Lexington - Gratz Park

Many plantation owners from the southern states built magnificent villas in Kentucky, with its milder climate, to escape the sultriness of the south. Several of these very beautiful houses are to be found in the Gratz Park Area, north-east of Downtown. They include Waveland (225 Highbee Mill Rd.) built by the great nephew of Daniel Boone in 1847, a fine example of Greek Revival architecture, the magnificent mansion of Ashland (Richmond & Sycamore Rd.) built by Henry Clay inn 1806, and finally Hunt Morgan House (201 N Mill St.) built for John Wesley Hunt, the first millionaire west of the Alleghenies. This is where Thomas Hunt Morgan, later to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine, was born.