Form No. 10-300 (Rev. 10-74)

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NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACESINVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM
SEE INSTRUCTIONS IN HOW TO COMPLETE NATIONAL REGISTER FORMS____________TYPE ALL ENTRIES - COMPLETE APPLICABLE SECTIONS______NAMEHISTORIC
AND/OR COMMON

The Brennan House

631 South Fifth Street—NOT FOR PUBLICATIONCONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTCITY, TOWNLouisville
STATE

KentuckyCATEGORYThird

VICINITY OF
CODECOUNTYCODE021Jefferson

111

OWNERSHIPSTATUSPRESENT USE_DISTRICT—PUBLICX^-OCCUPIED_AGRICULTURE

X_MUSEUM

X_BUILDING(S)^.PRIVATE—UNOCCUPIED—COMMERCIAL—PARK—STRUCTURE—BOTH—WORK IN PROGRESS—EDUCATIONAL—PRIVATE RESIDENCEACCESSIBLE—ENTERTAINMENT—RELIGIOUS

PUBLIC ACQUISITION—SITE—OBJECT_IN PROCESS

5-YES: RESTRICTED—GOVERNMENT—SCIENTIFIC—BEING CONSIDERED— YES: UNRESTRICTED—INDUSTRIAL—TRANSPORTATION_NO—MILITARY—OTHER:[OWNER OF PROPERTYNAMEThe Filson ClubSTREET & NUMBER

118 West Breckenridge Street
STATE

CITY, TOWNLouisville

VICINITY OF

Kentucky

LOCATION OF LEGAL DESCRIPTION
COURTHOUSE,REGISTRY OF DEEDS, ETC

Jefferson County Courthouse

STREET & NUMBER

531 West Jefferson Street
CITY, TOWN

1 REPRESENTATION IN EXISTING SURVEYS
TITLEHistoric American Buildings Survey
DATE1974x^FEDERAL—STATE—COUNTY—LOCALDEPOSITORY FORSURVEY RECORDS
CITY, TOWN

Library of Congress
STATE

Washington, D. C.
(continued)

DESCRIPTIONCONDITION—EXCELLENTJ£GOOD—FAIRCHECK ONE—DETERIORATED—RUINS—UNEXPOSED—UNALTEREDFALTEREDCHECK ONE^.ORIGINAL SITE
_MOVED
DATE_____DESCRIBE THE PRESENT AND ORIGINAL (IF KNOWN) PHYSICAL APPEARANCEThe Brennan House is a three-story brick Italianate townhouse with both stone and cast-irontrim. The house has traditionally been painted a chocolate brown which makes it reminiscentof the more gradiose brownstones in New York City. The main portion of the front facade isthree bays wide with an ornate hooded doorway at the north end. The double wooden door ispanelled with an original curve at the top. The double-hung, two-pane-over-two-pane windowsof frosted glass are topped by stone window caps in a segmental arch. The first and second
stories are separated by a brick course. The second-story window caps have a round arch.
The third story is also separated by a brick course and the smaller attic windows are topped
by segmental arch caps connected by a brick course. A deeply projecting cornice below a hiproof surrounds the house and is underscored by dentils and double brackets between the bays.
Alternating long and short quoins emphasize the corners. Set back to the north are two
additional front bays with a cast-iron veranda in front and a cast-iron balustrade. The south
facade has a one-story semi-octagonal bay window topped with iron cresting. The rear facadehas a one-story piazza of light iron construction with a shed roof and thin, undecorated columns
resting on the brick pavement a characteristic Louisville feature.
In 1912 an addition was made on the north side of the house for a doctor's office. It projects
beyond the cast-iron veranda of the front and was built of brick and in a Renaissance
Revival style compatible with that of the original structure. The single bay consists of a large
arched doorway inset with a smaller arched door inset and separated by sidelights.
The floor plan of the first story consists of small vestibule, hallway, parlor with two marble
fireplaces and an ornately framed bay window, dining room, library (formerly the music room),
pantry, bathrooms, kitchen. The office wing, has a waiting room and examining room. The
second floor plan is similar to the first with the exception that the office wing has no second
floor. There are eight rooms on the second floor including a billiard room. The third floor
which is over the front portion of the house has a hallway and five unfinished storage rooms.
The interior contains a variety of furniture and objects collected by the Brennan family fora century. Fittings such as mantels, window and mirrow frames, chandeliers, sconces,medallions, and cornices remain from the late nineteenth century. A magnificent dining-room
suite and master bedroom set which were manufactured in Louisville and displayed at thePhiladelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 remain within the house, as well as nearly all thefurnishings and accessories necessary for the maintenance of an upper middle-class establishment a century ago. These have been and will continue to be preserved and exhibited as anintegral part of the house.
Louisvillians have in general avoided connected rowhouses; only one example of Federal townhouses and several clusters from the 1890s are known from the last century. Instead, closelyspaced townhouses have been preferred, sometimes with stone fronts superimposed on brickconstruction. Even the largest downtown mansions have tended to conform to this type, and ofcourse those few with originally extensive grounds were usually built up around in later years.
(continued)

