Old Louisville: The lavish Conrad-Caldwell House

The magnificent “Conrad’s Folly,” the Theophilus T Conrad house, was built in 1893-95. This vast, all-limestone pile was designed by Arthur Loomis of Clarke and Loomis at the peak of his career. No residence in Old Louisville is more lavishly ornamented with the most refined and skilled work of the stone-carver, or was more expensive in its day. (The original cost was at least $35,000.)

This design is one of the purest examples of the influence of the great American architect H H Richardson in the Falls of the Ohio region, although Loomis maintains a quality all his own, particularly in the details that relieve, in some cases even whimsically, the bold Syrian or Romanesque round arches,  the varied and deeply set window embrasures, and the massive turrets that seem to grow out of the nobly-massed main block. The interior woodwork is cherry, maple and oak. – Adapted from the National Register of Historic Places nomination form, 1974