Kentucky Hidden Wonders

Two Centuries in Shelby County, Kentucky: Science Hill & Wakefield-Scearce Galleries

• Kentucky Hidden Wonders • Episode 3

Share episode

Discover the fascinating history behind Wakefield-Scearce Galleries and its integral role in Shelby County's heritage. Explore how a family-run business evolved from a grocery store into a celebrated destination for antiques and craftsmanship while unearthing stories that connect us to a rich past.

  • Meet Matt Burnett and learn about his journey at Wakefield-Scearce 
  • Explore the origins of the gallery, from silver rationing to julep cups 
  • Understand the craftsmanship behind handmade julep cups 
  • Hear about the gallery’s connections to U.S. presidents 
  • Discover the impressive silver vault and its historical significance 
  • Learn about the Science Hill Female Academy's rich history 
  • Get insights into the festive Christmas displays and their preparations 
  • Celebrate the upcoming 200th anniversary of the academy and community involvement

Send us a text

Do you know someone who would be an excellent guest on Kentucky Hidden Wonders? You can nominate them by filling out the form linked HERE or going to visitshelbyky.com/podcast and scrolling to the bottom of the page.

🎙️ Kentucky Hidden Wonders is presented by ShelbyKY Tourism.

🥃 Plan a visit to Your Bourbon Destination® at www.visitshelbyky.com. Located in the heart of central Kentucky and less than an hour from Louisville and Lexington, ShelbyKY is the perfect Kentucky getaway. Complete with two great distilleries, action-packed outdoor adventures, and the best vacation rentals near Louisville, put ShelbyKY at the top of your list when planning a Kentucky Bourbon Trail® trip, romantic couples retreat, or a whole-family vacation.

🎙️ Kentucky Hidden Wonders is hosted by Janette Marson and Mason Warren and edited by Mason Warren.

📲 Follow Kentucky Hidden Wonders:

© ShelbyKY Tourism, All Rights Reserved.

Janette Marson:

Welcome to Kentucky Hidden Wonders. I'm Jeannette Marson and I'm Mason Warren.

Mason Warren:

Together we're uncovering the secrets, stories and hidden gems of Shelby County, kentucky, from unforgettable places to off-the-beaten-path adventures. Join us as we explore Kentucky treasures and Shelby County's best-kept secrets. Our guest today on Kentucky Hidden Wonders is Matt Burnett, president and CEO of Wakefield Scarce Galleries in Shelbyville, kentucky. Matt, thanks for being here.

Janette Marson:

Thanks for being here. Yes, thanks for having me.

Mason Warren:

Before we get into it, introduce yourself Kind of what's your background and what do you do as the president and CEO of Wakefield Scarce Galleries Sure sure, sure.

Matt Burnett:

Yeah, I am a lifelong Shelby Countian. My family has probably the seventh generation of Shelby Countian and live here, married, have four children. We all go to school here and been living here. I kind of moved away a little bit from Shelbyville, went to college and worked kind of out not out of state but out of the city for probably five or six years and then had an opportunity to come back and work in the family business and so that's just a little bit about me. You know kind of as we talk about this, I never kind of expected to be in this scenario and then where I'm at. But I'm truly thankful and grateful for where I am and the opportunities that I've had.

Janette Marson:

So you mentioned seventh generation, any tie to the history of Wakefield Scarce going back in your history?

Matt Burnett:

So Wakefield Scarce my grandfather started that in 1947. So that's how I kind of plugged into that, grew up around Wakefield Scarce, running around there as a kid Great place to hide when you have 30,000 square feet, oh yeah. But as a kid growing up it was just par for the course. I grew up in a Chippendale twin bed and had a knee-hold desk for my desk when I was in school. So you know, kind of living with the things that we sold and we do, and so it was just, you know it was ubiquitous around me and whatever, and so you know I, you know just.

Janette Marson:

Well, let's go back in history to the very beginning, because that's the hidden gem, the thing that's the coolest, other than your incredible gallery right now. Right, talk about the history, how it began and what it is now.

