Bashford Manor

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Historical Marker #2040 in Louisville notes the location of Bashford Manor, a residence of J. B. Wilder, and, later, noted horse racing stable of George J. Long.

Named for an ancestral home in Maryland, James Bennett Wilder had Bashford Manor built by Louisville architect Henry Whitestone in 1874. Constructed in the then popular Second Empire style, the house was the main residence to Wilder's dairy farm that developed near Bardstown Road. The elegant house featured fifteen rooms.

Bashford Manor was purchased in 1887 by wealthy industrialist George J. Long, who converted it into a thoroughbred horse farm. Bashford Manor proved to be a successful operation, producing three Kentucky Derby winners in a fifteen year span in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Long became one of the most well-known names in the racing industry. He served as the director of Churchill Downs and one of the races there was named the Bashford Manor Stakes. Long died in 1930 and was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery.

In 1922, in one of the greatest race horse auctions in Kentucky history, Long sold his stable of sixty-nine horses at auction for almost $77,000. The horse that claimed the highest bid was Ocean Sweep, which sold for $5,100.

In 1951, the Buechel Woman's Club purchased Bashford Manor for their meetings and rented it for special events, including weddings. In 1973, it was sold to the Louisville Trust Bank and then to businessman J. Royden Peabody Jr., who had it razed. In the 1970s, Bashford Manor Mall was built on the old farm’s location, but it was razed in the early 2000s. Other development projects and retail stores now occupy the ground where Bashford Manor and its horse barns once stood.