I thought it would be interesting to look at neighborhoods close to the downtowns of several major cities in proximity to St. Louis that I had visited in 2021. I have often noted that you just can’t walk to residential neighborhoods from downtown in St. Louis; there are train tracks, vast swaths of vacant land or interstates in the way. It didn’t use to be like that, of course. So first up, we go to Louisville, Kentucky, to the “Old Louisville” neighborhood south of its downtown, and look at the architecture over three days.

Louisville is the South, right? I always considered Kentucky to be the Upper South, if that is such a thing, but architecturally it seems to be very comfortable with its Midwestern neighbors across the Ohio River.

In fact, in this first round of photos, I see houses in the Romanesque Revival style that I think I could easily trick readers into thinking are in St. Louis. Though I would also say that the Romanesque Revival was perhaps a style that is so beholden to the first “celebrity” architects in America such as Henry Hobson Richardson that perhaps we see some homogeneity.

Wow, the 1950s struck on this house below.

But then there are houses such as the one below which are the Greek Revival, and this one was probably one of the first built in the area.

But then there are also houses that perhaps might have some elements of the Queen Anne even though they are built primarily of brick.

One thing I was also surprised at was the amount of painting of brick and stone in this neighborhood, which was different than in St. Louis.

An Italianate house sneaks in, as well.