The Kentucky Culture Symposium is one of our most valuable and important programs. It brings together national scholars and experts on the historic material culture of Kentucky and its impact on Kentucky culture today. Each year, we forge new connections with the people of Kentucky as we advance the body of knowledge in a way that is tangible and meaningful for all.
The theme is Kentucky Backdrops. We will explore Kentucky’s scenic gardens, grounds & architecture.
This will be a full day of learning and includes not only four brilliant speakers, but also coffee hour, and lunch before concluding the day with book signings and sales. The annual Kentucky Culture Symposium is held in a different city each year, so a big thank you to the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill for hosting us this year.
Speakers & Topics:
Featuring renowned Jon Carloftis of Jon Carloftis Fine Gardens: Inspirational Transformations
Nationally renowned garden designer Jon Carloftis prides himself on his Kentucky roots and sincerely believes that the Bluegrass state is home to some of the most enchanting and inspired gardens in the world. With his Kentucky charm and keen eye for detail, Carloftis is as charismatic as he is talented. He returned to his native Kentucky after creating rooftop gardens in New York City for more than two decades. The meticulous attention to detail honed by working in small spaces served him well as he transitioned to larger, more complex projects. Whether small or grand, his gardens are equally welcoming and beautiful. His work has been featured in many publications including Garden & Gun, Southern Living, Country Gardens, Country Home, Garden Design, House Beautiful, Martha Stewart Living, and Metropolitan Home. He was the recipient of a landscape design award from the City of New York and is the author of First a Garden (Rockcastle River Trading Company, 2005), Beyond the Windowsill (Cool Springs Press, 2006), Beautiful Gardens of Kentucky (Canal House, 2010), and Jon Carloftis Fine Gardens (West High LLC, 2023). He lives with his beloved yellow Labrador Retrievers, Gertrude and Magnolia (better known as “Baby Mags”), in a restored circa 1851 home in downtown Lexington, Kentucky, surrounded by an acre of gardens.
Kentucky native Jon Carloftis is a great American gardener. His more than 30-year career in gardening began far from home in New York City where he has become one of America’s pioneers in rooftop/small space gardening.
As a 10th-generation Kentuckian, Jon graduated from the University of Kentucky and moved to New York City in 1988. What was supposed to be a summer spent in the city before starting his business at home in Lexington ended up being a 25-year career of designing and installing rooftop gardens all over Manhattan.
Within a few years of living in Chelsea, he bought an 1850s farmhouse in Bucks County, PA — close to all his plant growers and carpenters, making it convenient… other than the daily trek in and out of the city. Although he has built gardens for famous people such as Julianne Moore, Edward Norton, Mike Myers, Google, and many well-known art collectors, his approach is straightforward: First, figure out the problems that need fixed (views, noise, privacy, etc.) and then work with the interior of the space to pull the same feeling outdoors for a seamless connection. From traditional to modern, all the gardens are built for entertaining and enjoying the outdoors through good design and knowledge of plants.
The next chapter is unfolding back home in Lexington where he bought Botherum, a historic 1851 home that had fallen into disrepair and was boarded up. Within a year Jon received the highest honor in the state for the historic restoration of the home and garden. Some amazing ongoing projects include the Maker’s Mark Distillery, Castle & Key Distillery renovations, Governor’s Mansion gardens, EKU, and the University of the Cumberlands main gardens, several large horse farms, and many roof gardens in both Louisville and Lexington.
His recent book, Jon Carloftis Fine Gardens, features twenty-four private and public gardens he designed. The book is available on his website, joncarloftis.com. [Photo Credits: Matt Malicote (headshot); J.A. Laub Photography (slide images & photo 1 in collage above).
Haviland Argo of The Bluegrass Trust: The Most Important Home in America Is in Lexington, Ky.