Matt Burnett:

So the history and there'll be kind of a similar DNA and all these stories that I may tell about how the evolution of different things, but really World War II was really how a lot of these opportunities arose, and specifically with the gallery, and prior to that, let's say, my grandfather used to have a grocery store in 1937 here with his brother at Scarce Brothers Groceries. He used to have a grocery store in 1937 here with his brother at Scarce Brothers Groceries. He was in a bunch of different things and then bought a jewelry store in 1940 that's up on Main Street now the building there and during World War II there was silver rationing going on and so he couldn't get silver because he was a small-time jeweler and so you had to be a big guy to get it. So anyway he started, instead of his cases being empty, even though it was a jewelry store, he did sell hollowware and silver and whatnot. So he put an ad out here in the local paper to buy back old American silver and so he started getting a lot of these old julep cups that would come back into the store and so kind of fell in love with them and the different types that you would see. They were all marked by different makers. We did have some local Chevy oil makers at the time, anyway. So he decided to take a couple julep cups and make his own version of julep cups.

Matt Burnett:

For anybody that knows about the English, the English, there's an English hallmark system which is you. It was used, probably starting in like the 15th century, which was basically a system If you were a silversmith, you took your wares that you made and you went to the hall and you got up, went up there in the government which would stamp the bottom of your whatever piece it was with a cartouche that you made. And you went to the hall and you got up, went up there in the government to stamp the bottom of your whatever piece it was with a cartouches which would be the monarch, the city, that it was your maker's mark, um, and in like a date letter. And so he knew about english silver. And so he said, well, maybe I'll do like an american kind of spin on this, and so I'll, uh, I'll put a, a little cartouche on the bottom which is like a, basically a little stamp with a symbol in it. Um, and so he put a little eagle in there and then he said to date it. For posterity's sake I'll put the initials of the um president of the time it's made.

Matt Burnett:

And so this was, like I said, right at the end of world war ii, you know, when it was over, but he couldn't get. And so this was, like I said, right at the end of World War II, you know, when it was over, but he couldn't get silver. So that was, that was a way for him, and so he still couldn't get silver at this point, but he had come up with the idea. And so he you know there's some in his in his writings he wrote about kind of decision makings and things like that. He wrote that he went to New York and cried some big tears to get some silver from one of these silver companies and so got the first kind of and silver. They come in discs.

Matt Burnett:

Julep cups are made all by hand really. They call it annealing, which is a process of heating up the silver, and then they spin them, which they put them. There's a chuck which is basically a form or a shape, and then they put it on and it spins and then they shape it to give it the shape of a cup. So everything is basically done by hand. It's not a machine kind of process where a lot of people may think that especially the good ones Right, and we think we have good ones so all that being said. So then that was he started doing those and that was kind of the evolution of the Julep Cup and having that and so that kind of dovetailed with Wakefield Scarce this is the same time period there's a gentleman named Mark Wakefield who came to my grandfather one day with an article from the Courier-Journal that had an ad for the British Antique Dealer Association opening trade up again.

Matt Burnett:

This is right after World War II, the back story of Mr Wakefield. He was a Chevyvillian but did business in Louisville and was in real estate and had divested his interest in his real estate and so he had capital and my grandfather had knowledge of. Particularly my grandfather gravitated towards silver, antique silver, um. But he came back and he was mr wakefield, was a little bit older than my grandfather but he said hey, why don't you go to england and buy some of these antiques, um, and we'll try to sell them and whatever. And my grandfather's like whatever, you know, we're just a country boy jeweler. You know this is 1947 where shelby County still, you know, if not the largest. You know burly tobacco producers in the state. You know that's kind of where we are, just downtown's, they're really the hub of the city. Everything else is mostly farmland. Um, but Mr comes back, I guess probably a week later with a plane ticket to England and so, as I say, the rest is history.

Matt Burnett:

But so how, that business in World War II and all that, and then how, where we are today, which is in the Science Hill Female Academy, the school, so how, those that business idea and the school kind of got married together, is once the school ceased to be a school. So it started in 1825, ran to 1939, the Depression finally got the best of it. The Poynter family, which was the second family that ran the school the father had passed away. You know times got hard with the Depression so they shut down. The school still rented out rooms to local you know mostly widowed ladies, and these were the rooms the girls lived in. But in the big part of the school there was a chapel, so that was not being used. It was a large, probably about 3,500 square foot space but it's 16-foot ceilings in there.