[1 SIGNIFICANCE
AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE -- CHECK AND JUSTIFY BELOW__1600-1699_ARCHEOLOGY-PREHISTORIC_ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC_AGRICULTURE
ARCHITECTURE—1700-1799_ART—ENGINEERING£.1800-1899—COMMERCE—EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT—PHILOSOPHY—TRANSPORTATION

X.1900-—COMMUNICATIONS—INDUSTRY—POLITICS/GOVERNMENT—OTHER (SPECIFY)—PREHISTORIC_1400-1499—1500-1599—COMMUNITY PLANNING—LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE—RELIGION—CONSERVATION—LAW—SCIENCE—ECONOMICS—LITERATURE—SCULPTURE—EDUCATION—MILITARY—SOCIAL/HUMANITARIAN—MUSIC—THEATER—INVENTION

1868;1912

BUILDER/ARCHITECTSTATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCEAs George Yater put it, the Ronald-Brennan House is na visible reminder of the wave of prosperity and the accompanying building boom that swept over Louisville during the first decadefollowing the Civil War, and the only completely intact, completely furnished vestige of the days
when most of Louisville's wealthy lived only a stone's throw from the city's commercial heart
while lesser folk scattered farther away. ... It is a well-ordered Victorian oasis in the midstof £jOth century visual pollution." It is significant because it is one of very few intact residences
north of Broadway in downtown Louisville. Its further significance lies in the fact that it is of atype of residence introduced to Louisville before the Civil War by Henry Whitestone, a prominentLouisville architect (1819-1893), although it is unlikely actually to have been designed by him.
The structure exhibits characteristics of a perhaps coarser hand imitating Whitestone's motifs.
This excellent example of an Italianate townhouse was built about 1868 for a Main Street wholesale tobacco merchant named Frajncis Ronald. In 1885 the house was purchased by ThomasBrennan, an industrialist and inventor whose patents are said to have been awarded two firstprizes at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. One of his eight children, Dr.
John Arvid Octerlon Brennan, a prominent local physician, lived in it until his death in 1963.
He had added an office wing to the house in 1912. Dr. Brennan left the house and its furnishings
to the Filson Club which has recently opened the house as a museum with guided tours. Theinterior furnishings date back into the nineteenth century and are all objects belonging to theBrennan family and accumulated through the years. In essence, the entire structure evokes
the sophisticated, materially confortable life of the late nineteenth-century affluent town-dweller.

UMAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
f 'Island of Elegance," by Helen Leopold, The Courier-Journal (Louisville) (October 9, 1960)
Jean Howerton, "Well, Those Brennan Boys Are Back, ff The Courier-Journal (October 7,Nelson L. Dawson, "The Brennan Family Home: A Preliminary Report, " The Filson Club
Quarterly, XLVIII, 2. (April, 1974).

QjjGEOGRAPHICAL DATAACREAGE OF NOMINATED PROPERTY

HL.

1/4 acre

UTM REFERENCES

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EASTING

14,213,3] 8^3,0)
NORTHING

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VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTIONLIST ALL STATES AND COUNTIES FOR PROPERTIES OVERLAPPING STATE OR COUNTY BOUNDARIES
STATE

CODE

COUNTYCODESTATECODE

COUNTYCODEFORM PREPARED BY
NAME/TITLE

Elizabeth F. Jones, Jefferson County Representative
ORGANIZATIONDATE

Kentucky Heritage Commission

December 19, 1974
TELEPHONE

4012 Massie Avenue
CITY OR TOWNSTATELouisville

Kentucky
THE EVALUATED SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS PROPERTY WITHIN THE STATE IS:NATIONAL __STATE___LOCAL _£±:As the designated State Historic Preservation Officer for the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-665), Ihereby nominate this property for inclusion in the National Register and certify that it has been evaluated according to thecriteria and procedures set forth by the National Park Service.
FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVE SIGNATURE

