Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/421959
36 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 12.14 — including Laura Lee Brown and husband Steve Wilson of 21c Museum Hotel, Christy Brown, Edie Bingham and the Rev. Al Shands — acquired the structures at 111 through 119 W. Main from Blue, who still owns what, in recent years, has became a parking lot on the block's easternmost edge, where two facades (which Main Street Revitalization paid to stabilize) are all that remain of the buildings that once stood there. "Tis is one of the most extraordinary blocks in America, and it is a miracle that all of this was not bulldozed over the years," Christy Brown says. "We're now creating this wonderful bridge on east to NuLu. If you had a bunch of parking lots here, it would be an absolute desert. We would have lost a huge part of the heart and soul of our city." Among the most architecturally ambitious structures on Whiskey Row are at 107 to 109. Tis is, according to a landmark-designation report, "a four-story, three-bay Chicago Style commercial structure with a white glazed- brick facade." Design has been attributed to D.X. Murphy, one of Louisville's notable ar- chitects of the time who also designed the old Jeferson County Jail, Churchill Downs and the Bourbon Stockyards. Te Main Street level of 107 to 109 is rich in the building's heritage: Te name J.T.S. Brown and Sons appears above the central doorway. John Tompson Street Brown Sr. was a native of Hart County, Kentucky, and today is best known as the father of George Garvin Brown, Brown-For- man's founder. J.T.S. Sr.'s other son, J.T.S. Jr., moved to Louisville in 1855 and started a wholesale whiskey business, which expanded during the Civil War. In 1870, George (J.T.S. Jr.'s half-brother) became a pharmaceutical salesman and a year later formed his own company, which began bottling Old Forrester (the name later dropped an r to become Old Forester), the frst whiskey to be sold in sealed bottles. In later years, 107 to 109 housed a wholesale grocery company, a cofee-roasting company and other tenants, but it has been vacant for nearly a half century. Tat will all change in 2016, when Brown-Forman plans to open a new Old Forester distillery in the space. "We're returning to our roots," George Garvin Brown IV, the board chairman and ffth-generation descendant of the company founder, told USA Today. In the early 1870s, Whitestone designed and built 111, and the frst tenant was food broker McFerron, Armstrong and Co. Over the next 15 years, a series of food-related distributors were tenants, until 1887 when the Eclipse Woolen Mills, manufacturer of "Ken- tucky Jeans," moved in. (An 1895 publication noted that Louisville "was the largest market in the Union for the production of jeans and jean clothing.") Te building was also home to several distilling operations by the 1890s. Te growing reach of the Belknap empire soon absorbed 111, as well as 113 and 115, which are four-story brick buildings highlighted by Renaissance Revival-arched windows on the third and fourth stories and vertical cast- iron piers. By 1910, 111 became home to the Old Kentucky Distillery and Tompson Straight Whiskey Co., whose labels included Country Club, Forelock, Lucky Stone, Old Kentucky and Tompson Old Reserve, among others. In September 1881, Belknap purchased 113 and 115 for the company's headquarters and salesrooms and remained there until 1923, when it moved to a massive complex on the northeast corner of First and Main. (Te company remained there until going out of business in 1986.) In 1924, Belknap sold the buildings to H. Wedekind and Co., a wholesale grocer. Later occupants included the United Furniture Co. and, fnally, ware- houses for Bacon's Department Store, which was long one of the city's largest dry-goods operations from its founding in 1845 until it was absorbed by Dillard's in 1998. At various points, Brown-Forman occupied a number of ofces along Main Street, including 117, which was built after the 1857 fre. Like its neighbor at 119, the interior of 117 became waterlogged over the years and, in an efort to preserve and stabilize the two facades, the rest was demol- ished in 2012. A separation wall remains. Pork dealers used to operate at 119. Another important 19th-century Louisville architect, C.J. Clark, who trained in the Whitestone ofce, is thought to have designed the Beaux-Arts structure at 121. Unlike the other buildings on the block, this one boasts a red sandstone facade. In 1900, George P. Weller purchased 121 and it became the House of Weller Distillery. On a recent early-November morning, 10 of the Main Street Revitalization investors gathered for a photo at under-construc- tion Whiskey Row, a huge cavern in the sidewalk. After the photographer shot his last frame, 21c's Laura Lee Brown said, "A process like this can be so complicated and so awful in the beginning, but there are light years of enjoyment after you've struggled through that phase. Tat idea of enjoyment is the carrot in front of the horse. Yes, the horse can be reluctant for a long time." Her husband, Steve Wilson, said, "When you go to Europe, you see people living with their history, and in America too often we tear something down and build something new. Te craftsmanship of these cast-iron fronts, the brickwork, is so often lost to newer construction — fberglass, plastic, concrete and things that have no character. "I think of us as caretakers," Wilson con- tinued. "Tere have to be those of us who take care of the past." "The craftsmanship of these cast-iron fronts, the brickwork, is so often lost to newer construction — fberglass, plastic, concrete and things that have no character," Steve Wilson says. The Filson Historical Society C. 1900