Macalester Home, Lexington, Fayette, Kentucky

MACALESTER HOME

216 N. Limestone St., Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
Built 1831

Matthew Kennedy built this pretentious house in 1831 or 1832 and had a garden extending back to the big frame house. He sold it to the hemp manufacturer, John Brand, March 26, 1834, for $6,000. Brand presented it to his daughter, Eliza, and her husband, Edward Macalester, and they resided here for many years.

Kennedy, who in partnership with James W. Brand, had bought and developed considerable property in Lexington, took this corner lot, among others, of "four or five acres" in the division of the property of Kennedy and Brand, after James W. Brand's death. The division, made January 12, 1831, mentioned that this tract included "the framed house in which said Kennedy now resides." The latter house located on Second Street, was listed in the 1818 Directory as the residence of Matthew Kennedy, house-joiner, Constitution Street." Kennedy and Brand owned the lot extending through from Limestone to Walnut, separated by an alley from the residence of Mrs. Eleanor Hart, widow of Thomas Hart, Jr. (now Sayre College).

Matthew Kennedy built the former Masonic Hall, on West Main Street where General Lafayette was entertained. The copper plate dated 1824 in the corner stone read, "Matthew Kennedy, Architect." This is the first record of Lexington's having an "architect." He also erected the main building, destroyed by fire, of old Transylvania University, when the University occupied what is now Gratz Park.

John Brand, upon his death in 1849 (he died in this house, during the cholera plague), willed the Macalester House in trust to his sons, "for the sole use and benefit of my daughter, Eliza Macalester for and during her natural life"—the house and lot in which she now resides, purchased by me of Matthew Kennedy."

Today, located in a business section of Lexington it is rather cramped for display but its rich architecture of a century ago attracts the attention of native and visitor alike, despite the bustling activity on the national highway and arterial street in front of it, which have supplanted the quiet of old Mulberry Street of those days.

Source: Old Houses of Lexington, C. Frank Dunn, typescript, n.d., copy located in the Kentucky Room, Lexington (Kentucky) Public Library.

Transcribed by pb, October 2006