Loaded with conveniences and modern styling, luxurious antebellum home retains classic look in one of Lexington’s oldest neighborhoods

This antebellum Greek Revival home in downtown Lexington combines more than 170 years of history with modern amenities and great styling that stems from a major renovation/redesign by an internationally known British architect who also happened to own the house.

Anthony Eardley, dean of architecture at the University of Kentucky for almost 15 years, bought the property in 1999 and spent the next two years gutting its core, shoring up sagging floors and opening up the venerable house to add space, light and numerous modern touches, while still preserving its clean, classical look.

“At the risk of being a bit impartial, I think it’s a wonderful home, and much of that results from all the improvements my dad put into it,” says current owner Dominic Eardley, who inherited the property after his father’s death last fall.

Dominic says the home reflects its proud heritage on the outside, but looks thoroughly modern inside.

“When you walk into many historic homes … you feel the weight of all that history in the house. That’s not the case here.”

The two-story brick home is located at 468 W. Second St., an area of shady streets and large houses of impressive vintage a few blocks north of Main Street. The home boasts more than 4,000 square feet of space, with four bedrooms and three baths, and a huge backyard enclosed by brick walls.

Other notable features include the new floor plan that added space; skylights that fill the house with sunlight; covered parking for two vehicles; new flooring and windows; new wiring, plumbing and HVAC, plus an electrically heated conservatory that was added in the renovation. The backyard is perfect for flower gardening, which Dominic’s mother enjoyed.

Interestingly, the home sits flush against the Second Street sidewalk and is the only house on the street that does, according to Dominic. He suspects it’s because the house was positioned before other houses on the street. The home is centrally located, with shops, restaurants and other downtown points of interest minutes away by car, or only a little longer if you prefer a leisurely walk.

Dominic has put the home on the market because it’s bigger than he needs.

“It would be a great home for a family, and it just feels a bit greedy having one person living here,” he says.

The home’s graceful, arch-topped front entrance is thought to be original. It leads you into an amazing front hall, where an ornate baseboard curls and then curves up an elegant stairway to the second floor. Dominic says the curving treatment is a detail his father added “as a nod to the modernist architects that he liked.”

Elsewhere, 17-inch baseboards in the house are original.

The historic home originally had two sets of stairs, but Anthony Eardley eliminated one to create more space in his renovation. Dominic notes that his dad kept the old stair rail and “repurposed” it for the current stairs.

“He loved the idea of adaptive re-use,” Dominic says. “But the big thing he always wanted was light; he’d do everything to make things as bright as possible.”

In this home that meant white paint for the walls, and massive skylights to let sunlight pour in.

“To him there was only one color you put on a wall and that was white,” Dominic says.

The first floor includes a large and comfortable living room with fireplace, and a bedroom and bath with a walk-in-sit-down shower, which was added for Dominic’s father in his later years. There’s also a formal dining room and a fully-equipped kitchen, which surprisingly includes a laundry.

“I think that’s kind of a European thing,” Dominic said. “My mother always wanted a washer and dryer in the kitchen because that’s where all the work was done.”

Upstairs there are two more baths and bedrooms, plus Anthony Eardley’s large study, with beautiful custom-built shelves for his vast book collection. Gleaming floor-to-ceiling wooden doors hide roomy closets.

A major job in the restoration was shoring up old floors that had sagged and installing new flooring. That meant slowly jacking up some areas to make them plumb, then install ing steel to support them. Finally, elegant new wood floors were laid.

“There are two bedrooms upstairs where you can still see the original poplar flooring,” Dominic notes. “Everything else is new.”

According to research by Dominic’s father, the home sits on land that was among the first lots carved out in Lexington around 1780. A small frame house initially occupied the site.

The front part of the home that still stands today was built about 1845, then expanded later.

“The front part was built first; and they added on the back part around 1910 or something. So, even the newest part is over 100 years old,” Dominic notes.

Ownership of the home didn’t change often. Dominic says there were only four owners in the last century. But the home did have at least one notable owner: zoologist and anthropologist W. D. Funkhouser, for whom the University of Kentucky’s Funkhouser Building is named. According to Dominic, Funkhouser supposedly added the tiny “come in and have a drink door” on the side of the house so his friends could drop by whenever they liked.

Born in Yorkshire, England, Anthony Eardley received his architectural training in London and at Cambridge University. He moved his family — wife Una, daughter Joanna and son Dominic — to America in 1965 for a teaching stint at Washington University in St. Louis. He later taught architecture at Princeton, Cooper Union in New York, the University of Toronto, and, of course, Kentucky.

“One thing led to another and they just never went back to England,” Dominic said. “I was only about a year old when we came over, so I never developed an English accent. And that’s how an entirely British family washed ashore in Lexington.”

Dominic’s mom died in 2011 and his sister is deceased.

He moved in with his father on West Second Street after his mother’s death and lived with him until his passing.

“This was the house my dad lived in the longest, and the time I have lived here has been a pleasure,” he says. “The other day I was sitting in the back hall at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, just bathed in sunlight. Selling all this will be sad. But anyone who enjoys a house that is historic with a lot of modern touches, a house filled with light, would really enjoy this house.”

This story was originally published March 5, 2021 at 12:27 PM with the headline "Loaded with conveniences and modern styling, luxurious antebellum home retains classic look in one of Lexington’s oldest neighborhoods."