Luckett & Farley is an architecture, engineering, and interior design firm based in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville is the List of cities in Kentucky, most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, and the list of United States cities by population, 27th-most-populous city ...

. It was founded in 1853, making it (along with

SmithGroup SmithGroup is an international architectural, engineering and planning firm. Established in 1853 by architect Sheldon Smith, SmithGroup is the longest continually operating architecture and engineering firm in the United States that is not a w ...

) the oldest continually operating

architecture firm In the United States, an architectural firm or architecture firm is a business that employs one or more licensure, licensed architects and practices the profession of architecture; while in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and ot ...

in the United States that is not a

wholly owned subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unl ...

. The firm began under the name ''Rogers, Whitestone & Co., Architects'', changing its name to ''Henry Whitestone'' in 1857, to ''D.X. Murphy & Brother'' in 1890, and to ''Luckett & Farley'' in 1962. The company is 100% employee-owned as of January 1, 2012 and concentrates on automotive, industrial, federal government, higher education, health and wellness, and corporate/commercial markets. There are more LEED professionals at Luckett & Farley than any other company in Kentucky with 50, as of December 2012.

History

The Whitestone period

Henry Whitestone (1819–1893) was born at Clondegad House in County Clare, Ireland. He immigrated to the United States amidst famine and depression with his wife Henrietta in January 1852 from Innis, Ireland after he was recommended to

Isaiah Rogers Isaiah Rogers (August 17, 1800 – April 13, 1869) was an American architect from Massachusetts who eventually moved his practice south, where he was based in Louisville, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio. He completed numerous designs for hotels ...

(1800–1869), for his work on the County Clare Courthouse. Rogers was an architect based in Cincinnati who came to be known as "the father of the American hotel". Whitestone's first project with Rogers was the Frankfort Hotel in Frankfort, Kentucky and a partnership formed in November 1853 when Rogers was contracted to rebuild the recently burned

Louisville Hotel The Louisville Hotel on Main Street, between Sixth and Seventh, in Louisville, Kentucky, United States was a major hotel of that city in the 19th and early 20th centuries, originally built in a Greek Revival architecture, Greek Revival style from ...

. Whitestone moved from Frankfort to Louisville and received 2/5 of all profits from the services he performed with Rogers. The first office of Isaiah Rogers and Henry Whitestone was located at Bullit and Main Streets, near where the

Riverfront Plaza/Belvedere ''For other uses see Riverfront Plaza (disambiguation)'' Riverfront Plaza/Belvedere is a public area on the Ohio River in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky. Although proposed as early as 1930, the project did not get off the ground until $13.5 millio ...

is located today. Together they transformed Louisville into a "five-story city" and introduced the Italianate architectural style to the region. Whitestone separated from Rogers in 1857 and soon became the preeminent architecture firm in Louisville through the 1880s. Notably, Charles J. Clarke worked for Henry Whitestone during the Civil War and later formed a partnership with Arthur Loomis, to form the historically significant Louisville architecture firm ''

Clarke and Loomis Arthur Loomis (January 28, 1859 – January 8, 1935) was an architect who worked from 1876 through the 1920s in the Louisville, Kentucky area. After working for noted architect Charles J. Clarke for several years, they became partners in 1891, cr ...

''. Whitestone retired in approximately 1881 and died in 1893. An 1893 publishing of ''The American Architect and Building News'' wrote of Whitestone, He is buried at

Cave Hill Cemetery Cave Hill Cemetery is a Victorian era National Cemetery and arboretum located at Louisville, Kentucky. Its main entrance is on Baxter Avenue and there is a secondary one on Grinstead Drive. It is the largest cemetery by area and number of buri ...

in Louisville Kentucky alongside his wife and two daughters (Section C, lot 39). A marker located on Main St., across from the old Louisville Hotel, bears his name.

The D.X. Murphy era

Dennis Xavier ("D.X.") Murphy (1853–1933) was born in Louisville after his parents immigrated from Ireland, began working as a draftsman at age 16 for Henry Whitestone. By 1874 he was the head draftsman and eventually took over the practice in 1880 just before Whitestone's retirement. It was at this point that the firm was renamed ''D.X. Murphy''. His brothers James C. Murphy (1865–1935), later joined the practice in 1890 at which time the firm became ''D.X. Murphy and Brother''. Their younger brother Peter C. Murphy subsequently joined and together they designed many of Louisville's Catholic Churches, among many other notable buildings, for significantly reduced fees on the order of 1% of construction costs. The Murphys' sister, Sr. Mary Anselm, was a nun with the

Sisters of Charity of Nazareth The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth (SCN) is an American Catholic order of religious sisters founded in 1812 near Bardstown, Kentucky. There, three young women responded to Bishop John Baptist Mary David's call for assistance in ministering to t ...

in Bardstown, Kentucky which likely led to many of the commissionings. The firm's most famous work was that of the Twin Spires at

Churchill Downs Churchill Downs is a horse racing complex in south Louisville, Kentucky, United States that hosts the annual Kentucky Derby. It opened in 1875 and was named for Samuel Churchill, whose family was prominent in Kentucky for many years. The first ...

in 1895, designed by 24-year-old Joseph D. Baldez and constructed in time for the 21st Kentucky Derby. It was known for the grandstand (as well as the spires) of Churchill Downs, the Galt House Hotel and distillery buildings along what became Louisville's Whiskey Row, and numerous other office buildings, schools, hospitals, and churches, some of which survive and are listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

(NRHP) for their architecture. Works include: * Galt House Hotel *Bernheim Distillery (c.1896) *Combined Distillers of Kentucky (c.1905–1906) *Bonnie Brothers Distillery (c.1903–1912) *The Phil. Hollenbach Company (c.1889), 528 Main, which in 2023 was home of the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience * Cathedral of the Assumption (1852), 443 S. 5th St.

