Berry Mansion
Encyclopedia
The Berry Mansion was built in Frankfort
, Kentucky
, in 1900 by George Franklin Berry. It is located on a hill just west of downtown that overlooks the state capitol building.
The 200 acre (0.809372 km²) estate surrounding the home was named "Juniper Hill" after the red cedar trees
(Juniperus virginiana) located on the property.
The property became a campground for Union Army soldiers during the Civil War. In 1863, a detachment of Confederate cavalrymen attacked an encampment of sick Union soldiers here. Union cavalry troopers coming into Frankfort from Louisville arrived in time to rescue their beleaguered comrades. Later the property was owned by a gentleman known as “Preacher Arnold.” It was from Preacher Arnold that George Franklin Berry and his wife Mary Stone Bush Berry purchased the property in 1899. Along the drive to the main house is a watering “trough” that bears the initials “GFB 1899,” noting the Berrys arrival and ownership of the estate.
They called the 200 acre (0.809372 km²) estate Juniper Hill because of the many red cedar trees – Juniperus Virginiana – that grew here. Mr. Berry was a prosperous executive in the Frankfort whisky distilling industry with W.A. Gaines & Company, makers of Old Crow and Hermitage bourbons. The Berrys chose the Louisville architect William J. Dodd to design their new home. The house is representative of the grand homes built by wealthy Kentuckians in that era – extravagant but grounded in traditional architectural and decorative styles. The twenty-two-room mansion is built with stone quarried on the site. The basement was blasted from solid rock.
The architect, William J. Dodd (1862–1930) studied architecture in Chicago and worked in Louisville between 1884 and 1913. Dodd held apprenticeships with various prominent architectural firms, including McKim, Meade, and White – a premiere Beaux Arts architectural firm, and notable Chicago architect William Le Baron Jenney. While in partnership with Mason Maury, they designed the Kentucky Building for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
Dodd’s work was not limited to just buildings; he designed furnishings and other decorative arts for some of his works of architecture. In the early 20th century Dodd was commissioned by Gates Pottery to design vases and other pots for the TECO line along with other famous architects Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis H. Sullivan, and Fernand Moreau. These pieces designed by Dodd and the TECO line are highly prized by collectors of early 20th century decorative arts.
Mr. and Mrs. Berry were married in 1878. Mrs. Berry was Mary Stone Bush (1859–1950), daughter of Samuel Stone Bush and Cornelia Wheat Bush of Louisville, and a granddaughter of Judge Zachariah Wheat, a prominent judge in Kentucky. Mr. Bush was an attorney and Mrs. Cornelia Wheat Bush was the first woman to serve as State Librarian in Kentucky, from 1878-1880.
Mr. Berry (1856–1938) was the son of Hiram Berry and Eleanor Berry. Hiram Berry and his wife and children moved to Frankfort while George Franklin Berry was an infant. Hiram Berry partnered with W.A. Gaines and E.H. Taylor to distill Old Crow bourbon. George F. Berry followed his father into the distilling industry.
Mr. Berry retired and sold his interests in the bourbon industry in 1927. He died in this house in 1938. His wife, Mary Bush Berry, lived here until 1950. At age 90, she declared she had lived long enough, withdrew to her upstairs bedroom, and died three weeks later. Both are buried at the Frankfort Cemetery in a plot purchased at the time of Mrs. Bush’s death in 1916.
>
Paul Sawyier
, an American impressionist painter
, was commissioned by the Berry family to paint scenes the house and surrounding property. He completed 11 paintings of the estate, 6 of which were retained by the family until one was sold to the Kentucky Division of Historic Properties in 2005.
