Little remains after fire at Dixiana Farms mansion

Lexington firefighters were able to save the front four columns and a small wing of the historic Dixiana Farms mansion, but the rest of the 23,500-square-foot dwelling was gutted by a fire that roared through it early Saturday.

Firefighters were still at the home on Dixiana-Domino Road on Sunday afternoon, sifting through rubble and trying to determine the cause of the blaze, Maj. Shaun Brown said.

"They saved a little wing that went over to the garage," farm manager Terry Arnold said. "It's completely hulled out in the middle. ... The outside walls are standing. There's no roof and inside."

Arnold said Dixiana owner William Shively, a film producer and horseman who also has a horse farm in Florida, was planning to renovate the home, which was unoccupied. Several architects have looked at the structure for Shively, Arnold said.

"He wanted to be able to live on the farm," Arnold said. "It was going to need some updates."

A night watchman noticed the home was on fire shortly before 5 a.m. Saturday, Arnold said.

He said that part of the house, the front square with eight rooms, was built before the Civil War.

"The best record we can find shows it was in 1812," he said. "There are some things about it that I don't think will be duplicated today."

Brown said that when fire department crews got to the scene, they noticed the fire was in the center of the house.

Arnold said two barns housing horses, about 200 yards from the home, weren't affected by the fire.

Firefighters were hampered by the lack of a fire hydrant near the scene. They had to use tanker trucks to shuttle water from a hydrant on Russell Cave Road.

One firefighter, who sustained minor injuries after apparently being brushed by one of the vehicles at the scene, was treated at University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital and released, Brown said.

This story was originally published November 1, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Little remains after fire at Dixiana Farms mansion ."