MCFARLAND HOUSE

East High St. near viaduct--annex to Kentuckian Hotel
Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
Built 1839

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

For the reason that the McFarlands owned and occupied this house for nearly a half-century and that it was kept in such splendid appointment throughout their tenure, their name has been selected to identify it, although it is variously known as the McConathy Home and the Alford House--occupants in the present century.

It rightfully should be called the Hawkins House, as Augustus F. Harkins, official of the Northern Bank and who resided over the bank after selling his High Street home, built it in 1839.

Hawkins in 1827 bought the lots at the corner of "Hill" Street and "an alley which runs from Samuel Ayres' corner on Main Street to High St.," including the "late dwelling house of Stringfellow." John Stringfellow (house-joiner, High St.--1818 Directory) had bought the corner lot from Asa Farrow (Asa Farrar, post and rail maker, High St.--1818 Directory) in 1817 and an adjoining lot from Edward Gant's heirs, and erected a house on the corner. This house, which Hawkins bought in 1827, was sold by the latter to J.W. Cochran (of Higgins, Cochran & Co., dry goods merchants--1838 Directory) in 1840, Hawkins having begun the year before the erection of a house next door, which is the subject of this sketch. (The Cochran house passed in 1859 to John Elbert, in 1864 to Henry C. Bowman, in 1866 to Dr. Stoddard Drigg and in 1867 to Dr. A.S. Allen, and was known thereafter as the "Dr. Allen House" until the building of the viaduct to Main Street, supplanting Ayres' Alley necessitated the razing of the old home, and the erection later of the Kentuckian Hotel consumed the remainder of the property).

When Lt. Governor M.C. Alford moved into the home in 1902, after the purchase of the McFarland Home by D.C. Frazee, Governor Alford removed the massive columns from the Allen House to the McFarland House, at the same time installing a beautiful colored-glass window taken from the Phoenix Hotel, depicting the head of the famous racehorse, "Lexington." The latter disappeared when the interior of the home was remodeled as an annex to the Kentuckian Hotel.

Transcribed by pb, April 2006