Matt Burnett:

So my grandfather and Mr Wakefield started renting that. And so when the first real car of antiques started coming in. That's where they housed them, and so they put them in there and then they would auction them off at the end of the end of the season and kind of redo the thing. So he was always running up and down Sixth Street between his jewelry store and, you know, the storefront there at Wakefield Scarce. And so that's where we started in 1947 doing that, and so we did that. He did that for 14 years before he actually took the plunge and bought the whole building, the whole, you know, 30,000 square foot building. Mr Wakefield kind of bowed out after about four years, said he was going to go back to his first love, real estate. My grandfather said, hey, can I keep the name? We've got a little something going here. And so he was like sure, so that's kind of how we started.

Janette Marson:

And the rest is history. Oh, and I have to say I am struggling with laryngitis, so excuse my voice, I forgot to say that earlier. So, going back to the silver, I guess it's easier to get silver now, oh yeah, and you make your own cups or get the silver.

Matt Burnett:

So we have craftsmen that make cups and so we started doing those.

Matt Burnett:

During the Truman administration my grandfather found out pretty quickly.

Matt Burnett:

He got the silver in, as I alluded to earlier, from New York and he came in and he had a gentleman that was kind of a jack-of-all-trades, very just good with their hands and they could do stuff, and my grandfather actually bought some equipment from.

Matt Burnett:

It was like the Cincinnati Silver Company that had gone out of business and you know he's thinking, hey, we can just do this in-house, do this whatever. He found out pretty quick that you know it's a skilled it's. You got to be skilled to do this kind of this kind of work, because you know when you're spinning these cups it's you know you got to have a certain touch when you do it, because if you do it too thin then the cup breaks, especially when I say the cup, the body of the cup. So there's definitely an art form to the whole thing. And so he ended up finding somebody that would make him head along partnership with them. And so for today I mean we still have a nice partnership, not with these folks, but another smaller firm, and this firm actually makes the Kentucky Derby Trophy. That makes our cup.

Mason Warren:

I did not know that that's neat, neat, fun fact.

Matt Burnett:

So it's a family business too that they have. So it's pretty neat. It's been a good partnership with them as well. And the other thing, with kind of our cups as I alluded to when we were talking about the Hallmark system and the Eagle Cartouche and putting them on the bottom, dating them we also send each president a cup, their first term, and we'll send it and we'll put the seal of the United States, the presidential seal, and send it to them in a wooden box and say, congratulations, you know, on your election and whatnot Doesn't matter if you have an R or D by your name, right, everyone gets one, because we hear that a lot about. I don't want that cup, I don't want to touch this cup, but we say, hey, we're just markers and this is just a marker in time, right, you know, and we didn't elect them and whatever, we just make the cup with the mark on it.

Janette Marson:

Do you get notes back from the presidents?

Matt Burnett:

Yes, so we do actually have some on display that we got from actual presidents and they actually signed them. As you've gotten further along down the line, they're just kind of boilerplate. The form letter.

Mason Warren:

Yes, thank you.

Matt Burnett:

But we do have some from like Lyndon Johnson, eisenhower and things like that that are actually signed by them, which is kind of fun. And the other thing kind of with our cups that not only can you date them when they're made in a four-year period, and I guess I should also say if it's a second term, it's denoted with a Roman numeral II after the name. The other kind of maybe quirky thing too is when you see our first cups, the Truman cups, we only put HT on the bottom. Quirky thing too is when you see our first cups, the Truman cups, we only put HT on the bottom. We didn't put the three letter, all three letters, on the bottom. So since then we've put all three letters, except with we call him daddy Bush, but George Herbert Walker Bush. Right, we have four initials on the bottom for that. So those are kind of a little different than the normal. But and then the other thing is, once we make those, we make those cups during that four-year period.

