History of a House Museum

YOU ARE HERE -> 1950s-1980s

From 1950 through the 1980s Lorraine Seay welcomed guests to Ashland at her desk in the front hall where registration was required or, in the case of large groups, she would greet them from the front doorstep.  The large groups would be led through the house by tour guides, but smaller groups of visitors were often allowed to freely wander through the house, limited only by the barriers erected in many of the rooms and closed doors that delineated off-limits rooms.   The second floor of the mansion was closed to the public until 1962 after descendant Henry Bullock had moved out.  SEE ALSO: New Life as a House Museum: Just Like a Real Home and Interpreting Henry Clay in a Charming Home Environment.

From extant documents and first-person recollections, we know that one route of the 1960s-1980s guided tour went as follows:

After registering or getting tickets at Mrs. Seay’s desk…

Proceed to the Dining Room…

Drawing Room…

Library…

The north wing of the house presented the next three rooms: the Lady’s Parlor…

Day Nursery…

Henry Clay Bedroom…

Walking back toward the Entrance Hall, the tour went through the Museum Room…

Up the main stairs to the Sitting Room…

Master Bedroom…

Nursery…

Ash Bedroom…

Children’s Bedroom…

Down the main stairs and outside – to view the kitchen and the outbuildings from the side porch.

One highlight of visiting Ashland was Gypsy the cat who lived for fourteen years in the mansion (until 1976).  She became quite well-known and “people…are disappointed if Gypsy does not meet them at the door…,” Mrs. Seay told the Louisville Courier-Journalin 1973.  Mrs. Seay considered her a person and a relative (“She must be related to Henry Clay, because he was such a charmer”) and dubbed her “Assistant Curator.”

Gypsy had her own special chair by Mrs. Seay’s desk and she followed tours through the house and would “tug at the draperies” for attention, distracting visitors: “I’d lose them,” Mrs. Seay said of her tour groups, “they would want to know about the cat.”  Gypsy’s picture postcard was the largest selling after tours.  But this living novelty— as Mrs. Seay called her: “‘Henry Clay’s cat ‘in her ninth life’”—was good for attendance.  Mrs. Seay told Southern Living in 1968 that Gypsy served as surprise entertainment for “people who may have thought they were just going to tour the 157-year-old home of the distinguished Kentucky statesman.”  Gypsy died in 1976 and mourning fans raised money for a small tombstone, erected where the popular cat was buried under the larch tree on the front lawn, as if she had been a member of the Clay family.