The great Romanesque Revival house at Mooreland, an estate located at the east city limits of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, was built by Colonel Daniel Lawson Moore for his second wife, Miss Minnie Ball of Woodford County, whom he married in 1891.
The residence is the largest in Mercer County, and the handsomest building in the Romanesque Revival style in Central Kentucky. It took five years to build. The architect is unknown. In architectural quality the residence is equal to the Theophilus Conrad house at St. James Court in Louisville, designed by the architects, C.J. Clark and Arthur Loomis, and built during the mid 1890’s, which is considered the finest example of its kind in that city.
The mansion at Mooreland is built of limestone and brick, the front of the building being entirely of stone. Each block is carefully tooled, with ribbing or bush-hammer and is laid with pink mortar. The façade features a veranda of large semicircular arches carried on short round pillars of polished granite with elaborately carved limestone capitals. The veranda curves into octagonal forms at either end, that at the south extremity being a four-storied tower crowned by an entablature and parapet.
Check out these photos of the house today, and photos of its original grandeur at the end and please share! Let’s find this castle a new life!