The Council of Independent Colleges: Historic Campus Architecture Project

Patterson House

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Institution Name: Georgetown College
Original/Historic Place Name: Dr. Paul Rankin House
Location on Campus: SW corner of E. Main St. and Memorial Dr., contiguous to main campus
Date(s) of Construction:

1855	antebellum origin of one room over one room house, expanded and redesigned

Designer: unknown
Type of Place: Individual building
Style: Greek revival, Italianate (Glossary)
Significance: architecture, culture, education, history, religion
Narrative: see below
References: see below

Materials:

Foundation: stone

Walls: brick

Roof: composition shingles

Function:

ca. 1827	private residence (of teacher Emily Hewitt who bought the lot in three parcels)
ca. 2004-present (2006)	arboretum (on building grounds)
ca. 2004-present (2006)	admissions office (and financial offices)

Narrative:
Rankin-Roberts House or Patterson House embraces its sidewalk setting in Georgetown's East Main Street Historic District. The two-story brick house, painted white, occupies a rubble foundation and has a low-pitch attic. The house is four bays wide and one-room deep, with a two-room deep two-story frame ell. A transverse hall connects the brick and frame sections and has its own main stairway. The deep windows have hood molds with modillions and dentils and a moderately deep overhanging eave, also with modillions and brackets. There is a two-story bay window on the east end of the house with windows of similar patterning. The entrance is located in the second bay and includes a door with sidelights and transom which is sheltered by a balcony carried by consoles with teardrops. The balcony floor is surrounded by iron grill work. The house is entered by three stone steps with antepodia. Floors are a mixture of ash and poplar.

Remaining in the yard is a two-pen timber frame slavehouse with end chimneys and a very tall smokehouse. Its western end may date to the early Kentucky period and may have served as a schoolhouse for Miss Hewitt. The house was renovated in 1978 with a matching grant from the Kentucky Heritage Council. A formal garden that once graced the building's side and back yards has been expanded by the college into an arboretum.

References:

Bevins, Ann Bolton. A History of Scott County as Told by Selected Buildings. Georgetown, KY: 1981.

Fields, Carl R. A Sesquicentennial History of Georgetown College. Georgetown, KY: Georgetown College Press, 1979.

Gaines, B. O. The B. O. Gaines History of Scott County. 2 vols. Reprint, Georgetown, KY: Frye Printing Company, 1981.

Georgetown, Kentucky: A History. Georgetown, KY: Scott County Historical Society, 1993.

Kentucky Heritage Commission. Georgetown College Historic District. National Register of Historic Places designation report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior/National Park Service, 1979.

Meyer, Leland W. Georgetown College: Its Background and a Chapter in its Early History. Louisville, KY: Western Recorder, 1929.

Snyder, J. Robert. A History of Georgetown College. Georgetown, KY: Georgetown College, 1979.