Kick-Ass Kentucky

I'm sure y'all have seen the Kentucky for Kentucky project by now.

If you haven't, it's a couple of guys with deep Kentucky roots (and even deeper Central Kentucky accents) who've set out to make a Super Bowl commercial about our beautiful Commonwealth.  They only need to raise $3.5 million dollars by November 7th.   Their mission is to spread the word of what they call our Kick-Ass Kentucky: the home of beautiful people like Diane Sawyer and George Clooney as well as icons like Dr. Thompson and the Colonel, and the birthplace of bluegrass music and bourbon.  Now, I think this is brilliant.  It's the perfect blend: it's funny, a bit ironic, and infused with a deep love of our homeland.  It makes me want to support the project, and to dine at Griffin Van Meter's fabulous Stella's Kentucky Deli even more than I already do. (Seriously, y'all.  Go there. Now. You'll thank me.)

Since I first saw this video a few weeks ago, I've thought a lot about a "Kick-Ass Kentucky." Now, I think it's both hilarious and commendable that these guys are spreading the word about our awesome state in a country boy-meets-hipster fashion. Sometimes, I'm forced to acknowledge that the whole world doesn't always think Kentucky is quite as Kick-Ass as I (and the dudes behind the commercial efforts) do.

Over the years, I've worked for a international, Midwestern-based corporation and lived in a large Southern city.  I've encountered a lot of stereotypes, half-baked ideas, and general misconceptions about the Commonwealth.   I've explained, time and again, that my family is neither toothless and illiterate nor the owners of champion racehorses.  It's the oddest thing to me, it seems that  I always encounter Kentucky stereotypes that place us in the extreme ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. Somewhere between explaining that I'd never once dated a cousin and that I'd never sat beside Jessica Simpson on Millionaire's Row, I realized that, like most stereotypes, these arise more from ignorance than malice. The truth is, most of the Kentuckians I know are educated and hard-working.  My friends drive Volvos, carry Kate Spade bags,  nurse a Starbucks addiction and watch Jon Stewart.  The Kentucky of my adult life isn't all that different from anyplace else I could live.

Well, except for the fact that Kentucky is a little more Kick-Ass.

Kentucky Places: The Seelbach

Louisville's Seelbach Hotel is a throwback to more elegant days. With a storied past that includes bourbon with Scott Fitzgerald and poker with Al Capone, the Seelbach is a flashy time capsule amidst downtown Louisville's office buildings and tourist sites.

Built in the early 1900s by Bavarian brothers Otto and Louis Seelbach, the hotel became synonymous with luxury.  The early guest list included gangsters like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, as well as Presidents Taft and Harding. F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have been ejected from the Seelbach after a night of debauchery, and later included the hotel as the backdrop for Daisy and Tom Buchanan's wedding in The Great Gatsby.

The Seelbach has been renovated, rebranded, and reinvented many times since its 1905 opening, but retains the elegance and charm of its early years.  Most every Kentucky girl has a Seelbach story; we've attended frat formals and weddings  in the Rathskeller,  met colleagues for drinks in the lobby bar, and dined in the five-diamond Oak Room.  It's as much a Louisville tradition as baseball bats or horse racing.

I always recommend the Seelbach to anyone visiting Louisville for the first (or the fortieth) time.  The  gorgeous rooms, complete with four-poster mahogany beds, are the epitome of Southern hospitality. (Did I mention that my beloved labrador, Max, was treated like a king there?)  It's thrilling to imagine you're staying among the ghosts of Prohibition-era gangsters or Jazz Age belles.  The Starbucks (around the corner from my beau's old office) is the best in the city.  The lunch buffet at Otto's is a downtown tradition.  And the services at Z Salon are amazing. (I can't recommend the massages highly enough!)

Just try to keep yourself a little more restrained than Fitzgerald did...

Seelbach Hilton
500 Fourth Street
Louisville, KY 40202
http://www.seelbachhilton.com

Lexington Style

Image via Ralph Lauren.

Ralph Lauren famously once stated, "I could design my entire collection based solely on the style of three places: The Hamptons, Santa Fe and Lexington, Kentucky."  In 2006, Esquire Magazine named Kentucky the most stylish state in the Union.  And, legendary designers Mark Badgley and James Mischka's Central Kentucky horse farm is said to be as fabulous as their bridal designs. (Which, in a related note, why am I not BFF with Badgley Mischka? I think we've just set my goal for 2012, y'all.)

Image via Ralph Lauren

Lexington is far from a world fashion capital.  It'll never be confused with Milan, Paris, or New York.  But its style is undeniable.  It's still the kind of town where people dress up for a nice restaurant.  You don't see flip-flops or dressy shorts at cocktail parties, nor do "dressy jeans" constitute dinner attire.  It's the kind of place where a small-town haberdasher bases his collection directly on an suit designed for Edward VIII.

