can easily imagine the many rooms being filled with smoke and deals being struck. Not a lot has changed since Columbia’s first opened sixty-four years ago. There is no pretense. Just an old-school steakhouse.

Manager Flo Cowley

There are a few things that typify a traditional steakhouse and Columbia’s meets all of them. Delicious food. Check. A familiar staff that has been there for years. Check. In fact, for twenty-six years Flo Cowley has managed the North Limestone location of Columbia’s Steakhouse. @managerflo is an avid twitterer who offers a big smile to all who enter her restaurant. But in true old-school form, she knows her regulars by name. And she knows the legends and the lore of this Lexington institution like the back of her hand.

The same could be said for Columbia’s former maitre d’: James “Smitty” Smith. He was the subject of many news articles as his “smile that helped make the restaurant one of the most popular in town.” Smitty was, like Columbia’s itself, a “Lexington legend.” In 1993, Smity received the Smiley Pete award which is given to someone who “makes people feel good about being downtown.”

The Nighthawk Special

The ubiquitous menu item is the Nighthawk Special. The dish is named after a 1960s era radio personality on local station WVLK, Tom Kindall, who was a night owl (er, nighthawk). The Nighthawk DJ’d rock and roll from midnight until dawn. His namesake is always on the menu, but for a short period of time every year the price drops. The eight ounce beef tenderloin is marinated and served in garlic butter. My wife prefers their delicious steak fries and I their enormous baked potato as a side of choice with each of us making full use of the accompanying garlic butter. Each of us agree on the second side dish: the Diego salad – chopped lettuce with diced tomato and sliced radishes, all tossed with a nice shake of a special seasoning mix, ranch dressing on the side. My God it is good! I’ve loved the Nighthawk Special since I enjoyed my first some twenty years ago.

You have to go back many years to remember when Columbia’s Steakhouse was not the occupant at 201 North Limestone. One customer, however, remembered growing up in the back room when it was an apartment and the front of the building was a grocery store. The building, built ca. 1870, typifies post-Civil War mixed-use (commercial-residential) design. And it remains mixed-use with apartments on the upper floor.

If you haven’t been to Columbia’s, go. If you haven’t been in awhile, go back. For more pictures, check out flickr.

Sources: Columbia’s Steakhouse; local.lexpublib.org; @managerflo; NRHP

This post previously suggested that James “Smitty Smith” was deceased. The error wasn’t noticed for over 18 months, but it has been corrected. An obituary for Smitty’s brother shows him alive and well as of June 2014.

Early Rendering of “Lex” atop the Downtown Arts Center – Lexington, Ky.

Scaled Back Design of “Lex”

Sculptor Dewitt Godfrey of upstate New York has designed Lex – a fixture of various shapes and sizes of steel tubes to be stacked atop the Lexington Laundry Company building at 141 East Main Street. Godfrey is well-known for his abstract designs featuring weathered steel tubes. His work is being brought to Lexington as a commissioned work by LexArts and Leadership Lexington‘s 2010 Class.

The original design, pictured above, would have spanned both Laundry Building and its neighbor, 137 East Main (the Fayette Cigar Store). Without the support of all involved, the project was scaled back and will only rest atop Lexington Laundry.

Steel Tube Possibilities Photo: LexArts

The scaled-back design is far more conservative than the original renderings. Also quite different from other Godfrey works is that Lex will be placed three stories above ground meaning that the art will have no pedestrian interaction. Godfrey did design some versions of Lex that would have been accessible – consider the interpretation at right which would have allowed both pedestrian and vehicular traffic through the steel tubes.

The total fixture is expected to weigh 11, 900 pounds. Spanning 18′ 8″ over the art center, the Lex will reach over 27 feet into the air. It will contain 17 cylinders with the largest having a diameter of ten feet.

Asa C. Chinn Collection, ca. 1920-1921 Photo Source: KYVL-KDL

Before it was home to the Lexington Laundry Company (built 1929), the site featured a slightly taller structure that wouldn’t have left enough room for 27 feet of aerial art about its top. The unique façade of the Laundry Company’s predecessor is missed but Godfrey’s art form will be another major transformation of the location. The 1929 structure is considered by the US Department of the Interior to be Lexington’s finest example of art deco architecture with the façade “composed of wheat-toned glazed tile highlighted by stylized floral patterns.”

Those commissioning the work did so in a massive call for public art that will hopefully grace other community spots in the coming years. With 126 applications and 14 finalists, a selection of five proposals were commissioned. This Godfrey piece will be the first to appear in Lexington, though information about other commissioned proposals is available.

Next week, on January 11, the proposed art work will go before the Courthouse Area Design Review Board for approval. Once approved, work can begin on putting in place this project funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts which will provide another fixture of permanent public art in downtown Lexington.

UPDATE: The CADRB unanimously approved this project on January 11, 2012. To the left is the most recent (and color!) artists rendering of what we’ll soon see!

