National Register of Historic Places

Belknap, Willam R., School

Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky
Listed
August 11, 1982
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
82002706

About this property

The William R. Belknap School is a former school building in the Belknap neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky United States. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. It was designated as a local landmark by the Louisville Metro Landmarks Commission in 2001. The school takes its name from the developer of the surrounding neighborhood. In 1995, the Belknap neighborhood association took a geometric motif from the school building for its logo. The building and its grounds originally took up an entire 2.15-acre (8,700 m2) city block. The building has about 30,000 square feet (2,800 m2) of indoor space. The Belknap School is a two-story building on a raised basement. The building has a central projecting entry bay and projecting end wings. The central projecting entrance contains double doors with a single transom. The panes have geometric mullions. This entrance is encased in a stone surround with an arched tympanum lined with exaggerated dentils. Within the tympanum is a central lamp with the words "LUX ET VERITAS, light and truth," above an open book with a fig branch. In the lintel is a band of exaggerated dentils. In the stone surround; the school name, WILLIAM R. BELKNAP SCHOOL, is located above the doors, flanked by applied decorative terra cotta motifs. On the second floor is a pair of windows with vertical mullions in both sash, and crosshatch mullions in the upper portion of the upper sash. Flanking the windows are applied, terra cotta torch motifs. The inside walls of this projecting bay contain three stepped windows on the first level and paired windows on the second with the flanking torch motifs. The fenestration of the recessed façade plane which flanks the entrance bay consists of five basement-story windows and five windows on both the first and second floors. The basement-story windows have six-over-six lights. A stone band divides the basement-story from the first floor. The first and second floor windows contain unusually patterned geometric lights. Pilasters rise from the sill of the first floor windows to the lintels of the second floor windows, with tapestry-like terra cotta panels on the pilasters between the second: floor windows. A stone band divides the second floor from the large parapet wall with a stone coping. On the inside walls of each wing are three basement-story windows and two first and second floor windows with the same mullion patterns found on the recessed front façade windows. Applied tapestry-like panels are found on the second floor. The ends of the wings contain no fenestration and are the most decorative planes of the structure. The same tapestry-like panels found on the other façade planes are also located here, on both sides of a central, slightly recessed plane which contains banding and brickwork which comprise another tapestry-like design. The stone band which divides the basement-story from the first floor is interrupted by an elongated arch with a medallion containing an old city of Louisville emblem.

Location

1800 Sils Ave.
Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky
38.22196, -85.68953

Categories

ARCHITECTURE
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

Woodbourne House
Civil War
0.4 mi
Humphrey-McMeekin House
Civil War
0.5 mi
Saint Francis of Assisi Complex
Pre Contact
0.5 mi
Wilson, David, House
Industrial
0.6 mi
Kentucky Home School for Girls
Listed
0.6 mi

Nearby Battles

Morgan's Raid into Indiana
1863Civil War
6.4 mi

Questions about this property

When was Belknap, Willam R., School listed on the National Register?

Belknap, Willam R., School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 11, 1982.

What type of historic resource is Belknap, Willam R., School?

Belknap, Willam R., School is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Belknap, Willam R., School?

The period of significance for Belknap, Willam R., School is recorded as the industrial era.

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