But, yet, Lexington seems neither as formal nor as over-the-top as these images suggest.  That Lexington style boasts a heavy equestrian influence is undeniable, but it's far less garish and in-your-face than Mr. Lauren would have you believe.  The town's truly horsey folk are often seen in faded, relaxed jeans and barn jackets, and their broken-in boots are constantly caked in mud.  And, Lexington never stops being an SEC college town.  When I think of Lexington's style, I immediately envision preppy frat boys in navy blazers and khakis tailgating at Keeneland with their sundress-clad girlfriends.  I picture the Junior League Horse Show, which boasts more per-capita Lilly Pulitzer dresses than the Breakers on Labor Day weekend.  I picture the ubiquitous needlepoint  and horse-harness belts.  And, then, I picture all the blue.

Kentucky Girl Dress via Red Dress Boutique

Wildcat Blue is everywhere in Lexington.  It isn't a gameday tradition; it's an everyday tradition.  You see it on license plates and serving plates.  You see it on casual wear and business wear.  You see it on well-heeled season ticket holders, who occupy the floor seats and the skyboxes.  You see it on the adorable little mamaws who've driven in from nearby counties to cheer on their team.   You see it on infants, for whom fandom is a birthright.  In so many ways, it's the color of Lexington itself.

My new besties, via Elle Decor

I think that Lexington's style is a great analogy for the town itself; there are some fancy aspirations, but it never forgets its small-town roots.  There are so many influences which combine for an elegant yet easy style.  It screams "authentic" rather than "couture."  It's way more than a brand name, a label, or a single "style."  It's a pretty, tasteful aesthetic as graceful as the Central Kentucky countryside.

But, of course, if Bagdley and Mischka ("Mark and James" to me, natch, since we're soon to be besties) want to meet me at Jonathan's for a cocktail soon, I'm all about the labels...

My Kentucky: Lexington Born and Louisville Bred

I was born in Lexington but grew up in Louisville, among a family of storytellers whose tales are so tied to this place that the stories and their settings are impossible to separate. When I was a child, my family would get in the car and embark on a family history tour of Louisville. We’d visit the sites of my grandmother’s stories, and she’d come along to narrate. Hearing her tales was and still is fascinating; it gave even the most mundane places in my hometown a sense of personal history.

Because of those stories and that tradition, my Kentucky is all tied up with the places where life has unfolded.

My Kentucky is the old JP Kayrouz, where my mother would take me for Benedictine sandwiches on days I was off of school. It’s dashing across the street to Plehn’s Bakery for almond macaroons after lunch, and I swear those macaroons still taste like freedom.

My Kentucky is the St. Matthews Woman’s Club, where I put on white gloves and went through a receiving line every Friday night of my early adolescence. It’s the agony and the ecstasy of Southern cotillion rituals; it's surviving it all somehow and being rewarded with a cookie and a bottle of Coke at the end of the night.

My Kentucky is that stretch of road on Frankfort Avenue, where as a teenager I once experienced the transcendence that only a newly-earned drivers license and a song by the Cranberries can provide.

My Kentucky is heading to Dee’s Crafts each April to design my Derby hat. It’s the ability to pair the hat with the ribbon with the flowers to coordinate with the dress. It’s the instinct, possessed by Louisville girls, that dictates exactly how much is too much; it's knowing to stop just before you cross that line.

My Kentucky is the BW-3’s in St. Matthews, where I met my husband through mutual friends as we gathered to watch UK play in the Maui Invitational Tournament. It’s the corner of Breckinridge Lane and Shelbyville Road, where we shared a thrilling first kiss a few months later. (As my grandmother would say, “He chased me until I caught him.”)

My Kentucky is the bridge I crossed to leave for Chicago when I was a new bride. It was the same bridge that brought us home for good with our first baby a few years later. (Incidentally, don’t get us Louisvillians started on the topic of bridges).

My Kentucky is the Highlands home I share with my husband and two young daughters. It’s drinking wine and playing cards on the porch after the girls go to bed. It’s the tree-lined streets where we walk and drive, the restaurants where we eat, the parks where we play. It’s stopping for coffee at the Heine Brothers in Douglass Loop, and knowing that my great-grandparents once shopped at the market there. It’s the comfort of knowing that the places that once were theirs are mine now.

Kentucky fits me in a way no place else does, and living here gives me the opportunity to share this place with my two little girls. How could I ever properly pass Kentucky along to them if we lived anywhere else? It’s more than a story I could tell them, or a recipe I could make for them. It’s more than wearing Wildcat blue or a Derby hat. Kentucky can be appreciated in pieces, from afar, but you have to live every day among its places and its people to truly understand.

In Photos: Fasig-Tipton and Kentucky Horse Park

I wanted to share some photos from some of the land between the Kentucky Horse Park

and Fasig-Tipton near Lexington. When I think of what I am proud of about Kentucky, the beauty from these places can't be ignored. As a

reluctant Kentuckian

, I am ashamed to say I lived in Lexington for over 10 years and never saw this beauty. Shame.

