Pieter Estersohn's New Book Highlights Kentucky's Historic Architectural Masterpieces

Kentucky may be renowned for its thundering Derby horse race and powerful mint juleps, but the state’s architectural legacy and pastoral heritage rarely get their due on the national stage. So says Pieter Estersohn, an eminent interiors photographer and AD contributor whose forthcoming book aims to correct that oversight. Kentucky: Historic Houses and Horse Farms of Bluegrass Country (The Monacelli Press, $60) is a highly personal collection of what Estersohn, a devotee of early-19th-century buildings, calls “wonderful secret places, some meticulous and others rough around the edges.” With the verdant countryside as a frequent backdrop, 18 compelling properties take a bow, from racing doyenne Marylou Whitney’s homey Maple Hill mansion to Lexington’s hauntingly empty Pope Villa, an 1811 masterpiece by U.S. Capitol architect Benjamin Latrobe that is so off the radar, Estersohn says, “people a block away don’t even know it exists.” monacellipresom

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