LOUISVILLE BOURBON INN

10630 Meeting St. 1332 South Fourth St. Louisville, KY 40208 502-638-0045 www.louisvillebourboninn.com

The Old Louisville neighborhood just south of downtown is known for its streets lined with enormous Victorian-era mansions. (It’s the second largest national historic preservation district in the United States.) This is where the city’s timber barons, bankers, Bourbon distillery owners and railroad magnates built their houses, each designed to display their owner’s wealth. The Louisville Bourbon Inn is one such mansion. Built in 1887 by attorney and judge Russell Houston, who also served as president of the Louisville and Nashville railroad, it is an ornate, three-storey, redbrick dwelling confidently perched on a corner next to Louisville’s leafy Central Park where free Shakespeare plays are performed outdoors in the summer. Within walking distance are several notable local restaurants.

Hosts Gail and Herb Warren have furnished the mansion and adjacent carriage house with handsome and elegant antiques.

There are five en-suite bedrooms in the main house and three in the carriage house across a brick courtyard. The dining room overlooking the park serves as the breakfast room, where hearty breakfasts (for example Bourboncaramel-apple French toast casserole) are served by a gas fireplace. Bourbon tastings are offered in the second floor Bourbon Library, furnished with a butter-soft leather sofa and oversized armchairs. Bourbon books and periodicals are shelved here for guests to swat up on their Bourbon knowledge.

The Warrens have made sure that no whiskey-loving guest will go to bed thirsty. Each bedroom has a Bourbon barrel repurposed into a lit cabinet housing a bottle or two of Kentucky’s finest, as well as wine and glassware. Nightcap anyone?