Waveland

Waveland was constructed between 1797 and 1800 in Danville, Kentucky. After being abandoned for several decades, it is slated for restoration.

Waveland, located in Danville, Kentucky, is the ancestral home of the Green family and was constructed between 1797 and 1800 by Willis Green.

Willis Green, of Scotch-Irish descent, was born and raised in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Willis served as the deputy clerk of Fauquier County, Virginia who relocated to Kentucky in a surveying party in 1782. A year later, Green married Sarah Reed in what was described as “one of the Christian marriages ever solemnized on Kentucky soil.” Reed was the daughter of John Reed, one of the first settlers of Danville.

Willis represented Kentucky County in the Virginia legislature and then in Kentucky’s own legislature. He was a framer of Kentucky’s constitution and an original trustee of the Transylvania Seminary in Lexington. He also held office as the clerk of the court in Lincoln County.

Green received a land grant of approximately 2,000 acres near Danville, and over a span of three years, the family constructed a late-Georgian-styled house, two-stories high with a brick-floor basement. The interior appointments were crafted by skilled workers from Philadelphia were brought to the region by Willis’ brother-in-law, James Birney. A slave quarter that connected to the kitchen was located in the rear.

Waveland, named for the undulating terrain surrounding it, was originally oriented to the east towards present-day Gose Pike. After Houstonville Pike was constructed to the west, the house was reoriented with the addition of a front porch and the reversal of the interior stairway.

The farm was subdivided in the 1960’s and the house abandoned in 1976. The house was slated for the landfill after years of neglect but was sold at auction in 2013 to the Bluegrass Trust for Historic Preservation, the James Harrod Trust for Historic Preservation and the Boyle Landmark Trust, among other organizations.