Berry, a bourbon whiskey
executive at Old Crow
, and his wife both died in the house, in 1938 and 1950 respectively. Their niece, Cornelia Gordon Roberts, inherited the estate until the city of Frankfort acquired it in 1953. The Commonwealth of Kentucky purchased the property in 1957 for a mere $50,000. This included the mansion, carriage house, wash house and approximately 38 acres (153,780.7 m²). The mansion was used as the State Library
until 1982, when the State Libraries and Archives was built.
course, playgrounds, volleyball
and tennis
courts, pavilion and picnic areas, and horseshoe
pits. There are also memorials to Desert Storm, World War II
submarine
, and Purple Heart
veterans, as well as Kentucky's fallen firefighters.
, a prominent Louisville
architect
, designed the 22 room home in the Colonial Revival style. The stones used in construction were blasted from the property and created the cellar.
One of the highlights of the house, the Music Room was built due to the Berrys passion for music. This addition to the house in 1912 was also designed by noted architect William J. Dodd.
With its magnificent pipe organ and ornately carved woodwork, the music room cost around $65,000 in 1912 – almost as much as the Kentucky Governor's Mansion
(built a few years later.). Family memoirs say two woodcarvers – one from Nuremberg, Germany – worked for two years on the oak paneling and Gothic style decorations.
The Music Room featured furnishings with wood carvings to match the Gothic Revival elements of the room. The pipe organ is from Hillgreen-Lane of Alliance, Ohio, and was said to have cost $10,000. Non-operational at this time, estimates to restore the organ near $200,000 or more. A Steinway grand piano, now in a private collection, also added to the elegance of this Music Room.
Mr. Berry engaged Sidney Durst of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music as his organ instructor. Mr. Durst was featured in recitals and midnight dinner parties hosted in this room by the Berrys. Kentucky’s social elite attended, dressed in formal finery and were treated to elaborate meals.
The alcove windows featured full-length crimson red brocade draperies with red silk cording, and the hardwood floors were covered with more imported rugs and a full tiger skin. Furniture in the room was arranged as “sitting areas” – making the room less formal and more “conversational.”
Images of juniper trees are incorporated into the light sconces and leaded-glass windows.
s, carriage
s and later automobile
s. The home also boasts a veranda, garden and gazebo
. Original stone columns are located on the driveway and bear the inscription "Juniper Hill".
by the United States Department of the Interior
.
The first floor of the mansion is available for guided tours, conferences, receptions and other public events.
The second floor currently houses offices for the Kentucky Division of Historic Properties and the Office of the Inspector General for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet
and is not open to the public.
Frankfort, Kentucky
Frankfort is a city in Kentucky that serves as the state capital and the county seat of Franklin County. The population was 27,741 at the 2000 census; by population it is the 5th smallest state capital in the United States...
, Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, in 1900 by George Franklin Berry. It is located on a hill just west of downtown that overlooks the state capitol building.
The 200 acre (0.809372 km²) estate surrounding the home was named "Juniper Hill" after the red cedar trees
Juniperus virginiana
Juniperus virginiana is a species of juniper native to eastern North America, from southeastern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, east of the Great Plains...
(Juniperus virginiana) located on the property.
History
This estate has had several names over the years. The earliest was Monroe Hill, after Thomas Bell Monroe (1791–1865) who served in the following offices: Kentucky House of Representatives, Kentucky Secretary of State, U.S. District Attorney, and U.S. District Judge. Before the Civil War, he built the first large house on this site, Montrose.The property became a campground for Union Army soldiers during the Civil War. In 1863, a detachment of Confederate cavalrymen attacked an encampment of sick Union soldiers here. Union cavalry troopers coming into Frankfort from Louisville arrived in time to rescue their beleaguered comrades. Later the property was owned by a gentleman known as “Preacher Arnold.” It was from Preacher Arnold that George Franklin Berry and his wife Mary Stone Bush Berry purchased the property in 1899. Along the drive to the main house is a watering “trough” that bears the initials “GFB 1899,” noting the Berrys arrival and ownership of the estate.
