Some neighbors oppose plan to turn a historic Central Kentucky mill into a distillery
A plan to build a distillery on the site of a historic mill complex in Woodford County has some neighbors up in arms, but the owner of the property said he wants to do what he can to appease them, and he said his plan would generate the income he needs to restore the area.
“That’s the only way I’m going to be able to save these mills,” said John Wickliffe Faust, who has bought 120 acres of the Guyn’s Mill property off Troy Pike over the past few years. “...I think that this distillery will allow it to not only be cleaned up but also appreciated again.”
He said it’s the first time the property has been transferred outside the original owner’s family since Robert Guyn arrived with his wife and children in the 1780s.
Faust’s proposed development would include a craft distillery offering guided tours and tastings. It would also feature up to six rickhouses with a capacity of 10,000 barrels each.
Faust, of Lexington, plans to convert a grist mill into a tasting room, and a sawmill would be rebuilt to serve as a gift shop. Both buildings date to the 1800s and are in a state of disrepair.
Housing would be built for a full-time facility manager, and a parking lot would serve visitors and employees.
All the land suitable for farming would be used for growing corn for the distillery, Faust said.
The property, which Faust said is known as Indian Springs Farm, sits along Clear Creek in south Woodford County, not far from the Jessamine County line. The entrance is on Troy Pike, with sides bounded by Pauls Mill Road and Curd Road.
Faust said he’s thinking of naming the business Indian Springs Distillery.
Hosting visitors is ‘not the priority,’ land owner says
On days that it was open, the business would serve an estimated 50 to 100 visitors a day, according to documents filed with the Versailles-Midway-Woodford County Planning Commission. But Faust said in an interview he thinks that estimate might be high.
“Our goal is to produce bourbon and have an operating farm out here,” he said. “If it turns out that people want to come and see it, then that’s great, but that’s not the priority.”
Planning documents indicate the distillery would employ a full-time farm manager, three to seven employees in the distilling operation, two to four seasonal workers to handle visitor activities and a security guard.
Neighbors worried about noise, traffic, odors, more
A number of people who live in the area have said they’re concerned about the traffic, noise and environmental impacts to a remote part of the county.
“When my husband and I moved here five years ago, we wanted a peaceful, rural farm to have horses on,” said Karla Dugan, who lives nearby on Troy Road. “I don’t want, number one, the traffic that would cause. ...He picked a very quiet area of Woodford County.”
Dugan said she’s also concerned about the odor and “the black fungus” that distilling can create.
John Gourley, whose property faces the proposed distillery site, wrote in a letter submitted to the planning office that he is concerned about the impact of the project.
“This plan if approved will have a major impact on our rural life and we believe will negatively affect our property value,” he wrote. “There are so few locations in Kentucky that continue to have this kind of beauty and charm. We were drawn to Woodford County because of how carefully you handle land uses and any changes to those prescribed uses.”
Gourley’s was one of 13 letters submitted to Woodford County’s planning director raising concerns about the project.
Robert Jackson, of nearby Foxworth Farm, wrote that he was concerned about the impact traffic would have on his horse-breeding operation.
“In addition to increased truck traffic, any size operation of a distillery will impact an already stressed power grid, impact run-off and flooding issues in a known flood plain, and impact light, noise and odor pollution,” Jackson wrote. “The potential for spillage from distillery operations and/or rickhouses puts Clear Creek, one of the most pristine runs of water in the entire county, at risk for pollution.”
The project is scheduled for consideration by the Woodford County Board of Adjustment April 4. Faust needs a conditional use permit to operate an “agribusiness enterprise.”
Is the owner trying to address concerns?
Woodford County’s Agricultural Advisory Review Committee visited the property this winter and recommended forwarding the proposal to the Board of Adjustment with further review needed.
Paul Balistocky, who lives about three-quarters of a mile from the proposed distillery, said he attended that site meeting.
“My concerns were mainly the noise aspect and the possibility of bringing a lot of traffic,” he said in a phone interview. “It seems like he’s trying to address those concerns. I was initially very skeptical.”
“It’s his property, and he has the right to do with it what he wants to, as long as it’s not illegal and it doesn’t infringe on other people’s life.”
But, he added, if the development has a negative impact on “even one neighbor .... then we’re against it.”
Faust said he wants to do what he can to appease his neighbors’ concerns.
“I want it to be hidden from all the neighbors,” he said, noting that the warehouses for storing bourbon would not be taller than two stories, and the valley the still house would be in will shield buildings from view. Trees will provide additional screening.
