Historically priceless Lexington house finds new future with $3.4 million deal
One of the most important domestic buildings in U.S. history has found a future with some stability.
The Pope Villa — designed by America’s first architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who also designed much of the U.S. Capitol — will be completely rehabilitated through a $3.4 million deal between The Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation and a Washington, D.C., preservation-focused development firm, the two groups announced Wednesday.
“This is the culmination of a dream almost four decades in the making,” said Jonathan Coleman, executive director of the Blue Grass Trust. “It’s a creative public-private partnership that will restore the house and give it a future that will be secured.”
The Blue Grass Trust has owned the house since the 1980s, when the nondescript apartment house on Grosvenor Avenue caught fire, and the ruins revealed its extraordinary core — what architectural historians consider a radical design for a domestic house built in 1811 for U.S. Sen. John Pope and his wife, Eliza. It’s one of three surviving houses designed by Latrobe.
The agreement with Mitchell Park Companies LLC will be a three-year, $3.4 million deal to restore the house, creating some light use offices in the secondary rooms and public spaces in the larger rooms, including the grand second-story interior rotunda and oculus skylight and with two curved drawing rooms. Mitchell Park will then manage the property with an option to purchase.
This will allow students and other members of the public to visit and study the building.
The deal is helped by a $748,000 Save America’s Treasures, and developers will seek historic tax credits as well. The house will have easements on the interior and exterior in perpetuity.
The rehabilitation plan will largely follow the Pope Villa master plan done in 2018. The Kentucky Heritage Council and the National Park Service will oversee the changes.
Matt Letenzi, principal of Mitchell Park, said the project will be a worthwhile challenge because the house needs a complete overhaul.
“It will be quite difficult from the preservation side,” he said. “We will be doing an extensive search for the people who can do this kind of work.”
Dan Rowland started the group Friends of Pope Villa, which helped write the grant for the SAT funding.
“I’m very hopeful this will work,” he said.
Coleman said the project will inject new jobs and funding into the community given it’s a large undertaking.
“It’s an incredible example of what we preach — that historic preservation has social, community, environmental benefits but can also has an immense economic impact,” he said.
This story was originally published May 8, 2025 at 10:06 AM.