Louisville, KY Louisville is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city; however, by populatio ...

(Keely, William; Murphy, D.X.) Gothic Revival. NRHP-listed *

, 700 Central Ave.

(Murphy, D.X. & Co.), NRHP-listed * Inter-Southern Insurance Building (1913), 239–247 S. 5th St.

(with Brinton B. Davis), NRHP-listed * Jefferson Branch Louisville Free Public Library, 1718 W. Jefferson St.

, NRHP-listed * Jefferson County Jail, 514 W. Liberty St.

, NRHP-listed * Kentucky Wagon Works, 2601 S. 3rd St.

, NRHP-listed * National Tobacco Works Branch Stemmery, 2410-18 W. Main St., Louisville, NRHP-listed * National Tobacco Works Branch Drying House, 2400 W. Main St., Louisville, NRHP-listed * Presentation Academy, 861 S. 4th St., Louisville, NRHP-listed * Snead Manufacturing Building, 817 W. Market St., Louisville, NRHP-listed *Stockyard Exchange Building (1914), Louisville, Beaux Arts, in NRHP-listed Butchertown Historic District With *One or more works in Savoy Historic District, 209–221 W. Jefferson St., Louisville, NRHP-listed Dennis Murphy died in 1933 and is buried at St. Louis Cemetery in Louisville. In 1935 ''D.X. Murphy and Brother'' was sold by James Murphy's wife to ''D.X. Murphy and Brother Incorporated'' for a sum of $1,147, at which time Peter Murphy became president. By 1943, Peter Murphy was named chairman of the board and William G. O'Toole became president. Thomas D. Luckett II (1909–1996) became majority stakeholder in the firm upon O'Toole's passing in 1956 while Jean D. Farley (b. 1927) was named Vice President. ''D.X. Murphy and Bro., Inc'' became ''Luckett & Farley, Inc'' on May 25, 1962, with T.D. Luckett and J.D. Farley sharing ownership. D.X. Murphy occupied the old Louisville Trust Building (208 S. 5th St) until 1962 when the office was relocated to the Washington Building (4th and Market), which has since been demolished. The Filson Historical Society in Louisville holds architectural drawings and other records of the D.X. Murphy and Brother firm and its predecessors.

Luckett & Farley

By the time the firm was renamed ''Luckett & Farley Inc.'' in 1962 to reflect the change of ownership, civil and structural engineering services were also provided; Mechanical and electrical engineering services were added in 1970 in order to deliver better-coordinated construction documents to clients. By 1973 the firm name was changed to ''Luckett & Farley Architects, Engineers, and Construction Managers, Inc.'' and by the end of 1982, Jean Farley sold the company to Dennis Dewitt, Ronald Kendall, and Douglas Wilkerson. In 2000 an

employee stock ownership plan Employee stock ownership, or employee share ownership, is where a company's employees own shares in that company (or in the parent company of a group of companies). US employees typically acquire shares through a share option plan. In the UK, Emp ...

(ESOP) was formed and by 2002, leadership was transferred to Ed Jerdonek, Belinda Gates, Gail Miller, and Rob Diamond. A design-build subsidiary, ''LFDB'', was created in 1999 but has since separated with the company as of 2011. Belinda Gates retired from Luckett & Farley in 2010. On January 1, 2012, Jerdonek, Miller, and Diamond sold their interest in the company to the employee-owners, making Luckett & Farley 100% employee-owned. Luckett & Farley occupied the Washington Building from 1963 to 1968 when it moved to 215 W. Breckinridge and again in 1997 to their current location in the Prince Wells Building at 737 S. Third St. Luckett & Farley uses

building information modeling Building information modeling (BIM) is an approach involving the generation and management of digital representations of the physical and functional characteristics of buildings or other physical assets and facilities. BIM is supported by vario ...

technology to produce its drawings.

Departments

Departments consist of the following fields: *

Architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

Interior Design Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. With a keen eye for detail and a Creativity, creative flair, an ...

Procurement Procurement is the process of locating and agreeing to terms and purchasing goods, services, or other works from an external source, often with the use of a tendering or competitive bidding process. The term may also refer to a contractual ...

Structural Engineering Structural engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering in which structural engineers are trained to design the 'bones and joints' that create the form and shape of human-made Structure#Load-bearing, structures. Structural engineers also ...

Civil Engineering Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

Electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

Building Commissioning In construction, commissioning or commissioning process (often abbreviated Cx) is an integrated, systematic process to ensure, that all building systems perform interactively according to the "Design Intent", through documented verification. The ...

Presidents

Rogers & Whitestone's work in Louisville (1853–1880)

Partial list of work by D.X. Murphy & Brother in Louisville (1880–1933)

Awards

* Luckett & Farley has been awarded one of Kentucky's best places to work in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. * In 2012, it was named one of Louisville's best places to work by ''

The Courier-Journal The ''Courier Journal'', also known as the ''Louisville Courier Journal'' (and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''), and called ''The Courier-Journal'' between November 8, 1868, and October 29, 2017, is a daily newspaper published in ...

''. * In 2014, Luckett & Farley was awarded the 2014 ESOP Company of the Year by the Ohio/Kentucky ESOP Association Chapter

References

External links

*
Google Map of Henry Whitestone and DX Murphy buildings in LouisvilleTimeline of Firm History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Luckett and Farley Architecture firms based in Kentucky Companies based in Louisville, Kentucky Design companies established in 1853 1853 establishments in Kentucky American companies established in 1853