As for noise, he said, “the water will be louder than anything we’re doing.”
He said signage and fencing will keep visitors from accessing the distillery via the narrow, picturesque Pauls Mill Road, which bounds the property on one side. The other side is bounded by Curd Road.
The property is part of the Guyn’s Mill Historic District, which is included on the National Register of Historic Places.
A historian for the Kentucky Heritage Council who nominated the property for inclusion in the register in 1983 wrote that “it represents the most intact, visually cohesive nineteenth century family operated agricultural-Industrial complex” in the state.
“Of the 14 mill complexes extant across the state, Guyn’s Mill best conveys a visual sense of the self-contained, small scale nature of Kentucky’s early rural industrial economy,” the nomination form states. “Technologically, the mill buildings reflect a significant shift from water powered to steam powered industry.
“The water powered sawmill, built c. 1840-1850 along plans strikingly similar to those designed by Oliver Evans, has been described as nationally important for the intactness of its original works. It also is the only documented, water powered sawmill which still survives in Kentucky.”
At the time, the Kentucky Heritage Council suggested “a more thorough archaeological examination” of the property and said they hoped that getting the neglected property on the national register would encourage its preservation.
“The Guyn’s Mill Historic District, while largely abandoned and in a poor state of preservation, provides a valuable resource base for the study and understanding of industrial archaeology in Kentucky,” the nomination form stated. “The district also has tremendous potential for intact subsurface archaeological remains which can contribute important data on industrial technology and mill processing in Woodford County.”
The sawmill is in such poor condition, Faust said he’d have to rebuild it using the same design and existing wood. He said a hawk was nesting in the rafters the first time he visited the facility. Two antique buggies are still sitting inside.
A design and construction business currently operates out of the the gristmill.
“I respect the history,” Faust said.
New owner: Restoring historic mills ‘is going to cost a lot’
In his application materials for approval from the Board of Adjustment, Faust said restoring the mills for reuse as a tasting room and gift shop “will provide the desperately needed capital investments necessary to save the deteriorating landmarks.”
Faust bought the property in parcels beginning in 2020. Woodford County property valuation records indicate that he bought three parcels for a total of about $1.4 million.
He estimates that it would cost at least $2 million more to build the distillery and restore the property.
“What I’m going to have to do to it is going to cost a lot of money,” he said. “We want it to be a place that’s like a park setting.”
“You can’t expect somebody to clean it up,” he said, without having a revenue-generating operation to fund that.
Faust is partnering with Robert Heath, the owner of Down Home Bourbon, and Robert Easley on the project.
Faust and Easley have worked together to develop The Silks, a luxury townhome development across from Calumet Farm.
Faust said in an interview that the project gave him a feel for developing in an area where neighbors are less than thrilled about the changes. His approach, he said, is “finding out what they don’t like and fixing it.”
Heath’s Down Home Bourbon, Faust said, would be one of the labels offered at the distillery, which would also do contract distilling, or producing bourbon through contracts with specific buyers using the buyer’s recipe.
The facility is expected to produce up to 70 barrels a day, according to planning documents.
“The volume that we’re doing is so low compared to some of these others,” Faust said.
Heath told the agricultural review committee that some of the product would be stored on site, while some would be shipped to the buyers’ facilities.
The distillery would source its corn from about 30 acres of the mill property, as well as other farms in the region, and the silage left over from the distilling process would go to cattle farmers in the area, according to the application.
With the proper permissions, Faust said water for distilling would come from East Clear Creek, which has “exceptionally high” water quality, according to planning documents. Faust knows of seven springs on his property that feed into the creek.
He said a distillery is a natural fit for the location.
“That’s what Woodford County advertises,” he said. “They’re all about the bourbon, and they’re all about the horses.”
‘It could be so amazing.’
If approved, he expects that it would take about a year to get the distilling operation up and running. He anticipates that it would be a few years before the tasting room would be open.
Faust plans to build the warehouses to house the bourbon over time, about one every two to three years.
He said he wants his three young boys to grow up learning about farming and agribusiness through the property.
They’re already frequent visitors to the creek, while Faust has been working to clear out the invasive vines that have overtaken trees and stonework on the property.
“There’s miles of stone walls on this farm,” he said, and he said he plans to preserve them all.
He said he bought the first parcel at Guyn’s Mill without having ever been to the site. Photos were enough for him to know that it was something special.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “But it could be so amazing.”
This story was originally published April 1, 2022 at 7:23 AM.
