When an arsonist set fire to an old house on Grosvenor Avenue in 1987, the resulting blaze revealed a historic architectural wonder of Lexington's distant past. The arsonist's blaze did more to save than destroy, prompting the preservation and restoration of what has come to be known as the Pope Villa.
The morning after the fire, with the structure still smoking, researchers sifted through the remains in search of answers to the house's mystery. Scholars had long assumed that Benjamin Henry Latrobe, America's first professional architect who contributed to the design of the White House and U.S. Capitol, had designed the house. Scholars also believed that the builder had significantly departed from Latrobe's design. What researchers found instead was a house true to Latrobe's radical design hidden underneath layer after layer of exterior and interior modification.
Another discovery added to the excitement. The location of the arsonist's fire in what had once been a servant stairway allowed the fire to spread up to the roof where it was contained. Realizing that the house could be saved, the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation procured the house in 1987.
Mike Meuser, the Trust's Pope Villa Committee Chair, said the organization was lucky to acquire the house. "When the Blue Grass Trust bought the building, we were competing with a developer who wanted to tear it down to build a student apartment building," he said.
Latrobe designed the house as a suburban villa for U.S. Senator John Pope as a place for entertaining guests while on vacation from his duties in Washington D.C. on his estate overlooking Lexington. Designed between 1810 and 1811, and built in 1812, the house was a sophisticated neoclassical design that embodied Latrobe's theory of the "rational house."
A perfect square, the simple faÁade of the house concealed a domed rotunda on the second floor where the principal rooms of the house were located. The interior juxtaposition of curved and rectangular walls along with the manipulation of light and shadow, which Latrobe called "scenery," was intended to surprise and impress visitors.
Meuser said that the extensive modifications by subsequent owners show how radical the design was. "That design was unheard of for frontier Kentucky," Meuser said. "Almost immediately, when other people got their hands on the house, they started trying to change it, and that's part of the importance of the story because it's that resistance to that avant-garde design that causes people to punch holes in the wall and put staircases in, add bays, and add porches."
The Pope Villa had once sat on a 14-acre estate overlooking downtown, stretching from High Street to Maxwell Street. The house underwent at least five major remodels. By the beginning of the 20th century, all but the small lot it sits on today had been sold. At the time of the fire the historic house was nothing more than cheap student housing.
Meuser said that the biggest challenge in restoring the Pope Villa was deciding which version to follow and whether or not any later modifications to that style should be retained. The Trust has settled on restoring the Pope Villa based on the original design and building from 1812.
"Everyone now recognizes that the real importance of that house is its design, and its design is Latrobe's design. Its design is what was built in 1812," Meuser said. When the Trust realized that the original builder had built the house as Latrobe designed it, going with the 1812 layout seemed like the logical thing to do.
The restoration was conducted with great care. Later modifications were removed only after what Meuser calls "sufficient evidence" of its unoriginal state were found.
In July 2007, additions at the rear of the building were removed, along with a side porch and all bay windows. All windows were reinstalled in their original design.
Construction is expected to be complete by the fall, and Meuser says the next challenge the Trust faces is to attain national landmark status for the Pope Villa as declared by the National Park Service.
"Our hope is that once we get that, it'll be much easier to raise this money we need for a master plan," Meuser said. The master plan would encompass a careful restoration plan for the inside of the house.
In the meantime, the Blue Grass Trust is giving tours by appointment only, and their office can be contacted at (859) 253-0362 for those interested.
The Pope Villa's radical design is a reminder of Lexigton's historic past. "There is no question that there was more going on in Lexington, culturally and politically, at the time it was built than there has ever been since," Meuser said. "I think it's important because it traces back to what makes Lexington unique. What's extraordinary about this house is it was built in frontier Kentucky. For that design to be transmitted by horseback to Kentucky, put in the hands of a local builder and built precisely as the architect intended it to be built - as a place of entertainment for a prominent politician on the frontier- and then for it to survive is amazing."