Castlewood Park

Castlewood Park is a 32.40-acre park located near downtown Lexington (1st District) and is one of the city’s oldest parks. The city of Lexington purchased the Loudoun House and the grounds in the 1920’s and converted it into Castlewood Park and Community Center. On this property sits the historic Loudoun House. In 1840, Francis Key Hunt married Julia Warfield, whose parents gave the couple 60 acres of suburban land on the Bryan Station Pike adjoining the Warfield estates. This land, called “The Meadows,” was to be the future site of Loudoun. The Loudoun House was constructed as a residence for Francis Key and Julia. By the time of its completion in 1852, the home cost over $30,000, as much as many public buildings in nineteenth-century Kentucky. Loudoun was named for Mrs. Hunt’s favorite song, “The Bells of Loudoun.” Francis Key and Julia Hunt lived here together from 1852 until his death in 1879 and Julia sold the property to Colonel William Cassius Goodloe. Goodloe served as the chairman of the national committee of the Republican Party and was later appointed Minister to Belgium by President Hayes. The Goodloe’s owned the home until 1921 when it was sold to J.F. Bailey of Paintsville, Kentucky. The Loudoun House is considered one of the largest and finest examples of Gothic Revival architecture in Kentucky. It in one of only five remaining castellated Gothic Revival villas left in the United States by New York architect, Alexander Jackson Davis, and is listed on the national Register of Historic Places. It is currently home to the Lexington Art League.