Matt Burnett:

Once that president leaves, we cease to make that cup with that mark on it anymore and we don't ever set out to make a certain amount. It's all supply and demand is how we make. So you know, we can forecast a little bit. Always when you have a new president, like the new ones that came out with enrollment in World 2, we'll have an uptick in sales, just because we know we have collectors that collect the whole set. So right now we're up to I guess this is our 20th cup that's come out and so we've got folks that'll. They don't, they don't care, if you know, if they were republican or democrat, they just want the whole collection. Um, and so we we always have. You know, we have a list right now that we still have a waiting list of trying to our craftsmen to get those, because we don't even make the cup, I mean until after inauguration, so we don't make them. We want it to be pure, purely. This cup was made once they were during that time.

Matt Burnett:

Yes, it's not a they're sitting on the shelf and this, that and the other, we make them and we try. So we try to hold firm to that and make it as authentic as possible.

Janette Marson:

That's definitely a hidden gem and wonder. Definitely, Absolutely.

Mason Warren:

So, since receiving one of the cups or a julep cup as a gift, have any of the? I know you've had letters written and responses, but have any presidents become regular customers or anything like that?

Matt Burnett:

Yes, we've had. I guess our biggest one would be Lyndon Johnson. He ordered 650 one year for his cabinet members. Oh really Very cool, excuse me. So he actually he ordered some beforehand and what the story goes was that he was at a cocktail party with juleps there I think he was talking about the cup and somebody had said well, if you'd like to just have this style of the cup or whatever, you gotta look on the bottom and it has his initials on the bottom of the cup. So um and so that kind of got us on his radar. His secretary had called and talked to my grandfather and they've ordered just a few, just kind of the trial run, I think from what the writings, he, his writings, and so then one I think it was September, october from what he wrote the president actually called him up on the phone and and they, as he called it, did a little horse trading and some for it People said about Lennon.

Matt Burnett:

Johnson, that was probably. That was probably very true. But you know, my grandfather was like, well, mr President, that's a tough order to 650 cups in this amount of time Like I said, as I alluded to before, these are handmade and he was like, well, scarce, I know you can get it done. And so anyway, he got it done and they got it to DC in time to be able to give those out as gifts to his cabinet members and whatnot that's amazing.

Matt Burnett:

So that's kind of our biggest one and Johnson's probably our most popular cup, or the most made, I should say I'm sure my grandfather probably pushed those pretty hard after he knew that they were present.

Matt Burnett:

The other presidents we've had I know the Bush family used them as well. George W Bush, he used those when they would go abroad. He would use those as gifts to dignitaries when they would show up. So we'd have our box there in a presentation box and the seal of the president on there and sometimes something a little note on the back to denote the visit or whatever. So anyway, that was kind of another one. And then we've also I know the ambassador to England from the US, matthew Barzon, I believe his name was. He bought one to give as a Christian gift for Prince George a few years ago.

Janette Marson:

Very neat. Anyway. Now, apart from the julep cups, which is very cool, downstairs you have a really awesome silver collection. Is that like the largest silver collection in the world, or where did that come from? I just think it's neat looking down there.

Matt Burnett:

So what she alluded to was our silver vault, and so our silver vault. A lot of if you ever come to the gallery, it's a lot of our rooms in which you'll see architecture is fashioned after travels in England, and so the silver vault is fashioned after the London silver vaults, which were basically re subterranean retail spaces that were revived after world war two. They originally were bank vaults. They got blown up and then when they rebuilt uh, you know infrastructure, whatever, instead of them being bank vaults, they ended up putting retail spaces, you know infrastructure or whatever, instead of them being bank vaults, they ended up putting retail spaces, you know underground. And so what you'll see where we have it is basically you know what you would see if you went to the London silver vaults.

Matt Burnett:

And so my grandfather, he loved silver and so at one time we had probably the largest collection in the US of English and English silver. Very good so, and we still do that. We've moved it around and we still have silver down there. You know, our business is ebb and flows with times and so people don't use silver as much and maybe have the large dinner parties as they used to, but there's still pockets of people that do, and we're kind of a survivor, I think. Think in the sense that we're still here and doing it. So that smaller pocket of people, you know they, they know what we do and hopefully they'll come ring the register for us.

