Take a peek inside Kentucky’s historic mansions

BY TAYLOR M. RILEY AND TRACY SCOTT FORSON

Find sprawling greenery, elaborate architecture and the history of the nation at federalist-era homes throughout Kentucky. Once plantations where free labor helped finance the establishment of a young democracy, these properties now tell the stories of America’s foundation and the people who toiled to make it what it is today. Acres of land offer golfing, camping, museums, gardens, magnificent mansions and more.

The Oxmoor estate has been the home to five generations of the Bullitt family, known mostly for hemp farming. Early ancestors were among the first settlers in Kentucky when Alexander Scott Bullitt moved from Virginia in 1783, nine years before Kentucky achieved statehood, according to estate curator Shirley Harmon.

Take a guided tour of the 79-acre property that boasts a grand primary residence, as well as several outdoor structures, including a smokehouse, icehouse and slave cabins.

The original home, which is the back of the current main house, was completed in 1791 in a clapboard structure style, similar to Virginia colonial homes. The four downstairs rooms have corner fireplaces and the two upstairs rooms served as bedrooms for the family. Comprising most of the east wing, the grand library is one of the largest residential libraries in the state.

Many of the antiques in the home came from Nora Bullitt, whose husband, William Marshall Bullitt, purchased the home — the ownership of which had been divided among relatives — in 1908. Nora acquired pieces from around Europe, including the Sicilian ox cart chandeliers and 16th-century furnishings.

“It’s a living history,” says Porter Watkins, a fifth-generation member of the family. “It’s very, very important to know and acknowledge, and in some instances be proud of our histories. We all have them ... it’s who we are.”

In Louisville, an 18th-century mansion remains as a reminder of the estate that once flourished there. Now a National Historic Landmark, Presidents James Monroe and Andrew Jackson and explorers Meriwether Lewis and >

William Clark all spent time at Locust Grove.

Originally owned by William and Lucy Clark Croghan, the 55-acre plantation now belongs to the Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government.

“During its heyday,” says Locust Grove marketing and communications director Hannah Zimmerman, “there were 693.5 acres. You have to imagine that they had fields of crops, a distillery, a mill, a ferry going across the river, acreage of timber. ... You just have to imagine a lot of trees — lots of them locusts.”

Once maintained by dozens of enslaved workers, the entire house has gone through multiple restorations over the years, but its original foundation remains.

“Everything that you see in terms of woodwork, brick, floorboards — that all is original to the house,” Zimmerman says. “The bones of the house are good because, for the last 228 years, someone has been taking care of them. Only three families lived at Locust Grove between the time that the Croghans built it and the time it became a museum.”

Once the primary structure on 1,300 acres of land, this 1818 mansion in Bardstown is named after the anthem that its owner penned: My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night, the state’s official song.

Originally known as Federal Hill, the property was officially renamed My Old Kentucky Home in 1923, some 80 years after composer Stephen Foster took ownership of it.

Now part of a state park, visitors can golf, camp, enjoy performances at the outdoor amphitheater and tour the home that features fine art, centuries-old décor, antiques and more >

artifacts of yesteryear. More than 75 percent of the mansion’s contents, including furnishings and personal items, are original to the property, according to the website. There’s a gift shop and gardens on the property.

Through the centuries, both supporters and opponents of slavery resided in the home. The park acknowledges the darker parts of its history, which includes owning members of nine family groups.

To leave out the history of slavery is to tell an incomplete story, says Daniel Vivian, the chair of the department of historic preservation at the University of Kentucky.

“It’s absolutely important. Not just because it’s incomplete without it, but because for an awfully long time, that was purposeful because of race relations and politics after the Civil War,” Vivian says. “Actually, dealing with the history of slavery is important because it’s part of the American past and continues to play a role today, unfortunately.” l

— Darcy Costello, Lennie Omalza and Taylor M. Riley of the (Louisville, Ky.) Courier Journal contributed to this story.

In recent decades, America’s historic monuments have begun to more openly acknowledge the atrocity of slavery, according to Caroline Janney, a University of Virginia historian who specializes in the public memory of the Civil War.

Historic plantations in Kentucky have followed suit, with many acknowledging that they benefited from the free labor of the enslaved.

“There are very few places that I’ve been to in recent years where I would say it’s been sanitized or left out,” Janney says of slavery.

Education efforts around slavery and racism are improving in some schools, although slowly and with exception.

“When you expose schoolchildren to it, then there are more questions, and people come to expect that to be part of the experience when they go to historic sites,” Janney says.

Nevertheless, some still resist changes to the white-centric portrayal of American history. When the Jefferson Davis Memorial Arch lettering was taken down at Fort Monroe National Monument in Virginia, the United Daughters of the Confederacy protested, claiming it represented an erasure of Confederate history.

In 2019, an angry review of a historic plantation tour went viral on social media, after white reviewers said they were “extremely disappointed” when the tour guide talked about slavery. “We didn’t come to hear a lecture on how the white people treated slaves,” the reviewer wrote. “We came to get this history of a Southern plantation.”

History is about telling the truth, Janney says. Putting historical figures on pedestals and ignoring their racism and white supremacy is inaccurate. Their flaws and their strengths helped shape the country.

— Max Cohen