They called the 200 acre (0.809372 km²) estate Juniper Hill because of the many red cedar trees – Juniperus Virginiana – that grew here. Mr. Berry was a prosperous executive in the Frankfort whisky distilling industry with W.A. Gaines & Company, makers of Old Crow and Hermitage bourbons. The Berrys chose the Louisville architect William J. Dodd to design their new home. The house is representative of the grand homes built by wealthy Kentuckians in that era – extravagant but grounded in traditional architectural and decorative styles. The twenty-two-room mansion is built with stone quarried on the site. The basement was blasted from solid rock.
The architect, William J. Dodd (1862–1930) studied architecture in Chicago and worked in Louisville between 1884 and 1913. Dodd held apprenticeships with various prominent architectural firms, including McKim, Meade, and White – a premiere Beaux Arts architectural firm, and notable Chicago architect William Le Baron Jenney. While in partnership with Mason Maury, they designed the Kentucky Building for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
Dodd’s work was not limited to just buildings; he designed furnishings and other decorative arts for some of his works of architecture. In the early 20th century Dodd was commissioned by Gates Pottery to design vases and other pots for the TECO line along with other famous architects Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis H. Sullivan, and Fernand Moreau. These pieces designed by Dodd and the TECO line are highly prized by collectors of early 20th century decorative arts.
Mr. and Mrs. Berry were married in 1878. Mrs. Berry was Mary Stone Bush (1859–1950), daughter of Samuel Stone Bush and Cornelia Wheat Bush of Louisville, and a granddaughter of Judge Zachariah Wheat, a prominent judge in Kentucky. Mr. Bush was an attorney and Mrs. Cornelia Wheat Bush was the first woman to serve as State Librarian in Kentucky, from 1878-1880.
Mr. Berry (1856–1938) was the son of Hiram Berry and Eleanor Berry. Hiram Berry and his wife and children moved to Frankfort while George Franklin Berry was an infant. Hiram Berry partnered with W.A. Gaines and E.H. Taylor to distill Old Crow bourbon. George F. Berry followed his father into the distilling industry.
Mr. Berry retired and sold his interests in the bourbon industry in 1927. He died in this house in 1938. His wife, Mary Bush Berry, lived here until 1950. At age 90, she declared she had lived long enough, withdrew to her upstairs bedroom, and died three weeks later. Both are buried at the Frankfort Cemetery in a plot purchased at the time of Mrs. Bush’s death in 1916.
>
Paul Sawyier
Paul Sawyier
Paul Sawyier , one of Kentucky's most renowned artists, was an American impressionist painter.-Early life and education:...
, an American impressionist painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, was commissioned by the Berry family to paint scenes the house and surrounding property. He completed 11 paintings of the estate, 6 of which were retained by the family until one was sold to the Kentucky Division of Historic Properties in 2005.
Berry, a bourbon whiskey
Bourbon whiskey
Bourbon is a type of American whiskey – a barrel-aged distilled spirit made primarily from corn. The name of the spirit derives from its historical association with an area known as Old Bourbon, around what is now Bourbon County, Kentucky . It has been produced since the 18th century...
executive at Old Crow
Old Crow
Old Crow is a low-priced brand of Kentucky-made straight bourbon whiskey, along with the slightly higher quality, but still inexpensive Old Crow Reserve brand. It is distilled by Beam Inc., which also produces Jim Beam and several other brands of bourbon whiskey...
, and his wife both died in the house, in 1938 and 1950 respectively. Their niece, Cornelia Gordon Roberts, inherited the estate until the city of Frankfort acquired it in 1953. The Commonwealth of Kentucky purchased the property in 1957 for a mere $50,000. This included the mansion, carriage house, wash house and approximately 38 acres (153,780.7 m²). The mansion was used as the State Library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
until 1982, when the State Libraries and Archives was built.