Janette Marson:

Absolutely Well. You must be polishing day and night, because it's always beautiful down there. You know silver.

Matt Burnett:

And we also. Yeah, well, there's a lot of polishing, but there's also a lot of in these days. There's a lot of polishing, but there's also a lot of these days a lot of preventative things that you can maintenance. You can do prior or after you use a piece to kind of help put tarnish at bay a little bit more. So a lot of good products out there to help with that.

Mason Warren:

And we've talked a little bit about it. It's a 30,000 square foot building. I don't know how many rooms, but they're all full of amazing antiques. Do you source your like?

Matt Burnett:

how do you get them? How do you find what you're going to sell in the gallery? So a lot of it is just just going to england and sourcing it. Uh, that was the original kind of setup it's.

Matt Burnett:

It's changed over the years and also, um, we have a warehouse, uh, you know, over on uh, that runs from Maine to Washington or to Henry Clay excuse me that we have three floors in there as well. And the reason we have a warehouse is because when you buy a large amount of antiques, you have to almost get a container or two of them to make its cost prohibitive if you try to just do one piece, so we have to get a container. The setup before was, and we still have. Do one piece, so we have to get a container. Um, the setup before was, and we still have a little bit of. We have buyers over there.

Matt Burnett:

You know, it's kind of building relationships and people end up knowing what you want, what your customers want, how you operate, what you're looking for, and so you know the it used to be. You know, send polaroid pictures and it would you know three weeks before you get something and see it now it's's just instantaneous. Yes, no, yes, no. That's kind of how it worked out. We also would not buy every year. We're playing with exchange rates, so we have to time when we buy things and when we don't, because some years we can get things half price some things. It's 30% higher. You've got to do a little forecasting too on that. That's primarily where we've got it. It's 30 percent higher, so it's kind of a. You know, you got to do a little forecasting too on that, so that's that's primarily where we've got it.

Matt Burnett:

We, we used to say we didn't buy in our backyard, so to speak, which would be maybe the continental us or even closer. But um, today, with just technology and you know, everything's online and at your fingertips. It it makes it a lot easier to. You. Don't have to get a hold I. I can buy things here stateside now.

Janette Marson:

Oh, that's good.

Matt Burnett:

Just because so much was brought over here. I mean, our look had the heyday was probably, you know, starting in the 70s, 80s and 90s. It's changed but it's there's still again where there's pockets of people it's just not necessarily, just not necessarily involved. We always say we're kind of in a deeper trough in the sense of the style and what the what the look is, but it'll come back at some point. I mean, if you look at what antiques uh, some of the pricing of that today, versus buying something brand new there's got, there's gonna be apex somewhere where they cross up where it's going to cost more just to buy something brand new that doesn't maybe even have the history or the character or the material that withstands the test of time that antiques can.

Matt Burnett:

So you know we're just holding strong to that and we believe that, and there's nothing wrong with new things, don't get me wrong. But for those that you know love history and love to have nice things, and you know we're there for them love to have nice things and and uh, you know we're, we're there for them, and you guys are very, very famous for your Christmas displays every year.

Janette Marson:

Yes, um, and so talk a little bit about, um, what it takes to get ready for Christmas, cause it is for those of you that have never been to Wakefield scarce or seen the Christmas displays. It is definitely something to travel for, but how long does it take to get ready and tell us how many rooms? Just describe what it's like at Christmas.

Matt Burnett:

Sure. So we have about 30 display rooms and in every room we do a different tree, a different theme. So it's a lot and we've already just to kind of give you the life cycle of it we've already bought for this year. So markets there's markets all time of year, but the big one is in Atlanta and that was the second week in January. So we've already bought and just now it's more processing and getting ready and all this. So we already had our themes ready and all this. And that's just the life cycle of how you do business. Today Everything's kind of just-in-time manufacturing For certain things, if you want it. Nobody keeps anything on shelves, so you've got to get your orders in early and often, and even then you're not guaranteed to get things.

Janette Marson:

Now, do you design or do you have some? Is it your whole team? How do you decide how to make it glorious, like you do every year?

