……a brief continuation of this thread on old downtown houses as an indication of what inner Louisville used to look like.

 

The natural growth of the CBD combined with urban renewal pretty much culled the old housing stock from downtown but there are survivors beyond the “Old House” we saw in the previous thread.

 

On the east side of downtown is an unacknowledged but perhaps very rare survivor from antebellum Louisville. 

 

Based on the Federal/Neoclassical detailing (around the door and the cornice) and proportions this house is probably contemporary with the Old House, from maybe the 1830s, perhaps even the 1820s.  Perhaps built during the first great era of expansion due to opening of steamboat traffic. 

 

 

The house also has a long tail or L to the rear, with a monopitch roof and exterior porch or gallery.

 

 

A collage of aerials showing the house, along with an excerpt from the 1876 real estate map, to give a bit of context. 

 

 

Christ Church, at the top of the map, is perhaps the oldest building downtown, dating to the 1820s (subsequently heavily modified) which might indicate this area was being built-out during that time.  The aerials also show the paired chimney arrangement on the side facades, which one sees in houses in antebellum images of the city/

 

Diagramming this house in roof plan and elevation one sees, perhaps, an early version of a certain type of town house vernacular for Louisville; the low (two or three story) front house with roof line parallel to the street and a long tail or L with a monopitch roof and exterior gallery. This houseform could be free-standing or developed as a set of rowhouses.  The surviving examples, like this one, are free-standing.

 

 

Styles vary (neoclassical or Italianate) but the basic form is found in surviving older houses throughout the close-in neighborhoods, and frequently appear in plan in the two 19th century real estate atlases of the city.

 

One could speculate that this houseform might have been found in Cincinnati, but evolved into the taller  party-wall tenement style one sees in OTR and the West End.  Perhaps an Ohio Valley urban vernacular, found in other river cities?

 

This 1906 Sanborn line map shows the house in its context, the urban fabric of close-in old Louisville, of 2 and 3 story height (compared the relatively higher and more solidly built up of close-in old Cincinnati).  The rows we saw in the previous “Old House” post were just around the corner at the end of the block.  Inspection of the map suggests there were still a number of rows and town houses in this area.

 

 

By the early 1960s the character of the neighborhood had changed via commercial expansion of downtown, clearances for parking, and, perhaps, the demolitions for the start of urban renewal (this house was in the East Downtown urban renewal zone).

 

 

By the early 1980s urban renewal and freeway construction has culled the old urban fabric, except Christ Church and its dependencies, and this house.

 

 

On the west of side of downtown are two survivors from the “Italianate city”, the villa district that had developed south of Walnut Street. 

 

The first, at the corner of Chestnut and Fifth, I’ll call the “Pesto House” since there is the Pesto Italian restaurant on the ground floor.  The house is wrapped with this one story retail addition, but behind that is a big Italianate villa.  The 1906 Sanborn shows that this has a stone façade but you’d never know it under that yellow paint

 

 

Note the two story structure to the rear.  This also appears on the 1876 real estate map, so we are perhaps seeing yet another older structure.

 

 

The final old house is half block south.  This is the Brennan House.  The house was built in 1868, during the post Civil War economic boom, and was bought by the Brennan family in 1883.  The Brennans lived here until 1969, after which it was donated to the Filson Club (a local historical society), and was opened as a house museum in the late 1970s.  The house is now operated by the Louisville Historic League.

 

 

Since the house was in the same family for so long, and since the Brennans were collectors, the house is a museum of antiques, household items, etc. 

 

The house and it’s neighbors in the 1870s.

 

 

“That evening sun”….the house on a sunny late afternoon  in the Fall of 1973, the HABS documentation photo:

 

 

The massive cornice and elaborate corbelling shows nicely here.  The left side entrance led to a doctors office, now operated as small exhibit. 

 

Today the “Pesto” and Brennan houses are surrounded by the parking lots, garages, and commercial uses typical of the edge of downtown.  But some of their neighbors from the 1860s and 70s may still remain, as noted in this aerial

 

 

One house might be buried in later commercial additions to the front and rear, perhaps indicated by the characteristic roof line behind the storefront facing Chestnut Street.  The lower right thumbnail traces a notional outline of the original house.

 

 

Another is more obvious, perhaps a small house now an office or some other commercial use.

 

 

And, finally, the big picture, from the air.  The three old houses located on a late 1930s or 1940s aerial of the southern part of downtown Louisville.  North, and the river, is to left.  East is to the top.  The cluster of high rises at the right edge of the image are about 3/4 miles south of the Ohio, indicating how downtown Louisville grew south from the river.

 

 

One can see the corrosive force of automobility hasn’t yet totally dissolved the urban fabric and the vast clearances for urban renewal have yet to decimate the old city.  The taller and massive downtown buildings on the blocks along Fourth Street (running north/south, of left-to-right) seem to emerge out of the matrix of low-rise building.  Nearly all of this is gone today.

 

We’ll explore downtown Louisville, especially this part, in a later post.

 

Another sumptuous thread.

 

I've been to Brennan House and that HABS photo is perfect. Filson is doing rather well and I think it serves the entire Commonwealth.

 

Reading this I feel like I'm back in one of my favorite college classes: an history of American architecture course tought by an old-as-the-hills professional architectural historian/preservation.

Love that last old aerial.