John C. C. Mayo - Mayo Mansion

Mayo Mansion

By 1905, Mayo had amassed enough wealth to build a larger home in Paintsville. He had married Alice Jane Meek and they now had two children, John C.C. 2nd and Mary Margaret. Mayo had originally planned a modest twenty room house, but following trips to the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, and having in 1904 acquired Varina Farms, the Powhatan Plantation in Mayo's ancestral Virginia, he decided to build a mansion which would rival those he had seen. So plans were expanded for a classic revival mansion with forty rooms. Construction broke ground in a swampy area. The construction crews filled in the swampy area and then went to work on building the foundation for the estate. Sandstone used in the foundation was mined from his father's farm on the other side of Paint Creek. The stones were then transported from the farm across a distance of three-quarters of a mile by an overhead tram. The stone columns surrounding the exterior of the mansion were each transported through Paint Creek during dry periods on sleds pulled by twenty-oxen teams. The masonry for the mansion was performed by Italian stonemasons from Cincinnati. Originally, light was to be provided in the mansion by using carbide gas, but near the end of construction, Paintsville received electrical service. The plans for the mansion were changed to include electrical wiring. The mansion was also designed to include running water, by pumping water from a well to a cistern and then to the house as required. Rain water from the gutters went into the cistern and in turn to the house also. Construction of the mansion was completed in December 1912 with costs in excess of $250,000 ($5,218,361 after being adjusted for inflation). Mayo Mansion is recognized as a registered historic place in Kentucky.