Matt Burnett:

So we have a Christmas coordinator, okay, and that's basically.

Mason Warren:

What a fun job.

Matt Burnett:

Yeah, that's basically, for the most part, her singular job is, you know, just to come up with the themes, come up with the ideas, and that's ornaments that we call sit-arounds, ribbons, colors, all the things that kind of tie it together. What the room looks like, you know, and so where it will be all the different. Is it going to be a bedroom, is it going to be an office? So all those different things, and that's kind of her job. Her job is singular job. And then the rest of us, we're there just to support her. You know we may help her move things or, you know, say, yeah, that's probably this, that or the other, but but yeah, she's.

Mason Warren:

She comes in with the vision, correct, gotcha.

Matt Burnett:

And we'll and we may say you know, obviously I'm the money guy and I have the purse drink, so I do have to give them a budget Right. So that's the other consideration. And so you know I have to do some forecasting and saying I don't know what the economy is going to look like from one year to the next, but you kind of can feel a little bit of the winds, how they're blowing, and so you try to figure that out, obviously.

Janette Marson:

So how long does it take you to get all set up? Once everything comes in, you're like we're ready. How long does it take?

Matt Burnett:

So they start probably around September and part of the reason we start that early is that there is a lot. But also we kind of kick off Christmas earlier than a lot of people like to, because our kickoff is always the day after Election Day and we've had it like that for years and there's kind of a couple reasons for that, because some people are like I don't want to look at christmas until thanksgiving is over. I get that. But also we know that people plan before before christmas what their mantle looks like or what they want. You know if they have a different theme. So you know we want we do that early so they have time.

Matt Burnett:

So when you know thanksgiving hits, they've already got their items and they're ready to go versus. You know, if you start, you know if we kicked off Christmas after Thanksgiving, then you only have sometimes only two or three weeks to sell things. So we get I mean, in our home we get it. We don't usually pull out Christmas until Thanksgiving. But that extra, you know, four or five weeks prior to the Thanksgiving Black Friday kind of thing, when it official kind of kicks off just helps Right.

Janette Marson:

And then all the decorations are for sale. Yes, people can come in and just buy it all.

Matt Burnett:

Yes, yes, and it's fun for us. I mean kind of the oxygen keeps us going year after year. As you know, we're kind of on our third generation of folks that have come in and it's just always kind of just really cool to see grandmothers, mothers and their kids come in, and it's their tradition. They come every year. It kicks off their Christmas, or they just do it every year, and they have a lot of their ornaments in their home. Their tree is. Each year they pick it off a tree or pick something special, and so that helps us.

Matt Burnett:

When you know you get tired of looking at it all the time, that you know you see that people light up and that it's a special place for a lot of people to come and and and not only for just families, but even, you know, friends. We're kind of a good central location between Louisville and Lexington, or we have a lot of folks from Cincinnati that actually come down our way as well, which you wouldn't think, but we do. They love to come down this way, and so you know those are some other little things that add to the whole ambiance of it and for us on the other side of it to keep us going.

Mason Warren:

Well, when it's as spectacular as it is, you know, worth the drive? Yes, definitely worth the drive yeah going. Well, when it's as spectacular as it is, you know, worth the drive. Definitely worth the drive. Yeah, so we've talked, we've alluded to it a little bit, but can you talk about the space that the gallery is in it was? You talked about the Science Hill Female Academy a little bit, but can you explain some of the history of that?

Matt Burnett:

Sure, sure, well, we've, we've got a exciting year this year. We've, we'll be. The school will be celebrating 200 years on March 25th of this year. Started in 1825 by Julia Tevis. The school ended up in 1939.

