It’s National Preservation Month once again, and here in Louisville, it’s all too often the case that preservationists find themselves at odds with various development and business interests who quickly dismiss such heritage endeavors as bad for the bottom line. Luckily, we know that preservation and business go hand in hand, and so do a growing number of local entrepreneurs.
Take Tim Koons-McGee, for example, the owner of local ice cream parlor The Comfy Cow. Amy Hess, of KET’s Kentucky Life television show, spoke with Koons-McGee earlier this year about restoring the notoriously dilapidated Queen Anne–style house on the former Genny’s Diner site at 2221 Frankfort Avenue. That once decaying structure had been proposed for demolition, but it now serves as one-bright-pink-half of the local ice cream empire’s most popular locations.
“When we purchased the building, we were just dead-set on improving it and getting it back up to its original glory,” Koons-McGee said in the interview. “It’s one of the best examples of Queen Anne architecture—of Victorian architecture—in Clifton.”
Koons-McGee goes on about why preservation fits with The Comfy Cow brand and his approach to giving back to the community—in addition to what makes his ice cream so good. “It’s not just their acclaimed artisan ice cream that has visitors coming back for more,” Hess said in her segment. “It’s also the connection to their customers. When you walk into The Comfy Cow, it feels like you’re walking into a mom-and-pop shop that really cares about the community.” Take a look at the full interview up above.
Please open a Turquoise Cow in Lexington in the People’s Bank building!! We went through holy hell of public opinion over the so called crazy notion of adaptive reuse and saving the Queen from the hands of its previous owner, sort of like taking an abused dog off its chain and finally giving it the love and life it needed.
This site was destined to become three parking spaces.
Meanwhile back in global downtown – our feckless leader continues to drop great architecture into dumpsters for not much at all. And that’s the difference just a few years has made in Louisville’s forty year preservation effort, also being tossed into the dumpster .
Think about it.