There is probably no other house in the Bluegrass that represents the height of the Greek Revival period more elegantly. Built on the Corinthian order, its two-story tetra-style portico has columns forty feet high that support a deep, pedimented entablature. Pilasters with Corinthian capitals ornament all four sides of the house, which is seventy-five feet square. The interior carries out the attention to details with plaster cornices rich with decorations of egg-and-dart and bead-and-reel patterns and anthemion blossoms. The woodwork is rubbed walnut, and a gracious winding staircase ascends to the third floor.

It was Junius Ward's father, General William, who laid the groundwork for the fortunes that his sons amassed. General Ward was an early Indian agent and secured for his family choice plantations along the Mississippi River. Junius Ward used his Kentucky estate as his summer home, making the deep South his permanent residence. His brother Robert was reputed to be the wealthiest man in Kentucky, and it was his beautiful daughter, Sallie, the most noted belle of the South, who was frequently guest of honor at the grand balls at Ward Hall.

After the Civil war, Junius Ward found his fortune gone. He was forced to sell Ward Hall, which was advertised at the time of the sale as the "finest country residence in this section of the country." A later owner, Colonel Milton Hamilton, offered the house with 250 acres, plus $50,000, to the Kentucky Legislature should it agree to use the property for the state capitol.

Ward Hall has been owned by several families over the years. The latest owners have recently refurbished it and have it open on a limited basis as a house museum. It has attracted many admirers but none were more inspired than the builder's nephew who wrote that Ward Hall was "the finest place in Kentucky at that time, a veritable palace surrounded by a fairy garden."

The insolent hands of the years have torn away her garlands, and her fortunes, like fairy gold, have been squandered to pay the piper's price. But neither years nor the piper have destroyed her lovlieness or stolen her charm.

Junius Richard ward and his brother, Robert Johnson, inherited large estates from their father, Col. William Ward, and early settler in Scott County, and they took as their brides two of the fairest women of the Bluegrass, Matilda Viley and Emily Flournoy. Emily, who was only fourteen when she married, was the daughter of Matthew Flournoy whose home was Walnut Hall.

Junius established a cotton commission business in the South and as his fortune became greater his mansions became more royal. His ancestral estate on Lake Washington was one of the great plantations of Mississippi, and in 1856, his Georgian mansion in Scott County was ready for occupancy.

The land on which it was built was part of a grant to Patrick Henry which was bought by Ward's grandfather, Robert Johnson, in 1780. His son, William Johnson lived in the original house until his death in 1813, and Madison Conyers Johnson, Lexington lawyer, was born there.

Fifty thousand dollars in gold was paid to Buffington, the contractor, and an additional five hundred was presented to him in appreciation of the perfection of his work.

A winding road from the turnpike leads past a lake and among giant oaks and maples and spruce to an eminence that is crowned by this structure of sublime symmetry. The deep foundation is of cut stone. The walls are brick, laid in Flemish bond, and the severity is relieved by five Roman Corinthian pilasters on each side and eight pilasters are arranged in pairs across the front and rear. Three immense chimneys break the roof line on either side, and a veranda that stretches across the front facade has four Corinthian pillars that support the pediment above the entrance.

Panels of etched glass flank the doorway that opens into the broad central hall extending seventy-five feet from front to back in the old-time manner of colonial houses. Double drawing rooms and the dining room, each twenty-two feed wide and twenty-five feed deep with ceilings sixteen feet high, open at the left of the hall, while on the right are library and living room, separated by the stair well where the steps swirl up the height of three stories, bordered by a slender balustrade and a handrail of walnut. A narrow hall beyond, containing the service stair, opens on an uncovered shallow veranda with a railing of hand-wrought iron, a veranda that overlooks the gardens at the right of the house once famous for their beauty.

The walls of the drawing rooms are painted a soft misty gray with lustreless egg-shell finish, and elusive tints of shell pink and apple green are used above the rows of moulded cornices done in the motifs of dentils and egg-and-dart. The moulded medallions from which the silver and crystal chandeliers are hung are delicately shaded flowers and scrolls. The white Italian marble mantles are carved with grapes and foliage. Above the full length triple windows of the front drawing room is a brass cornice from which rose damask draperies once fell in rich folds, and delicate brass tracery of Empire design adorns the over-doors. A tiny moulding of brass finishes the walnut baseboard, and the floors are of wide ash planks.

