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/62230
"It's impossible to pick my 10 favorite historical buildings," says Richard Jett, who has been a full-time preservation professional for 33 years, the last 10 as Louisville Metro's historic preservation officer, as he looks ahead to retirement. "I could pick 10 times 10 of my favorite buildings. So I tried to select ones that have a special meaning for me, reflecting developments in my career and personal life." Take, for instance, Locust Grove. "Tis is the place where — as a young man in the early '70s, recently graduated from the University of Louisville and working for local government while trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life — I met (historian) Sam Tomas, who was then director of the Jefferson County Archives. We hit it off immediately. I found out I had an interest in historic architecture and history; I hadn't been aware of it. In a way, that's what started my career in historic preservation." Here are his off-the-cuff assessments, recorded as we took a drive-and-stop tour. Bernheim Distillery Building, 821 S. 15th St. "Te Bernheim Distillery (now the home of an air- pollution-control equipment maker) was built in 1937 and was originally an office and bottling plant. Tis is one of Louisville's few examples of the Art Moderne design style, which grew out of the Art Deco movement and is sometimes referred to as Streamline Moderne, with curving forms and long horizontal lines. Te 1933 World's Fair in Chicago showcased the style. Tere was a great excitement about technological advances, so you're looking at architecture as a sleek machine — like the streamlined locomotives from the '30s with the rounded, very aerodynamic forms. Clearly, these walls are not load- bearing; this is a modern steel structure, so you're allowed to have these very large expanses of glass because those exterior walls are not supporting the weight of the building. You see toasters, automobiles, jewelry from this period — everything gets this sort of pure geometric form." Whiteside Bakery Building, 1400 W. Broadway "As a commercial building it's unique — one of the few examples of the Mission style that we have here in Louisville. It was built in 1908 and the architect was Arthur Loomis, responsible for buildings like the Speed Museum, which is a Neo-Classical structure. Tere's nothing Neo-Classical about the Whiteside. Te inspiration is Mediterranean, Spanish, but also reflects elements of the Arts and Crafts movement, with its interest in natural materials, so you have this great stuccoed exterior. It's a sprawling complex, and as a company that competed with Nabisco and sold nationwide from right here in Louisville, it makes a real statement. Te towers are a feature of Italian and Spanish Renaissance architecture. And look at the little balconies and the gargoyles. It says something about how companies wanted to be perceived then." 5.12 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE [61]