| Program 1019 |  |
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Producer: Marsha Cooper Hellard |
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Down the Garden Path the Garden Club of Kentucky On the appropriately named Pleasant Street in downtown Paris, you’ll find a truly pleasant place: the Nannine Clay Wallis House and its surrounding gardens and arboretum. Stately trees (some planted in the 1850s), rose and day-lily gardens, an herb garden with a sundial, and a reflecting pool and pavilion make the grounds an inviting place to spend a little time. And it’s all expertly maintained by volunteers from the Garden Club of Kentucky, whose headquarters are inside. The house and its surrounding gardens are a legacy from Nannine Clay Wallis, the club’s founder and first president. A Bourbon County native, she had married ambitious young insurance man Frederick Wallis, from Hopkinsville, in 1901. The couple moved to Baltimore and then on to New York, where Frederick built a distinguished career as police commissioner, commissioner of immigration at Ellis Island, and commissioner of corrections. In 1929, the Wallises returned to Kentucky and moved into the Pleasant Street house. While Frederick got involved in local and state politics, Nannine pursued her passion for gardening. When she died in 1970, she left the property to the club she had founded in the early 1930s to serve as its permanent headquarters. The house itself dates to the 1850s and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It can be rented for special functions. During our visit, Garden Club chair Judy Ferrell shows off some of its features, which include a large stained-glass window at the main stairway landing, and talks about the club’s educational activities. |
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Producer: Jennifer Belcher |
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Fine Furniture Colonial House Ralph Jordan first got into the furniture business in 1947, at first mostly as a refinisher of antique pieces. Then he started crafting his own reproductions of classic pieces, using hand tools, solid wood, and techniques like mortise-and-tenon and dowel-pin joinery. His son and daughter both joined the endeavor, and today the family runs Colonial House Furniture in Logan County, where they and 16 other craftspeople turn out fine furniture using those same ingredients. Colonial House’s products, ranging from beds and armoires to side tables and sugar chests, are all made from Appalachian wild cherry and American black walnut. Examples can be seen at the company web site—or at the showroom/workshop in Auburn. |
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Producer: Cheryl Beckley |
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Light-Arted artist W.T. Stinson While we’re in Logan County, we also stop by the studio of artist W.T. Stinson. As a graduate student at Florida State University, Stinson toured Gothic cathedrals and found inspiration in their stained-glass windows. What fascinated him was not so much the windows themselves as their interaction with light—the ever-changing colors and the way designs from the windows would seem to hover in the air or recede back into the wall depending on the angle and intensity of the light. Back in his own studio, he began experimenting with similar effects in striking contemporary works. His pieces use glass, light (natural, fluorescent, or a combination), and color to evoke a mood or capture the essence of a particular favorite place. When not working on his own art, Stinson teaches at Russellville High School and at Western Kentucky University. |
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