The Bellarmine Women’s Council is proud to feature their 2003 Designers’ Show House in the beautiful city of Anchorage, Kentucky.  Shady Brook at 906 Evergreen Road is across the street from their 2002 Show House.

The original house built on this site of 18 acres was built by Edwin May Drummond around the turn of the century. Mr. Drummond was born May 1, 1867.  He graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1888. He moved to Anchorage around the turn of the century and was president of Drummond Manufacturing Company, which manufactured axles among other things. He also served as a director of the Louisville Trust Company and was president of The Engineers of Louisville. He served on the Anchorage Board of Trustees (City Council) from 1917 to 1923 and again from 1926 to 1927. He was chairman of the board, which was equivalent to being mayor, from 1920 to 1923.

Mr. Drummond actually built two homes on this site on Evergreen Road. Unfortunately, the first home was destroyed by fire. One cold January night in 1913, while Mr. Drummond was out of town, his son, young James Drummond, was roused from bed by his mother. Without stopping to clothe himself, he dashed out in his bare feet, cranked up the family car, and drove to the nearby fire house, where he hooked up the hand-pump wagon and towed it to the scene. “It was freezing cold,” he said later, “but I never knew it.” However, he was unable to save the home.

Luckily, Mr. Drummond had also purchased the estate next door, “The Anchorage,” for which the city is named. “The Anchorage” had been built by a retired river boat captain, Frank W. Goslee at the turn of the century, and the Drummonds moved there on a temporary basis. There they planned the new Drummond House.

The new house was built in 1914 with stucco and a tile roof. The Drummonds only lived there four more years. In December of 1918 they sold the house to Lapsley Ewing who lived there until 1932.

Mrs. Willa Mae Baird bought the house from the Ewings, remodeled it, and thereafter it was known as “Shady Brook,” because of the brook running through the property. In 1950 Frances and Daniel Street bought the house.  They and their son, William, lived in the house from 1950 until 1958. Bill remembers the sound of the rain on the roof when he was a boy.

In 1959 the Gordon Caldwells purchased the house and lived in it until it was sold in 2002 to Anne and Neil Ramsey, the present owners. Mr. Ramsey, a native of Tell City, Indiana, owns a private investment company. He and his wife, a native of Omaha, Nebraska, moved to the Louisville area from Chicago in 1986. They and their five children settled in Anchorage in 1993. The Ramseys are doing extensive remodeling, while preserving the grandeur of this estate.

The schoolhouse, called “Sleepy Hollow,” that is on the property was the first known public school in Anchorage. In 1890 the schoolhouse was moved to the property next door on Evergreen Road.  Later it was moved to its present location; the exact date is not known. At one time the building was used by the Anchorage Pony Club. The current Anchorage Public School was organized in 1911. It opened a one-room school building in 1915, which is still in use.

The barn on the property has an ornamental Gothic Revival roof made of birch board.

The Bellarmine Women’s Council is grateful to Anne and Neil Ramsey for sharing this beautiful home with our visitors on the 30th Anniversary of the Bellarmine Designers’ Show House.

Information for this article came from The Louisville Free Public Library, the Planning and Zoning Commission at the Jefferson County Court House, The Jefferson County Office of Historic Preservation and Archives, the City of Anchorage archivist, and Mr. William Street.