These were taken while I was completing a half-marathon, and weren't all taken by my camera. They're in a jumble of photos from the event on my computer, mixed between my camera, my friend Amber's camera.

Seriously. How could you not think this is beautiful?

You don't see this everyday! (In Kentucky Horse Park)

In Fasig-Tipton

Entry to Fasig-Tipton

Look! The Lexington Police even made an appearance escorting my slow self down Newtown Pike!

It's amazing what you can see if you just break out of your little bubble!

My Kentucky: Paducah & Beyond

My Kentucky is the land of my ancestors - generations of people who have inhabited the same hills and streams and towns I call home.

My Kentucky is the place of my birth. It is my roots. It is my past. It is the start of my story.

My Kentucky is the centerpiece of my childhood where every 4th of July was spent on Kentucky Lake and every Christmas downtown at my great-grandmother's house on Jefferson Street.

My Kentucky is the place I couldn't wait to escape from as a teenager when every familiar place and friendly face seemed like a prison.

My Kentucky offered up a new life to me in college, when I drove east along the Western Kentucky Parkway singing Wide Open Spaces at the top of my lungs.

My Kentucky was independence and "big" city living in Lexington as I crossed North Broadway a thousand times and learned who I was during my time at Transy.

My Kentucky wasn't home for five years. Five years spent defending her to anyone who dare insult her good name.

My Kentucky waited patiently for me to return - secretly knowing all along that the only thing my children could or would ever be were Kentuckians.

My Kentucky has opened up a whole new life for me. A life I never dreamed possible.

My Kentucky is the promised land - rolling hills of green and dirt roads and wide open sky that fills you up and make you whole.

My Kentucky is one of the great loves of my life. There always. Supporting me. Loving me. Inspiring me.

My Kentucky: A Lexington Late Bloomer

Fried chicken, horses, white picket fences and farms.

Yuck.

These were my reactions when I learned that my family was moving to Kentucky. Granted, I was only 12 at the time, but based on whatever I “knew” about Kentucky, this was going to suck. I liked Georgia. I was leaving my world of friends, sweet tea, peaches, boiled peanuts and grits.

Unfortunately, I fought Kentucky for years. My introverted nature made it hard to make friends, and I always longed for a different place. I spent my high school summers at fat camp near San Diego, where I tried to convince people that even though I lived in Kentucky, I wore shoes and didn’t have a horse. I dreamed of going to college in California, which seemed so large and amazing to me. I applied to several California universities and got in to them. Imagine my crazy disappointment when the financial aid and scholarships weren’t enough to convince my parents (who were going through a divorce and my mom was dealing with a degenerative neurological disease) to spend $20K per year plus all my expenses when I could go to the University of Kentucky for next-to-nothing.

I grunted and grumbled and dreamed of other, more exotic places I could be. (Yes, at that time I thought California was “exotic.” Silly me). I was an advertising major, and went to an advertising conference in NYC and decided that I could go to California OR New York. And for that point, I could also go to Chicago or Atlanta. Truly, my stubborn mind wanted to be anywhere but Kentucky.

Looking back, I can see where my loyalties started to change. My freshman year I went to UK basketball games and joined the frenzy of the Big Blue Nation. I had blue eyeliner to write “UK” on my cheeks, and had blue nail polish to match. I went to Keeneland a few times and liked the pretty horses. I met a down-home Kentucky boy and fell in love. I was hooked, for better or for worse.

My blood turned blue when I got to grad school. I quit my job and went into an intensive MBA program at UK. There, I spread my Lexington wings and finally learned how to fly. Nights downtown sitting outside a bar nursing a bourbon and diet coke after a day of tailgaiting, horse races and socializing at Keeneland. I discovered the Lexington Farmers Market, apple picking at Boyds Orchard, events at The Limestone Club, and corn hole in the backyard. And vineyards - did you know Kentucky has many of them, on old tobacco land? This girl even got married in one, under the speldor of the Kentucky fall (on the day that UK beat LSU's #1 ranked football team, no less. The UK fight song erupted over the DJs speakers). My grooms cake was Lexington's famous Spalding donuts, and we drank Kentucky wine and Kentucky beer.

I now hang out with a friend in her Highlands neighborhood in Louisville, wandering up and down Bardstown Road along with the hipsters in the hoodies and prepsters with Bugaboos. I even *gasp* joined the Junior League and quickly learned to appreciate all things Lilly Pulitzer, but more importantly, the value of serving the community. This summer I experienced my first Kentucky lake, with the beautiful surroundings and friendly, beer-drinking boaters. The rest of my family left Kentucky years ago, and I've chosen to stay here.

I may have been a late bloomer, but now, my Kentucky is my home.