Beech Hill Farm
By Benjamin A. Taylor
The house I grew up in, and have now retired to, was built
by my great-grandparents, Jonathan G. Taylor and Susan E. Hawes. As a young man, Jonathan Taylor moved to
Daviess
County
from
Winchester
,
Kentucky
.
His father, Samuel Taylor, came to
Kentucky
as a boy with his father. Samuel became Circuit Court Clerk at an early
age, and built a brick house that still stands on a farm in what is now
Winchester
. Later in life
Samuel served one term as a state senator.
Jonathan Taylor set up a sawmill near Blackford Creek. Susan Hawes was the daughter of Richard and
Clary Hawes. Richard Hawes, for whom the
town of
Hawesville
is named, had come to
Kentucky
from
Virginia
and had acquired considerable wealth from coal mining. Richard built a house on the river, which
burned. He died, and his widow built a
second house overlooking what is now
Kingfisher
Lake
in Yelvington.
Jonathan and Susan had become acquainted while she was
attending a finishing school in central
Kentucky
and he was attending an academy in
Danville
. It seems plausible that she apprised him of
the opportunities for an ambitious young man in
Daviess
County
. In any case, they were married in 1832 -- he
was 21, she was 15. They began building
their home, known as Beech Hill, on land deeded to them by Richard Hawes or his
widow. The couple lived with Susan’s
mother while the house was being constructed, and she would ride behind Jonathan
the two miles to follow progress on construction of the house.
The house was sited on a ridge above a good spring. Initially the house was two stories,
constructed of poplar logs -- basically, two large rooms, one above the
other. The logs were clad with
clapboards, some of which showed smoke damage indicating that they had been
salvaged from another dwelling. The roof
was apparently covered by cedar shakes.
Soon afterwards, two-story extensions were added at both ends -- a
hallway and parlor to the south and a kitchen/workroom to the north downstairs,
with bedrooms upstairs. Probably a few
years later, a dining room was added adjacent to the parlor. This part of the house was of post and beam
construction with 3” x 4” posts and mortise and tenon joints. A cellar was located below the dining room. A
long front porch was added at some point.
A metal roof covered this part of the house, replacing the cedar shakes
over the original portion.
For water, originally there was the spring, which was
supplanted by a cistern, a dug well, and after electrification, a driven well. Some rainwater was diverted to a tank in the
upstairs storage room, which could be gravity-fed to the downstairs.
Jonathan and Susan had a large family. Two sons became lawyers, including E. P.
Taylor, who was also a farmer, businessman, and politician. Two sons fought for the South in the civil
war; both were captured and one died while in prison at
Rock Island
,
Illinois
.
In the 1880s, my grandfather, George E. Taylor (the youngest
son), inherited the house and a share of the farm and married Mildred Gibson,
the daughter of a river-bottom farmer.
The couple extended the house in the back, adding a "little dining
room", kitchen, back hall, bathroom, a storeroom, and three 'working'
porches downstairs, and a sleeping porch, backstairs and storeroom
upstairs. The cellar was extended to
accommodate a coal furnace. This completed the house that was passed on to my
father, Benjamin Taylor, Sr., and then to me.
I inherited the house when I was a very young man. Although I was very attached to the place, I
made the decision to go to
Wisconsin
for
graduate school, and subsequently spent my career as a scientist in
Bar Harbor
,
Maine
. I managed to rent the house for a while, but
it was in need of repairs that I could ill afford at the time, and so it was then
left vacant for many years. It was
damaged by vandals, weather, termites, and time. I did manage to keep an intact roof over
it. However, the foundation wall around
the basement and cellar collapsed at one point, destroying most of the back
part of the house.
In the late 1990s, my wife, Sandi Phillips, and I decided
that we would restore the house and retire to the farm in Maceo. After endless planning, three architects,
multiple contractors and subcontractors, and lots of expended money, the present
restoration/addition was completed in early 2002, fulfilling my lifelong
dream.
The north end of the house was dismantled because it was in
bad shape and would not give us the 'comfort' space we needed. We decided to
remove plaster to expose some of the interior log walls. The rooms of the old part were left intact; rather
than adding closets and baths to the old part, these were built adjacent to the
two large bedrooms upstairs. The
original floors of the old part were retained (all poplar, except for the
original downstairs room, which is ash).
Floors were patched using salvaged flooring from the dismantled
part. The dining room was rebuilt to
match the original including the large doorway to the parlor. Sandi and I salvaged poplar floor-boards from
the attic, and ripped and planed them for the dining room floor. Sandi stripped and restored the doors and
fireplace surrounds. We also salvaged
the old brick used for the foundation, fireplaces, and front walk. The surfaces of these bricks reveal finger
marks of the workers who handled the bricks prior to firing. The front doorway was custom-made to match
the original, an uncommon style.
Many of the antiques came from Beech Hill and others came
from my maternal grandmother. The rest
were mostly collected by Sandi. All of
the original light fixtures were either stolen or destroyed by vandals.
The layout of the recent addition was designed by Sandi with
help from an architect friend, Christine Schultz of
Rochester
,
MN
. We used poplar flooring throughout the
addition. In a hundred years it should
match the patina of old floors.
The restoration/addition was done with an eye to the
future. Many of our choices were for low
maintenance. Extra insulation,
geothermal heating/cooling, extra space, and metal roofing should make this
house a practical attractive home for whoever succeeds us. The downstairs bathroom also has a
shower. We plan to use the family room
as a bedroom when we no longer want to climb stairs. Hopefully these choices will help to assure
that the house gets preserved.
Planning: Architect Christine Schultz provided lots of
advice about the addition including rough sketches of specific designs. RBS Design provided building plans. Architect Terry Blake gave us lots of good
advice. Pat Strehl of TetraTech
Engineering did the structural analysis.
Bowersox Construction dismantled portions of the house and did some of
the site work. MCF Construction (
Newburgh
,
IN
)
jacked up the house and installed a new foundation under the old part of the
house. GinMike, Inc. poured the concrete
walls and floor for the basement under the addition. The rest of the project was completed by Rick
Thomas Construction. The project was substantially completed by March 2002.