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Photo credit: w.marsh

The Ouerbacker mansion at 1633 W. Jefferson St. Built in the Richardsonian Romanesque style in the 1860s by coffee merchant, Samuel Ouerbacker (1841-1922). For part of the 1920s and 1930s, it also served as the home of an African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church bishop, the Rev. George C. Clement.

Built in the 1860s, the grand but deteriorating Ouerbacker mansion, is one of the finest residences ever built in the Russell neighborhood.  For about 70 years the mansion was used for a tax business, starting in the 1930s. Because of unpaid taxes, the city took over it and has been for the last couple of years entered on the Louisville Historical Leagues list of most endangered properties.

Photo credit: w.marsh

The mansion is named after Samuel Ouerbacker (1841-1922), a prominent coffee merchant who lived there. Ouerbacker was the son-in-law of Alexander Gilmore (1826-1891), a steamboat captain who also lived there.

During the 1920s and 1930s, it also served as the home of the Rev. George C. Clement, a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

The Louisville & Jefferson County Landbank Authority’s request for proposals says that it is “one of the relatively few remaining examples of the Richardsonian Romanesque style of architecture” in the region and that the “distinguished Louisville architectural firm of Clarke and Loomis designed the buildings facade.” The wrap-around facade of the Ouerbacker Mansion is thought to have been added later.

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