History from The New History of Shelby County Kentucky, Shelby County Historical Society

Helmwood Hall

by John David Myles

William S. Helm built Helmwood Hall, which faces the Eminence Pike midway between Shelbyville and Eminence, around 1840. He was born in 1806, the son of Joseph Helm Jr., of Lincoln County. Joseph and his wife gave William 193 acres in Shelby county in 1830, likely on the occasion of his marriage to Rebecca Henton on February 23 of that year. William purchased 82 more acres from his parents in 1831 and later added to the farm until it contained 432 acres when sold by him in 1874.

Helmwood is a superb Greek Revival farmhouse. Tradition holds that John F. Hagan designed and built the house. Whether Helm had help from Hagan or a plan book, his home is a beautifully proportioned five bay, two story clapboard structure with a low hip roof, interior end chimneys, six-over-six windows, and a two-story tetrastyle porch over the main entry. Fluted ionic columns support the porch, complete with pediment, and its entablature continues around the house signaling clearly that the porch was no afterthought. Sheltered by this porch, the front door is topped by a six-pane transom and a dentilled cornice and has narrow three-pane sidelights and pilasters. An ell extends from the right side of the house and a single story, originally detached, brick kitchen is located behind the ell. A single-story porch follows the inside of the ell.

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 casing with corner blocks, eleven-foot ceilings, and a cherry stair rail on straight ballusters, which curves around a turned newel. The house has four-panel doors and the mantels are simple, reflecting the overall Greek Revival design.

Helm and his first wife had two daughters who lived long lives and three sons who each died before their second birthdays. The first Mrs. Helm died in 1854 and William married Ann Collier in 1856. Mr. Helm served as one of Shelby County's representatives in the General Assembly in 1842 and in 1871 was a county magistrate. Helm, a Southern sympathizer, sheltered John Hunt Morgan during his flight South after escaping the federal prison in Chillicothe, Ohio, in December 1863, disguised as a cattle buyer.

In 1874, Helm traded half the farm for other land on Bullskin Creek and sold the other half and the house to Hagan, the reputed builder. It appears that Helm moved to Eminence where he died in 1885. Hagan owned the property until his death in 1902. In 1914, his heirs sold the property to James S. Hays whose family lived there until the early 1950s. Passing from the Hays family to Dr. and Mrs. Donald Vandertoll, the farm was subsequently sold to Dee and Robert Ellis who sold the house and 25 acres to Kelly Scott Reed and Mark E. Dennen in 1984.