Garrard/Crittenden House
Frankfort, Franklin County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
Garrard/Crittenden House. This early 19th century house is architecturally notable because of brick and log construction. It has series of timbers filled in with brick and mortar and covered with clapboard, a technique uncommon to central Kentucky. Owned by several prominent Kentuckians, including Thomas L. Crittenden and James Garrard families. Later acquired by the Commonwealth in 1973.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
This early nineteenth-century Frankfort house is notable for its unusual construction—timbers infilled with brick and mortar and sheathed in clapboard, a technique rarely seen in central Kentucky. Over the years it was owned by prominent families, including those of Thomas L. Crittenden and James Garrard. The Commonwealth acquired the property in 1973.
Why it matters
Its rare building method and distinguished owners make the house a window into the craftsmanship and leading families of early Kentucky.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Thomas L. Crittenden
- · James Garrard
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Garden Hall
Frankfort, KY
Built in 1913, this Georgian home in Frankfort was the residence of Graham Vreeland, founder and editor of the Frankfort News, which later became the State Journal. It was designed by architect D. X. Murphy, best known for the grandstand and twin spires of Churchill Downs. The celebrated Kentucky watercolorist Paul Sawyier lived on the property in the years just before the house was built.
Bibb-Burnley House
Frankfort, KY
In 1786 the English boatbuilder John Instone settled on this Frankfort street—naming it Wapping Street for a district of London—to build river vessels for General James Wilkinson's Ohio Valley trade. Decades later John B. Bibb, a War of 1812 veteran and state legislator, built the present house in 1845 and cultivated the tender, sweet Bibb lettuce that still bears his name.
Macklin House
Frankfort, KY
This brick townhouse, built around 1850 in Frankfort's Corner of Celebrities district, became the home of George B. Macklin, a prominent landowner and coal dealer who arrived from the Forks of Elkhorn area in 1867. Macklin ran his coal yard near the Louisville & Nashville Railroad bridge, tapping the rail traffic that made coal a booming Gilded Age business. Behind the house stand a rare two-story brick carriage house and the site of a blacksmith shop, remnants of a self-contained 19th-century urban household.
Morehead House
Frankfort, KY
Built in 1810 by land-office registrar Mark Hardin, this Frankfort house sheltered a remarkable run of prominent Kentuckians across the 19th century, including bank president John Harvie and Governor Charles S. Morehead, who lived here in the years before the Civil War. After 1874 it passed to merchant and railroad builder Lawrence Tobin, whose family kept it for nearly nine decades. Its walls trace the rise of Kentucky's political and commercial elite.