As the United States was gaining independence at the end of the 18th century, pioneers were settling in the Bluegrass Region of central Kentucky. The area offered rich soil, abundant land, and a temperate climate. Lexington emerged as the commercial and economic center of a region of great wealth, despite the decision to make nearby Frankfort the capital of the state in 1792.

Kentucky resembled Virginia with its large farms, formal gardens, and grand mansions, all radiating from Lexington. The genteel residents of the region remained current to East Coast fashions from dress to architecture. Horse breeding and racing quickly became an integral part of life in the blue grass as horses were imported from Virginia and England.

Today, the Bluegrass Region still retains much of its picturesque natural beauty of gently rolling hills. There are many surviving examples of Georgian, Federal and Greek Revival architecture from the 18th and 19th centuries and newer classical architecture of the 20th century in the 15 counties that presently define the region.

The Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America in collaboration with the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation are pleased to announce a spring tour of “Southern Classicism in Kentucky’s Bluegrass Region”, April 14 – 18, 2010, a unique excursion of discovery of fabulous classical architecture and interiors. The itinerary will range from the Pope Villa, a rare surviving residence by the great Benjamin Latrobe and now owned by the Blue Grass Trust, to Pin Oak Farm, one of two houses in America designed by England’s eminent classicist Quinlan Terry and an elegant private residence by the New York architectural firm of Fairfax and Sammons.

An abundance of residences and country estates will be opened to us along with privately hosted get-togethers. We will also have the unique experience of visiting during Lexington’s spring racing season the famed Keeneland Racetrack, whose club house was decorated by the legendary Billy Baldwin. Accommodations for four nights have been reserved at the historic Gratz Park Inn, a charmingly decorated boutique hotel.

A private tour of the country house at Pin Oak Farm, Versailles, designed by Quinlan Terry in 1986, and based on Robert Morris’s design at Marble Hill, Twickenham, England. The entry is decorated with colossal Corinthian pilasters, while the interiors have been elegantly furnished. The owner is Mrs. Josephine Abercrombie.

The Pope Villa, Lexington, was constructed between 1811 and 1814 for Senator John Pope on designs by Benjamin Latrobe. Similar in style to the other rare extant example of the architect’s residential work, Decatur House in Washington D.C., the villa is entered from an English basement almost at grade level. The main or first story is one floor above. The house suffered stylistic changes in later years and a devastating fire in 1987. Now owned by the Blue Grass Trust, much has been returned to its original state. Those leading the restoration work will be on hand as our guides.

A private Federal-style house with a noteworthy entrance including a delicately beautiful leaded fan door and sidelights and later Greek Revival four-columned portico, Rose Hill, Lexington, was built c.1812 by John Brand, a successful business man who had emigrated from Scotland. Wings containing bedrooms protrude slightly from either side of the center block that holds the reception and dining rooms.

Iroquois Hunt Club, Lexington, adapted a two-story mill on Boones Creek as its headquarters. The mill was constructed by Philip Grimes in 1803.  Catherine Clay Neal and John Neal will host both a reception at their home designed by Fairfax and Sammons and a private dinner at the club.

The Morton House, Lexington, considered the most elegant Federal house in the area was built in 1810 by William Morton, a successful merchant. The private house is composed of three one-story hipped-roof sections and two hyphens.  The façade is stuccoed and the surface scored to resemble stonework; raised quoins accent the corners. The front paneled doors of the main pavilion are 10 feet high and are flanked by 8-foot wide Palladian windows. Whereas the exterior maintains strict symmetry, the interior has no strict sense of balance in layout or in individual rooms.

Brutus J. Clay built Auvergne in 1837. The house is representative of the transition between the Federal and Greek Revival periods. The elliptical arches dividing the front entrance hall from the stair hall are particularly interesting and characteristic of the Federal style.

Botherum, Lexington, is a Greek Revival home built in 1851 for Madison Conyers Johnson by local architect John McMurty. Whereas the exterior of this unusual one-story villa is mainly Greek Revival, the interior for the most part is Gothic Revival, a combining of the classic and the romantic. The house is presently a private residence.

Ward Hall, Scott County, built in 1859, is considered Kentucky’s most imposing Greek Revival country residence. Set on a high basement, the column order for the portico is Corinthian with fluted shafts. An arrangement of pilasters on all four sides of the mansion support a bold entablature. The large scale, clarity of plan (three rooms deep, a hall 65 feet in length and a centrally placed elliptical staircase) and richness of detail have produced a magnificent interior.

Commissioned in 1845 by famed Senator Henry Clay for his son Thomas Hart Clay, Mansfield, Lexington, still in private hands, is a one-and-a-half story Greek Revival country house set on a high basement. Its entrance is given prominence by an Ionic portico.  Coupled pilasters unify the walls of the nearly square house, sustaining a deep entablature on all sides. Triple windows are in the wide center bays front and back. The interior consists of four rooms flanking a center hall.  Wings were added in 1927, creating a five-part composition.

The Hunt-Morgan House, Lexington, was owned by one of the region’s most historic families, producing the first millionaire west of the Alleghenies, a Civil War brigadier general and Kentucky’s first Nobel Prize winner. Facing historic Gratz Park and completed in 1814, the house is fine example of Federal architecture embodying an elegance that surpasses its size. Its façade is pedimented and is highlighted by the finest doorway of its time in the state. The house is operated as a house museum with period furnishings by the Blue Grass Trust, having saved it from demolition in 1955.

Architectural historian Clay Lancaster, author of Antebellum Architecture of Kentucky, has called Gratz Park“ ‘The Louisburg Square of Lexington’.  There is still no more pleasant place to be found in Lexington.  With the Hunt and Bodley houses facing each other at Second and the alignment of beautifully scaled residences up Mill and Market, one finds here the manifestation of satisfying balance without staid formality.”  A private walking tour of the park will be part of the itinerary.

Loudon House, Lexington, is the first and foremost Gothic Revival villa in Kentucky.  In 1850, owner Francis Key Hunt hired Alexander Jackson Davis, the architect celebrated for his romantic country houses found in the Hudson River Valley, including the Plumb-Bronson House, and elsewhere. Loudon has such castle-like qualities as towers, turrets, oriel windows and buttresses.

Other houses on the tour include Ashland, the Henry Clay estate; the Mary Todd Lincoln House, and Waveland plantation built in 1847.

(The itinerary is subject to some change.)