White Hall State Historic Site is a park in

Richmond, Kentucky Richmond is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Madison County, Kentucky, United States. It is named after Richmond, Virginia, and is home to Eastern Kentucky University. In 2019, the population was 36,157. Richmond is the fourth-la ...

, southeast of Lexington.

White Hall

The site's major feature is White Hall, the home of

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

legislator Cassius Marcellus Clay and Mary Jane Warfield Clay. He was an

anti-slavery Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The Britis ...

newspaper publisher, politician, soldier and Minister to

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

through the Lincoln, Johnson and Grant administrations. He published ''True American'' for nearly 25 years. This restored 44-room

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

began as a 7-room structure built in 1798-1799 by General Green Clay. It was expanded and remodeled in the early 1860s to the structure seen today. The site became part of the state park system in 1968. On April 12, 2011, White Hall was designated as a national historic site in journalism by the Society of Professional Journalists, because of Clay's career as a publisher.

Restoration

The house's restoration was completed and open to the public in 1971 under the leadership of Kentucky's First Lady Beula C. Nunn, with assistance of the Kentucky Mansions Preservation Foundation. In addition to the heirloom and period furnishings, White Hall has many unique features for its day, including indoor plumbing and central heating.

References

External links

White Hall State Historic Site
Kentucky Department of Parks
Photo of White Hall

Photo of White Hall's stone kitchen building
Kentucky State Historic Sites Protected areas of Madison County, Kentucky Houses in Madison County, Kentucky Museums in Madison County, Kentucky Historic house museums in Kentucky Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky National Register of Historic Places in Madison County, Kentucky Italianate architecture in Kentucky Georgian architecture in Kentucky 1968 establishments in Kentucky Houses completed in 1799 Protected areas established in 1968 Green Clay family Plantations in Kentucky 1799 establishments in Kentucky Richmond, Kentucky {{MadisonCountyKY-NRHP-stub