TITLE

State Historic Preservation OfficerForm No. 10-300a(Rev. 10-74)

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIORNATIONAL PARK SERVICE•NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACESINVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM
The Ronald-Brennan HouseCONTINUATION SHEETSurvey of Historic Sites in Kentucky
1971 - StateKentucky Heritage Commission
401 Wapping StreetFrankfort, Kentucky 40601

ITEM NUMBER6PAGE

Form No. 10-300a(Rev. 10-74)

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIORNATIONAL PARK SERVICENATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACESINVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM
The Ronald-Brennan HouseCONTI NU ATION SHEET_________________ITEM NUMBER

7____PAGE

2____________________The Brennan House, one of very few 19th-century townhouses surviving within the commercial
downtown area north of Broadway, reflects in its relatively tall, narrow facade and particularly in its interior layout, its somewhat cramped urban site. The front faces a busy northsouth street; to the south there has long been a lower brick commercial building projectout to the street; to the north and rear are parking lots. Nevertheless, with its front andrear lawns and a few fine trees, it remains an oasis of nature and grandeur in its urban
surroundings.
The grounds of the Ronald-Brennan House are separated from the street by a handsome ironfence set on stone coping with limestone piers at the entrance; these have egg-and-dart
molding under lavish but deteriorating crests. The limestone path, also with stone coping,proceeds directly from the gates up three steps to the entrance.
The shallow vestibule is reached from five limestone steps flanked by curved pedestals.
The outer opening has a segmental arch echoing those of the adjacent parlor windows. At
the level of the stringcourse is a double-corniced hood apparently supported by richly
carved or molded brackets that emerge from paneled pilasters. A row of dentils under thehood echoes those of the main cornice. A carved feature comparable in scale to thebrackets is centered over the entrance. The inner door is round-arched.
Set back to the north of the main facade is a wing two bays wide repeating the treatment of
the front at somewhat diminished scale. The extremely delicate but well-organized castiron filigree of the first-story porch with balcony above contrasts to the almost overbearing
quality of the main entrance.
The south facade of the main block has a large one-story semi-octagonal bay window topped
with iron cresting. On either side, flanking the chimneys of the double-parlor's mantels
are long sealed-up window openings. The rear wing is set back and contains a large
recessed double gallery with wooden ornamental columns and brackets opening to the south,
where there may at one time have been a garden, although late 19th-century city atlases
show other residences on adjoining lots.
The floor plan of the first floor, which has 14-foot ceilings, consists of a long narrowstraight-run stair hall extending back from the entrance to the dining room which fills thewidth of the rear wing. To the right of the hall is a long narrow parlor (once perhapsdouble) with two round-arched white marble mantels flanking an ornately-framed bay(continued)

Form No. 10-300a(Rev. 10-74)

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIORNATIONAL PARK SERVICENATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACESINVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM
The Ronald- Brennan HouseCONTI NUATION SHEET_________________ITEM NUMBER

7

PAGE

3__________________

window. There are particularly fine gilt-framed mirrors over the mantels and matchingpier-glasses between the two bay windows at both front and back. A library (formerly themusic room) opens to the left off the rear of the front hall. What was once its north bay
window now gives onto Dr. Brennan' s office and examining room in the 1912 wing.
The dining-room door and window frames have the same flamboyant curves as those of therest of the house (perhaps developed from Greek Revival "eared" frames). The compositonstone mantel, however, with its heraldic cupids, seems to date from the turn of the century,
when perhaps golden oak parquet was laid over most of the original flooring (except in theparlor, which seems always to have been fully carpeted) and a number of tinted glass panels
were placed in windows, some including the Brennan family coat-of-arms . The location ofseveral of the mantels seem to have been switched at this time, leaving some of the original,
more ornate carved soapstone mantels in the rear upstairs bedrooms, one of which was usedby the Brennans as a billard room
To the rear of the dining room the kitchen, pantries, silver closet, backstairs, lavatory,
and servants' dining room remain essentially intact. There is only one, rather splendid
bathroom on the second floor.
Although structurally sound (the Brennan family maintained the house meticulously during
the 80-odd years they lived there), the house needs some stabilization of the basic fabricand cosmetic attention to preserve the former standard of maintenance.