First Johnny Depp’s farm. Now a Morehead native wants to save Lexington’s Miller House.
It’s not that Stephen Taylor meant to start buying up Lexington’s celebrity properties. It’s that in 2019, he needed to get back to Kentucky from his California home to take care of aging parents, and there was Johnny Depp’s mom’s Versailles Road farm — “Betty Sue’s Family Farm” — on the market. Seemed like a good idea.
Then last month, the hedge fund executive happened to read an article about the Miller House, a famous Le Corbusier-inspired monument to modernism tucked inside a south Lexington suburb. He went to look at it and got a tour from then-owner Jennifer McClure.
“I thought it was cool, but it was the inside that really sold me,” Taylor said. “The inside was just stunning — I love all the nooks and crannies. It’s also deceptive from the outside, you think there’s a lack of privacy, but when you get inside you realize you do have a lot of private space and that’s the beauty and brilliance of great architecture.”
He joined the online auction on May 26, and put in the winning bid of $800,000. He’s not yet sure what exactly he will do with the property, but plans to take his time and explore the possibility of making it a kind of architecture center for students and professionals to come and study. He’s also interested in getting some kind of historic protection for it. There’s even talk of letting McClure rent the property until her kids are finished with high school.
“I’d like to find some path forward, maybe in cooperation with UK, where it could be used in the right way and open to people who have an interest,” he said. “But it’s early on and I don’t want to over-commit without talking to a few more folks.”
Taylor grew up in Morehead, where his parents taught at Morehead State University. He went to Princeton, then became a financier in Chicago. He moved to California, where in addition to finance, he started buying and restoring 1920s Spanish houses.
In 2008, he started the Taylor International Fund, which invested in struggling small cap companies, and post 2008, there were plenty to invest in. His parents retired to Winchester, and when they started to have health problems, he wanted to move closer to them.
As a Bluegrass resident, Taylor sees plenty to interest him, like the Distillery District or the Kentucky Theatre, which he remembers going to as a young man. “I could see getting involved in some kind of real estate, but we’ll see.”
For the architecture world, there is a collective sigh of relief that one of the most iconic residences in the world, which has had a tumultuous decade, could be safe for now. The house was designed by Jose Oubrerie, a former College of Design dean, and as one official said, it’s an important part of many architecture students’ education.
“We are beyond excited that a patron has stepped in to save the Miller House, which is arguably as important an architectural effort as the Pope Villa or the Trustees House at Shaker Village,” Jeff Fugate, acting associate dean for administration at the UK College of Design. “Our students have long used the Miller House as a precedent and case study and we look forward to continuing the opportunity to expose future generations to this notable structure.”
Former State Treasurer Jonathan Miller, whose parents Penny and Robert Miller built the house, said he was excited to hear the news.
“On behalf of the Miller family, we’re excited to hear it‘s in the hands of someone who wants to cherish this important and valuable property,” he said.
This story was originally published June 1, 2021 at 11:24 AM.