Matt Burnett:

After everything was built it was a little over 30,000 square feet. The humble roots of it it started as just a two-story house on the west side of the property, our lot number three in all of Shelby County. We don't know exactly when the house was built because I think the lot was sold in like 1792, and then the school started in 1825. So somewhere in that period there was a sale of the lot. The records got destroyed so there wasn't. But because of the appreciation of a sale prior to 1825, the Tevis's, we figured there was some kind of structure on there. So it started in 1825, and then the first Julia Tevis was from Kentucky, got educated in Virginia, was quartering a Methodist minister at this point and he was being called back to the wilderness which was Chubbyville and Science Hill is kind of right on the US 60 corridor which was the main artery between Louisville and Lexington. So he primarily was working in Louisville but he was being called back to this area. And then finally, when the school started 1825, and they just put out a you know I guess, a flyer, some kind of advertisement that they were and they had just kind of day students. But as the school grew then he finally asked if he could be closer and work in Shelbyville and he did. And so then, as the school grew, they started building more infrastructure. So the year after 1826, they kind of built another wing that faces south, and then the next year they built another wing, another two-story wing, and then there was another run that runs kind of perpendicular to those that was built in 1830. That was the dining room for the girls. So that part has been serving meals and cooking meals since 1830 in there.

Matt Burnett:

The chapel area that I alluded to for the gallery where we had all our, where we housed originally all our things that we imported, that was built in 1859. And then in 1860, at this point, if you think about it, these are like four different buildings and they all have back doors, so it's like a kind of a quad. I guess you would call it still open area. There's grass, probably in between or some kind of probably stone walkways. But then in 1860, a roof was put on all these buildings and they were all kind of tied together at that point. So that was kind of the evolution of it and that kind of coincided with the Poynter family taking over as well.

Matt Burnett:

The Poynter family kind of took the school to the next level. Dr Poynter would go up north like toley and Vassar and see what their curriculums were, and then he brought that back here and basically had a partnership with them. If a girl graduated here she had automatic admission to those schools which were the top girl schools. And Science Hill was unique in the sense that it was, I think, the first Protestant girl's school west of the Allegheny Mountains. So that was another one. And also Julia was very progressive for her day. It's called Science Hill. It's a pretty simple formula. If you see our building, we're up on a hill right down from where we're doing this podcast and she wanted to teach girls math and science, all the things the boys were taught that the girls were not really focused on. So she was very progressive for a day and that was kind of what was called that.

Janette Marson:

Well, very, very, very, very cool, and you were talking about the 200th anniversary, so do you have big plans for? Tell us about it.

Matt Burnett:

So the bicentennial we've been planning we're going to have a Saturday, march 22nd, from 10 am to 4 pm. We're going to have kind of a community event day and we'll have a stage in kind of the indoor courtyard area and we'll have different, different activities. We're going to have somebody that will be there in as Miss Tevis that will kind of be doing a monologue and kind of talking as Miss Tevis. Then we'll have somebody that will be doing historical, appropriate clothing kind of what they call it clothing deconstruction, so you'll be able to on the men's and women's side. So you'll be able to on the men's and women's side, so you'll be able to kind of see what they wore and how they wore it and those things. One fun thing we will have is we'll have a spelling bee Very good and then we'll have some other folks up there that will be kind of being like science teachers of the time and then in the rooms we'll have different you know kind of different easels and different props and things that kind of. You know, as you walk through the building kind of be like, well, this room was used for this, or this is where the girls lived and this is how many lived in there and things like that. So that day we'll have people kind of on the campus as well. That will be, you know, like a leather maker, maybe a woodworker. You know people that were in that time period and how they worked and whatnot. I think we may have a couple food trucks over there as well, just, you know, for people to have lunch and whatnot, and we will have a schedule of times. We will be posting that to our website and then also facebook and kind of instagram.

Matt Burnett:

And then that evening, starting around six o'clock, we'll have we're gonna have a bicentennial dinner. It'll be reserved only to 75 people. Tickets are 75 each. So we'll start a cocktail hour and we're gonna have a we're gonna-appropriate punch, kind of a liquor punch I don't know exactly what it's called, but they're going to make a punch for that. I think we'll have some wine.

Matt Burnett:

We're going to have live entertainment somebody playing the piano for a little cocktail hour for about an hour and a half, and then we will have dinner start at 7.15, and we will have a um kind of speaking on. Uh, julia actually wrote about the first her thoughts on the first day of the school when it opened, and so we're going to read from her book with that kind of an opening, and then we'll have, um, I might, I may talk a little bit just saying hello and welcome. And then we'll have another hopefully speaker kind of talking about historical, uh, maybe just even education in Kentucky and how it all ties in there. And then we're going to have a kind of a we'll have a period-appropriate meal out of an old cookbook from I think it was 1827 or something like that.