Haviland Argo grew up on a farm in Harrison County, Kentucky. He received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Kentucky where he was in the Honors Program and a Fellow at the Gaines Center for Humanities. He received a Masters in Architecture degree from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
Haviland worked in the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), Work Architecture Company (WorkAC), and REX, firms associated with Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas. He joined Gray Construction, building 21c Museum Hotel Louisville and went on to represent the owners during the construction of hotels in Cincinnati, Durham, and Lexington.
Recently, Haviland designed and managed the construction of a visitors experience focusing on food, bourbon, and horses at legendary Hermitage Farm in Goshen, Kentucky. The project features a visitors center, museum, greenhouse, gardens, outdoor ArtWalk, and Barn8 Restaurant and Bourbon Bar. His firm Argo Architecture continues to advance projects diverse in scale, program, and budget, nearly all of them incorporating historic structures.
At the University of Kentucky, Haviland has taught architecture studios for graduates and undergraduates, has served as a member of the Advisory Council for the UK Alumni Association, and currently sits on the School of Architecture’s Advisory Board. Haviland has served as a board member for LexArts and the Lexington Art League and is a member of the Pope Villa Committee for the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation. He has exhibited and lectured at multiple institutions across the U.S.
James Birchfield author and expert on KY architecture: An Architectural Spectator in the Bluegrass
James D. Birchfield is former Curator of Rare Books at the University of Kentucky. He has served as president of Clay Lancaster’s Warwick Foundation, chairman of the University of Kentucky’s Art Museum Advisory Board, and as a member of the boards of the Bluegrass Trust for Historic Preservation and Henry Clay’s Ashland. Birchfield is a former editor of The Kentucky Review, author of Kentucky Countess: Mona Bismarck in Art and Fashion, and Clay Lancaster’s Kentucky:
Architectural Photographs of a Preservation Pioneer. With his wife Martha he is co-author of Aylesford: Some Historical Chapters, earning the 2023 Clay Lancaster Heritage Education Award. With photographer Bob Willcutt he is co-author of Ward Hall: Kentucky’s Greek Revival Masterpiece. He has written on Kentucky artist Thomas S. Noble, cabinetmaker Porter Clay, architect Matthew Kennedy, and artist and private press printer Victor Hammer. He has lectured for the Natchez Antiques Forum, the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Preservation Nantucket, the Grolier Club of New York, the Alliance Française de Chicago, and the Decorative Arts Trust. In 2014 he received the Blue Grass Trust John Wesley Hunt Lifetime Award for Historic Preservation.
John David Myles, architectural author and researcher: Unusual Buildings in the Bluegrass
John David Myles is an attorney former circuit judge, and preservationist. He has written and lectured on architecture for the Filson Historical Society and his article, The University of Louisville Department of Architecture, recently appeared in Ohio Valley History. His 2016 Historic Architecture of Shelby County, Kentucky, 2019 Walter H. Kiser’s Neighborhood Sketches Revisited, and 2022 Louisville Classics, The Architecture of Hugh Lloyd Nevin and Frederic Lindley Morgan have received Publication Awards from the Kentucky Historical Society. The first two also received the annual Samuel W. Thomas Book Award from the Louisville Historical League. He has also been commissioned to write histories of Harrodsburg’s Beaumon Inn and The Tuleyries, a Federal era plantation in northern Virginia.
A graduate of Centre College and the Brandeis School of Law, he was selected to attend the Attingham Trust’s Summer School in 2019. Myles and his wife, Mary Helen, received awards from the Ida Lee Willis Memorial Foundation and Preservation Kentucky for their restoration of the 1839 John Dale house in Simpsonville, Kentucky, where they have lived since 2004.
Sponsorship Opportunities will be available starting March 1st!
Sponsors may pay for their sponsorship by using a credit card online by clicking the blue box below, filling out the required fields, and selecting 'KY Culture Symposium' as your donation designation, or fill out this form and email it to sharonpencecox@gmail.com
Sponsors can also send a check to Liberty Hall’s mailing address, or by calling the site at 502.227.2560.
