“When I’m caught between a rock and a hard place, let me be water, let me be water, let me be water.” ~ John Roedel
I had a great afternoon in Morgan County talking to old friend Lara May Vest. It had been decades since I’d been down her farm road. In fact, it’s been so long that I can’t really tell you the last time I was this way. However long it had been, it’s as beautiful now as ever, and the farm she and her husband Matthew own and work is a slice of heaven. The house was built by Matthew’s great-grandparents (I think) in the 1940s, and it is a gorgeous red brick Craftsman bungalow, which you don’t always see, especially out on a large rural farm in Eastern Kentucky. But up the driveway, the garage-turned-office really grabbed my attention. The rusticated block structure with brick quoins was once a small garage Matthew converted into the farm office. Rusticated blocks are just concrete blocks formed in a mold to make them look like rough stones, though, as you can see, the uniformity of the mold gives away the manufactured aesthetic. However, though rusticated blocks could be purchased, many were made by concrete mold machines on site. It was not uncommon for rural home builders to make their own blocks using these machines. Is that what the McGuire’s did here? I don’t know, but it is entirely possible, and given the beauty of the main house and the expanse of the rural county farm, I would not be surprised. This particular mold has long since fallen out of favor, but it makes dating a structure a little easier as they were very popular in the post-Victorian era through the first half of the 20th Century. And that, my friends, is your architectural lesson for the day. Did I mention how much I enjoyed my visit today? Not a cloud in the deep blue sky.
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