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/59337
O ver the years, Kevin Grangier, found- er of the national public-relations firm CarryOn Communication, has had offices in New York, L.A., Chicago and Washington, D.C., but his heart still belongs to flyover country. Born in New Al- bany, Ind., and raised in nearby Sellersburg, the Western Kentucky University graduate worked for such Louisville companies as Farm Credit Banks, Norton Healthcare and Floyd Memorial Hospital before sojourning to La La Land in 1997 in search of bigger challenges. Less than a year later, he bid the corporate marketing and public relations rat race adieu to become self-employed. "I had no intention of starting my own agency," Grangier recalls. "I was freelancing . . . between jobs." But the projects kept ex- panding in scope. Within a year he'd hired 16 people. By year two he'd hired 40. And by 2001, his third year in business, Car- ryOn was named the nation's top boutique agency, with a client roster that included such well-known brands as GOT MILK, Ticketmaster, Lindt Chocolate and Tenet Healthcare. Te growth was breakneck, the successes heady, and the pace, with four offices in three time zones, blister- ing. He knew that someday he'd get off the merry-go-round, and when that day came, he wanted a place to go where he'd already put down roots. "Kentucky was calling me home," he says simply. His plan was to purchase a condo in Louisville, but, like his company, that plan kept getting bigger. He decided he wanted a house — "something Southern," he says — with a "little yard" for his golden retriever, Diogi. Ten he wanted "a little more land." In early 2004, en route to horse country, his realtor took a side trip to historic Belle- wood in Anchorage. "You like this style, but it's too much work for you," she said as they rolled up the estate's quarter-mile drive. Te moment he glimpsed the home's soaring Doric columns, however, Grangier was sold. "I looked at her before we got to the top of the hill and said, 'I want this house,'" he re- members. His only stipulation: Te original 10-acre tract, which had been subdivided 4.12 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE [113]