123 Henry Clay Rd
ADDRESS: 123 Henry Clay Road
BUILT: 1885
ARCHITECTURAL STYLE: Italianate/Second Empire
J. Palmer and Ella Tinsley Gordon purchased this lot in 1885 and built their home in 1888. It was a two-story cottage with Italianate details, a Mansard roof, and a bow window in the front. One writer called it the Birthday Cake House.
A one-story kitchen with a long laundry porch was located in a separate building to the south of the house. Kitchens at that time were sometimes separated from the main house because of the danger of fire. According to the Sanborn Insurance Maps, by the 1920s, the breezeway between the house and kitchen had been enclosed attaching it to the house.
Palmer Gordon was a florist. Across James Street he installed greenhouses and a windmill for his business. On the lot where 200 Henry Clay Road now stands, he maintained an orchard.
At his death in 1938, Palmer’s son Willie took over the business. He brought his son-in-law, Reginald Joseph Long, into the business renaming it Gordon & Long Florist. When Gordon & Long sold the business in the 1990s, it was one of the longest standing original businesses in Ashland.
When Palmer Gordon died, the house passed to his second wife Alice, and then to his daughters Alverda Elizabeth Gordon and Alice Louise Gordon. The Gordon family owned the house for 75 years before selling it in 1963 to James and Patsy Dooley.
Jay and Pat Pace followed the Dooleys in the house and lived here for 30 years until Jay’s death in 2004. He was a reporter, editor and then publisher of the Herald-Progress. You can see a wonderful statue of Jay Pace in the plaza in front of the Richard Gillis Library sitting on a bench reading his newspaper.