RIDGEWAY

Built circa 1817 on a thousand acres of Kentucky bluegrass, Ridgeway stands as one of the finest surviving examples of Federal domestic architecture in America—listed on the National Register of Historic Places and featured in landmark works by Newcomb, Hamlin, and Lancaster, as well as the Library of Congress’s Historic American Buildings Survey. Its five-part composition—a central block flanked by hyphens and end pavilions—exists nowhere else in the state save the Morton House in Lexington.

For over two centuries, this estate has been a place of gathering. From lavish multi-course dinners for fifty guests beneath the magnolia canopy to intimate candlelit ceremonies by the garden pool, celebration is woven into the very fabric of this house.

In 1977, Ben and Carole Birkhead fell in love at first sight. Over thirty years, Carole meticulously restored every detail—stripping paint to find original colors, refinishing eight carved cherry mantels, and writing the definitive book on the house’s two-hundred-year story. Today, their children continue the legacy.