Double sliding doors of walnut connect the three rooms, with hinges and knobs and grooves of sterling silver. Great mirrors covered the chimney breasts in the days past, and the furniture, each piece designed for its appointed place, was carved by the greatest cabinet makers of Italy. In the dining room the marble mantle is carved with oak leaves and acorns and the tints of walls and ceiling are in warmer shades. Huge walnut cupboards are built in on each side of the fireplace, and in one of them is the dumbwaiter serviced from the kitchen in the cellar. The Ward silver and linen were celebratedly handsome, and the china consisted of three complete sets, one banded in deep red, one in green and one in rose with embossing and monograms in gold. There was also a full set of Sevres china.

The walls of the library are a delicate coral pink and the bookshelves build into the fireplace wall are enclosed by doors of diamond paned glass.

Kitchen and wine cellar, pantries and servants' dining room are in the basement.

Five large bedrooms, each with a white marble mantel, open off the hall that traverses the second floor, and two rooms for storage are on the third floor where a ladder stair opens on the roof that formerly held, a huge copper tank from which the water supply of the house was made available.

The house is admirable arranged for entertainments, and traditions are rife with the stories of extravagant parties given there for Elizabeth and Martha, the two daughters of the family; of the gay gallantry and fascination of their brothers, George and Junius, and of the days when Sallie Ward came from Louisville and New Orleans for visits to her uncle's family.

And of all the Southern belles of history there is none that compares to the lovely Sallie Ward. Grand couturiers vied for her patronage, and suitors laid their hearts like Raleigh coats for her to step upon. With blue eyes far apart, brown hair, faultless skin, a round face with an expression of candor, a large mouth and perfect teeth, she was indeed a thing apart. Spoiled, willful, impulsive, with a dash and style and with that gave her always the spotlight of admiration and worship, she was like an exotic flower, and her memory has taken on the unreality of a fairy tale. Before she was twenty she was married to Bigelow Lawrence, many years her senior, and taken to Boston to live. But there was a chill and conventionality about the north unsuited to her ardent Southern temperament, and an act of the Kentucky legislature granted her a divorce on grounds of incompatibility. A few years later she was married to Dr. John Hunt, New Orleans, whose great wealth gave her the background for the most brilliant period of her life. Her magnificent house was furnished in Parisian mode, and glittering fountains sprayed in marble courts where orchestras from the French opera furnished music for her dinners. Dr. Hunt was the father of her only child, John Hunt, who survived her. After her husband's death she returned to Louisville, the city that had known her early triumphs in society, and after fifteen years of widowhood she became the wife of Vene P. Armstrong. Her fourth husband was Major George F. Downs, several years her junior, and with him she spend the closing years of an eventful life. Her death occurred in the late summer of 1898.

Like so many of the great fortunes of the South, the estate of Junius Ward was desperately involved by the War for Southern Independence, and in time the palatial Kentucky residence had to be sacrificed, the family returning to the Mississippi plantation. It was bought by Allie DeLong for his young wife, Betty Payne, who died there in 1872 at the birth of her first child.

Victor Glass purchased the Ward place and called it Glasston, and later it became the property of Col. Milton Hamilton, who offered the house, two hundred and fifty acres of land and fifty thousand dollars to the state on condition that it be used as the capitol, and offer that was declined by the Kentucky legislature. A few years ago it was bought by Glover Watson, a native of Georgetown, who acquired a fortune in Detroit real estate, and who, from childhood, had cherished the dream of owning it. But financial reverses made it necessary for the property to again go under the hammer of the auctioneer, and recently it was purchased by J. W. Bridges, its present owner.

The greenhouses have long ago fallen into ruins, and the lake has grown up in cattails. But the house itself stands serene and proud, remembering the days when dainty, slippered feet waltzed through its rooms, and beautiful Sallie Ward was a guest within its portals.