Helmwood Farm
Offered For Sale at $1,995,000
Helmwood, 105 acres of prime Shelby County farmland, is anchored by Helmwood Hall, a ca. 1835 frame house that has been called the finest example of Greek Revival domestic architecture in the county. In The New History of Shelby County, Kentucky (2003), it is described as "superb." The National Register of Historic Places concurs that "Helmwood Hall is significant as a remarkably intact example of early Greek Revival architecture in a setting that has not been greatly altered.... It contains the original woodwork and much of the original hardware, and exists in a setting that retains many original elements including the stone wall, outbuildings, farm ponds, and trees at the property boundary and surrounding the house." Another remarkable original feature, situated in the center of a circular drive at the rear of the house, is a below-ground stone-walled root cellar with a domed brick ceiling and brick floor. The root cellar is ingeniously cooled by a large adjacent stone-walled well.
The house sits near the western boundary of its gently rolling acreage, facing the Eminence Pike about seven miles north of Shelbyville. Helmwood Hall's two-story, five-bay main block has a original two-story, three-bay ell on its south side. Behind the ell is a one-story brick structure (the original kitchen) connected to the main structure by a columned breezeway. The main block and ell bear a gently hipped roof, while the breezeway and brick structure have one continuous gable roof.
The beautifully proportioned house also has interior end chimneys with exposed faces, six-over-six paned windows, and a graceful two-story tetrastyle portico over the main entry. Fluted two-story Ionic columns, carved of wood, support the porch and pediment, with an entablature that extends around the house. The Ionic capitals that crown the columns, also carved of wood, are exceptionally fine, with a floral egg-and-dart motif. Sheltered under the porch in the middle bay, the front door is topped by a six-pane transom surmounted by a dentiled cornice, and also has three-pane sidelights with pilasters. Two-story fluted pilasters, rising on either side of the front door, define the entire entrance bay. Wrapping around the inside of the entire L-shaped house is an expansive (480 square feet) one-story columned and screened porch, which serves as an outdoor living and dining area during spring, summer, and fall.
The 2003 history of Shelby County records that "the interior of the house is completed in the same restrained but carefully executed detail as the exterior. These elements include door surrounds with pilasters and full entablatures, reeded casings with corner blocks, eleven-foot ceilings, and a cherry stair rail on straight balusters, which curves around a turned newel. The house has four-panel doors and the mantels are simple, reflecting the overall Greek Revival design."
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