Now an Art Gallery, this Gothic Revival Mansion is Haunted by a Women in White

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History of Loudoun House

The house represents the design work of a nationally famous architect of the period. Alexander Jackson Davis' designs were circulated in a portfolio of 1837 called Rural Residences, Cottages, Farmhouses, Villas, and Village Churches. Published with a View to the improvement of American Country Architecture. Davis also conceived many of the illustrations used in books written by A.J. Downing, the Hudson River author whose work was most influential in formulating and disseminating Gothic Revival ideas throughout the United States. The Davis drawing for the white marble mantel in Loudoun House is preserved in the print room of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City along with the plans and other detail and section drawings for Loudoun House.

Also significant is the fact that Loudoun House was constructed by a well-known and local architect-builder, John McMurtry (1812-1890). The popularity of the Gothic Revival in the Bluegrass, was due to the activities of McMurtry. He produced over two hundred buildings in the Bluegrass, most of them residents. Between 1870 and 1889 Loudoun House was the home of Colonel William Cassius Goodloe who served as chairman of the national committee of the Republican Party and was later appointed Minister to Belgium by President Hayes.

Since 1984, it has served as the headquarters for the Lexington Art League, which uses the space for art exhibitions, community events, and educational programs. It is surrounded by Castlewood Park.

Some visitors and staff have reported seeing a ghostly woman in white and capturing orbs in pictures, according to Paranormal Traveler.

Loudoun House Building Description

The walls of Loudoun House were of hollow brick construction, making use of an air space for insulation. The brick pattern repeated four stretchers and one header, and the walls were covered with successive layers of sand and paint to resemble stone. Copings, hood molds, and sills are of cut stone. The galleries are of wood with iron crestings. An unusual feature is the half tunnel which encircles the main foundations of the house, to eliminate moisture from the footings of the walls and give them added stability. The house is long and shallow, the forms building up irregularly to the principal tower to the right side of the entrance pavilion. The arcuated front doors, banks of windows, and oriels have lozenge panes. The drawing room windows and hall windows are filled with enameled glass in grape designs. The skyline of the house is very interesting with groups of chimney stacks, crenelated tops to the tower and turret, parapet wall rising above the roof, and pinnacles on the important gables.

The entrance to Loudoun is through a level-crown vaulted porch. The porch opened to the left side to the umbrage, paved with a gray and white tessellation of marble. "The first feature one meets inside is the massive staircase of dark wood ascending halfway up one wall and across the back of the main hall. A cutout apron is pendant from the outer edge of the soffit of the staircase. The hall ceiling is crisscrossed with ribs, and the beam spanning the stair well springs from grotesque protomes molded in plaster. The twenty by thirty foot drawing room at the west end of the villa is lighted by a great curved oriel and twin opening at front and back, the windows and louvred shutters of which slide back into pockets in the wall. Shutters elsewhere fold into special recesses. The walls of the drawing room were stenciled 'al fresco' in a large floral pattern of 14^th century Italian inspiration, and the squares between the crossed ceiling beams painted in geometric designs." The gilded lambrequin that fitted over the arch to the oriel pair of matching mirrors in perpendicular style, and the marble mantel originally in the drawing room at Loudoun have since been removed. "Behind the hall in Loudoun is the library, lighted by a bay window in the far wall, with full-length bookcases to either side and also next to the red-brown stone chimneypiece and over the opposite door. Glass doors are diamond-paned. The ceiling in this room is divided into sections by ribs connected to attenuated colonnettes along the walls. The parlor, across from the drawing room, has an alcove in the base of the tower. Engaged polygonal piers stand to the right and left of a Tudor arched fireplace, with spandrels carved in a leaf design similar to that used in the wood doorframes throughout the living area of the house. The centerpiece in the parlor is an acanthus and flower motif. In the dining room is a flat mantel of the same polished stone as that in the library, with recesses for china and silver to either side. The parlor and dining room are mutually accessible to a rear hall, outside of which is the long back gallery. Pantries, kitchen, laundry, and service stair hall complete the first-floor plan. A water closet is at the foot of the service stairs on the first floor, and another is directly above it. Ceiling heights downstairs are normally fourteen feet, two feet more in the drawing room, and somewhat less in the east wing; the ceilings of the chamber floor average twelve feet. The principle bedrooms have adjoining dressing rooms. Servants' chambers are over the service rooms. Stairs ascend to garret and tower."

Today the galleries have been removed, minor changes have been effected about the parapets, and a gymnasium has been built at the back. The frescos in the drawing room have been plastered and painted over.