Sources: Artist Website; BizLex; CADRB Application; Downtown Building Inventory; Herald-Leader; National Park Service. 


Correction: The Lexington Streetsweeper pointed out that an earlier version of this story confused and combined into one the Laundry Company building and its predecessor in location. Chinn’s photos were taken in 1920-1921 and the Laundry Company building wasn’t built until ca. 1929. Thanks for the catch! 

Metropol at 307 West Short Street – Lexington, Ky.

Dr. John Shremly honored his uncle, Harry Schraemli, when he opened Metropol in 2000. This fine dining locale at 307 West Short Street has for eleven years offered delicious meals and fine drinks at its Harry’s Bar (named after Uncle Harry).

Schraemli, who passed in 1995, was renowned in Europe for his gastronomy. This master in the culinary world wrote numerous books and publications; his Meistermixer remains the “bartenders bible across Europe.” The European heritage of Metropol is easily visible from West Short as the building proudly displays the flags of France, Switzerland, Italy, and others alongside Old Glory.

307 W. Short St. Bullock Collection

But the buildings themselves cannot be ignored as they have their own fantastic history. Constructed as a post office in 1836 (some records indicate construction occurred as early as 1825), 307 West Short is the oldest surviving post office in Lexington.

The first postmaster here, Joseph Ficklin, would later serve as counsel to Cuba under the nomination of President Polk. His “lively” house on High Street was home to Jefferson Davis during the future Confederate president’s years at Transylvania.

When the post office opened at West Short Street, the cost of postage was measured by the number of pages and the distance to be travelled. A three-page letter requiring a distance of 400 miles would cost 75¢ (in other words, in 175 years the cost of postage has decreased — no wonder the U.S. Postal Service is in trouble!). Of course, the cost may be attributed to the excellent customer service: the post office was then open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and for an additional hour each Sunday morning.

The structure itself is a simple, two-story antebellum commercial building. Originally, the first floor frontage was almost entirely windows, but an  unfortunate renovation in 1971 covered this frontage with brick veneer as well as covering the remainder of the building with aluminum.

In 2009, Schremly expanded Metropol to include the neighboring structure to the west. There, the Hotel Drake Annex completed this island in what has become a sea of parking lot. The Annex was built ca.  1901 in the Queen Anne style. The Drake Hotel converted the Annex into a “liquor dispensary” after Prohibition. In former versions, the West Short Street hotel – which spanned the length of the block’s now empty parking lot – operated as both the Ashland House and the Reed Hotel. It became the Hotel Drake in 1926 and it then became an “infamous hangout for bookies and prostitutes.”The Drake was torn down in 1962. Of it, only this Annex remains.

Metropol merged these two buildings into a sizable, beautiful restaurant. But this Friday, Metropol will close its doors. Be sure to stop by and say hello.

Sources: BGT file; Metropol; NRHP; Walking Tour Brochure

Model of a #FreeRupp

Last night, a public meeting was held for the Arena, Arts & Entertainment District (AAED). A lot of great ideas from the master planners at Space Group; lead architect Gary Bates led the presentation. As he pointed out, the concept of master planning – particularly in difficult economic times – must operate as a “slow cooker” — with a master vision in mind and taking incremental steps along the way for a period of decades to accomplish the goal. A quote attributed to American architect Daniel Burnham was offered before the introduction of Mayor Gray:

Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die.

As a result, much of what what discussed last night was conceptual and not concrete. This process is not (at least yet) about building design but about planning a 46-acre district that would expand the downtown core, making her a more attractive,  livable place.

The attention of many focuses on one thing: Rupp Arena. On the continuum of this master plan, Rupp is certainly the catalyst and where efforts will begin. As Bates said, Rupp Arena is a fantastic facility because of its intensity which he attributes not just to our team but to the simple fact that we have “24,000 people on the smallest footprint in the world.”

But the AAED is about taking that same intensity and providing opportunities for pre- and post-game excitement. And although the city and Space Group are looking at how to revitalize a 46-acre district, neither are ignoring the balance of downtown (and the city for that matter) so that our community operates as a unit.

I was impressed with Bates’ mirror analysis: that downtown’s core extends from Thoroughbred Park to Rupp Arena, but that this space can nearly be mirrored on the land which can be developed from Rupp Arena westward through the Cox Street lots and into the Distillery District. He noted that the fabric of downtown is well-defined and concentrated better than many cities he has visited: north/south streets, e.g., South Limestone and South Broadway, have become axises for small business while east/west paths, e.g., Third, Short, and Maxwell, are highly residential. Still, walkability in our concentrated city has suffered: from 1907 to 2011 our building density has suffered a 50% blow in favor of larger “big boxes” and surface parking.

In all, the presentation showed great promise and good ideas though none are shovel-ready. For more on the details, I’d encourage you to read articles by Jill Seelmeyer (KyForward) and Bev Fortune (LHL). You may also want to check out the AAED Taskforce webpage at www.ruppdistrict.com.