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Below: Built in 1972 for his own family, this Bridgeport Drive home is perhaps the design most synonymous with Isenhour’s name. Photo furnished from Larry Isenhour.
When Richard B.Isenhour began designing and building Lexington homes in the early 1950s, no one was using the term “mid-century modern” to describe an emerging design style that emphasized simple lines, open floor plans and large windows and walls made of glass. Today, however, the late Lexington homebuilder is recognized as one of the first – and finest – architects to introduce that contemporary style to the area, and thanks to a new book, “The Houses of Richard B. Isenhour: Mid-Century Modern in Kentucky,” nearly two decades of his work is now detailed and documented in print.
Born in 1924 in Charlotte, North Carolina, Isenhour began his professional career as a chemical engineer for DuPont in Newburgh, New York, a job he left after a few years, desiring more challenging and creative work. In 1952, he and his wife, Lenora, moved from New York to Lexington, her hometown, where Lenora’s father, builder A.R. Henry, still lived and worked. In Lexington, Richard worked with his father-in-law – who developed several Lexington streets, including Arcadia Park, Glendover and Jesselin – on a number of building projects. Taking the knowledge he gleaned from his work with Henry, along with influences that included architectural tours of northern California, Europe and Mexico in the 1950s, Isenhour soon began building unique homes of his own design, which became referred to as “Isenhour houses.”
By the time Isenhour became a registered architect in 1974, he had already built nearly 100 unique homes in Lexington, many of which are considered iconic and dozens of which are detailed and documented in the book.
The book was written by Richard’s oldest son, R.L. “Larry” Isenhour, a retired architect, and its design is almost as striking as the houses themselves.
“I had never written a book before, but as an architect, I had definite ideas about how I wanted it to look,” Larry said.
Working closely with his wife, Jan, the retired director of the Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning, along with a handful of local designers and printers, Larry selected 43 Lexington homes built by his father to detail in the book. Arranged in chronological order, the book starts in 1956 with Richard Isenhour’s 11th Lexington project, a 310 Blueberry Lane home where he and his family lived for 16 years. The book ends with a 1978 property built on a wooded lot on Hobcaw Lane, designed by Richard Isenhour alongside homeowners Karen and Fritz Wolff, whose family’s sheet-metal company did metal roof work on Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Taliesin property in Wisconsin.
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Larry Isenhour
Like his father’s original plans, Larry’s 10.5-by-10.5-inch book is organized by job number, along with addresses and original owners’ names. Each house is presented in a two- or four-page layout, with Richard Isenhour’s interior and exterior photographs appearing alongside modern photos; the book also includes site and floor plans, expository text written by Jan Isenhour and a foreword by architect Graham Pohl.
“We decided early on to present the houses the way the current owners lived in them,” Larry Isenhour said.
As the book progresses, it’s easy to see the architect’s emerging style and self-assurance.
“He was studying at the new College of Architecture in the early ’60s, and it’s fascinating to see those ideas take shape in his work,” Larry Isenhour said, noting that around that time, elements such as cathedral ceilings, partial walls, natural materials like Kentucky limestone and other now iconic mid-century modern elements started to appear in his father’s work.
During the year-long process of writing his book – which was the second best seller of 2014 at local bookstore Morris Book Shop – Larry Isenhour started a file system with information gleaned from public records and his father’s archives. He then contacted the current owners to ask for permission to feature their homes in the book.
“Everyone I talked to was wonderful,” he recalls. “Whenever someone told me anything about a house, it went into the file.”
“From the beginning, we knew that this was going to be a local book,” Larry Isenhour added. “It was not going to be a bestseller, but it would appeal to the people who know about these houses.”