Janette Marson:

That sounds fabulous, Sounds very fun. So how do you?

Mason Warren:

I have a ticket, but how do other people get tickets?

Matt Burnett:

Sure, yeah, the biggest thing will be if they go to our Facebook page. That's probably we'll have a flyer there. We'll put flyers out as well, but it'll be a QR code on there that you can scan with your phone. That's probably going to be the easiest way, because if things change then without making it set you know, we can always change things and make it a little more fluid. But that's pretty much the set schedule there. But they go to Instagram or Facebook or even just our website, wakefieldscarescom slash events. You should be able to find all the information there. Hopefully you already liked our page on Facebook.

Mason Warren:

If not, go like it please, and on Facebook you're Wakefield Scares Galleries.

Matt Burnett:

Yeah, just Wakefield Scares. Okay, Just Wakefield Sca. Yeah, so, um, and that's yeah. So we're, we're excited about uh, about that, you know. So we're uh, and we'll probably have some other things throughout the year. I mean, we'll be celebrating all year, but this will be the main kind of kickoff for celebrating the 200th year Very, very exciting.

Janette Marson:

So, um, people are going to probably listen to this and they're going to want to rush over to wakefield scarce galleries. Um, what's your hours like on a regular basis?

Matt Burnett:

sure days and so right now our winter hours are, uh, wednesday through saturday from 10 am to 4 pm. We're always open for private showings and and other. You know those kind of schedules because we know people travel on certain days and that's fine too. But, um, you know thewise, that's it. When it comes to Christmas, then we'll be open an extra day. We'll be open Tuesday through Saturday, but that usually doesn't hit until October, november. So that's kind of our main schedule right now.

Janette Marson:

Well, for those of you that have never been to Wakefield Scares Gallery, it is truly spectacular. It's an experience both inside and out. You've got the garden area that it feels like you're just walking into an English garden, which is probably what it's fashioned after it is yeah.

Matt Burnett:

Yeah, and we know some people don't like antiques, but we still say come on out, because even if you can appreciate some history, oh, the history behind everything and the things.

Matt Burnett:

Yeah, I mean you can come bring a lunch, sit down in our courtyard, inside or out, and enjoy the thing. I mean we have a lot of things, you know, walls of photographs and manuscripts and report cards and just some. You know paraphernalia and things like that from the school that you can get a, get caught up on it and see their curriculums. You can see what you know, the grades, you see what the girls wrote about. Even kind of up on the third floor there's the window panes up there where the girls lived you know there's etchings of their with their, with rings, diamond rings that they would put their names in there, and the dates and stuff like that. So definitely history around every corner. Whether you're into antiques or just historical buildings, it's been a good marriage for what we do business-wise and a good historical property.

Janette Marson:

Well, I remember you showed me the boiler room. I even thought the boiler room was awesome.

Matt Burnett:

Yes, yes.

Janette Marson:

Every inch of it is amazing.

Mason Warren:

Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, thank you for being here, and then I don't have any other questions. Do you have any?

Janette Marson:

I do not Thank you so much for being here.

Matt Burnett:

Yeah, we appreciate you. Thank you all for inviting us and come see us. Absolutely, thank you.

Mason Warren:

This has been Kentucky Hidden Wonders. Thank you to Matt Burnett for coming on the show to talk about Wakefield's Cache Galleries and thank you for listening. If you've made it this far, make sure you subscribe and leave us a review. It means the world to us. We'll be back in two weeks with a brand new Kentucky Hidden Wonder. Bye everyone. Kentucky Hidden Wonders is a Shelby KY Tourism production. Your hosts are Janet Marson and Mason Horan. To learn more about Shelby KY Tourism and to start planning a visit, head to visitshelbykycom.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Janette Marson

Host
Head Shot

Mason Warren

Host
Contributor

Matt Burnett

Guest