Juniper Hill Park
Most of the estate grounds, 194 acre (0.78509084 km²), were converted into Juniper Hill Park in 1956. The park contains a public golfGolf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
course, playgrounds, volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
and tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
courts, pavilion and picnic areas, and horseshoe
Horseshoes
Horseshoes is an outdoor game played between two people using four horseshoes and two throwing targets set in a sandbox area. The game is played by the players alternating turns tossing horseshoes at stakes in the ground, which are traditionally placed 40 feet apart...
pits. There are also memorials to Desert Storm, World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
, and Purple Heart
Purple Heart
The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York...
veterans, as well as Kentucky's fallen firefighters.
Design
William J. DoddWilliam J. Dodd
William J. Dodd was a Canadian-born American architect and designer who worked mainly in Louisville, Kentucky from 1886 to 1912 and in Los Angeles, California from 1912 until his death. Dodd rose from the so-called Chicago School of architecture, engineering and design innovations of the late 19th...
, a prominent Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
, designed the 22 room home in the Colonial Revival style. The stones used in construction were blasted from the property and created the cellar.
Interiors
The home contains an elaborate library, with mahogany woodwork. Also, a large parlor and dining room were used for entertaining. The original tapestries, purchased by Mr. Berry for the mansion, still remain in the mansion library today. Portraits or Mr. and Mrs. Berry by Charles Snead Williams are hung within the mansion. Some original pieces of furniture remain with the mansion today.One of the highlights of the house, the Music Room was built due to the Berrys passion for music. This addition to the house in 1912 was also designed by noted architect William J. Dodd.
With its magnificent pipe organ and ornately carved woodwork, the music room cost around $65,000 in 1912 – almost as much as the Kentucky Governor's Mansion
Kentucky Governor's Mansion
The Kentucky Governor's Mansion is an historic residence in Frankfort, Kentucky. It is located at the East lawn of the Capitol, at the end of Capital Avenue...
(built a few years later.). Family memoirs say two woodcarvers – one from Nuremberg, Germany – worked for two years on the oak paneling and Gothic style decorations.
The Music Room featured furnishings with wood carvings to match the Gothic Revival elements of the room. The pipe organ is from Hillgreen-Lane of Alliance, Ohio, and was said to have cost $10,000. Non-operational at this time, estimates to restore the organ near $200,000 or more. A Steinway grand piano, now in a private collection, also added to the elegance of this Music Room.
Mr. Berry engaged Sidney Durst of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music as his organ instructor. Mr. Durst was featured in recitals and midnight dinner parties hosted in this room by the Berrys. Kentucky’s social elite attended, dressed in formal finery and were treated to elaborate meals.
The alcove windows featured full-length crimson red brocade draperies with red silk cording, and the hardwood floors were covered with more imported rugs and a full tiger skin. Furniture in the room was arranged as “sitting areas” – making the room less formal and more “conversational.”
Images of juniper trees are incorporated into the light sconces and leaded-glass windows.
Exterior
The servants' quarters were located in the attic and the "wash house," a laundry structure disconnected from the main house but connected by a covered walkway. The Carriage House sits nearby and provided room for horseHorse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s, carriage
Carriage
A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use and for comfort or elegance, though some are also used to transport goods. It may be light,...
s and later automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
s. The home also boasts a veranda, garden and gazebo
Gazebo
A gazebo is a pavilion structure, sometimes octagonal, that may be built, in parks, gardens, and spacious public areas. Gazebos are freestanding or attached to a garden wall, roofed, and open on all sides; they provide shade, shelter, ornamental features in a landscape, and a place to rest...
. Original stone columns are located on the driveway and bear the inscription "Juniper Hill".
Today
The "George F. Berry House," as it is sometimes known, was listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesNational Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
by the United States Department of the Interior
United States Department of the Interior
The United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U.S. government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and natural resources, and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native...
.
The first floor of the mansion is available for guided tours, conferences, receptions and other public events.
The second floor currently houses offices for the Kentucky Division of Historic Properties and the Office of the Inspector General for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is Kentucky's state-funded agency charged with building and maintaining U.S...
and is not open to the public.
External links
- Berry Mansion - Kentucky Division of Historic Properties