The Young House is an historic estate in Jessamine County,

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, between Nicholasville and Wilmore off of

Kentucky Route 29 Kentucky Route 29 (KY 29) is an state highway located entirely within Jessamine County in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The highway, maintained by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, runs north from High Bridge, Kentucky through Wilmore befor ...

on Lexington Road. Popular legend has it that the house was the birthplace of

Bennett H. Young Bennett Henderson Young (May 25, 1843 – February 23, 1919) was a commanding officer, lawyer, administrator, and author. As a Confederate officer he led forces in the St. Albans Raid (October 19, 1864) during the American Civil War. As a lieuten ...

, an

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

soldier, lawyer, and architect.

History

The house pictured here is the former house of Dr. Brown Young. He was the son of Dr. Archibald and Martha Young, who lived in the home adjacent to the north. Archibald was apparently either the brother or the cousin of Robert Young (there was more than one), and both of them were among the several sons of John Young, who had been a revolutionary War soldier. Brown Young married Emline Drake, whose family owned the property adjacent to the south of the B. Young house. Brown and Emline had a daughter, Adelia (b. 1846), who married a Leonard Willis. According to the Lamont Family DNA study, the Youngs may also have had a son named Samuel (b. 1849), but there is no mention of this son in the biographical sketch of Dr. Brown Young in Kentucky: A History of the State (Battle, et al., 1887), so he may have died in infancy or childhood. The 150 acres is now a working Angus farm named Sycamore Hill in reference to the Sycamore trees that line the driveway. The property is owned by the Ashbrook family although they do not occupy the main house. It is rented as a single family home. The property was placed on the United States

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on July 13, 1984.

Architecture

The Young House was supposedly built between 1814 and 1820, and is decorated in the

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

. The two-story, nine-room house has 18 -inch-thick brick exterior walls and is now a total of approximately 3600 square feet in size. It has wide-plank, ash wood flooring.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places in Jessamine County, Kentucky Italianate architecture in Kentucky Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky Houses completed in 1820 Houses in Jessamine County, Kentucky 1820 establishments in Kentucky