Robyn Wilkey saw the blaze in the valley below her home and knew that a piece of Warren County history was in danger. The nearly 200-year-old log cabin she and her husband had renovated and lived in was on fire and there seemed little anyone could do to save it.
When she finally reached the home, her fears were confirmed.
“I knew the minute I went down it was gone,” she said. She fell to her knees and cried as she watched.
Robyn Wilkey’s husband, Bowling Green chiropractor Samuel Wilkey, purchased the home, which dated to 1812, in 1989.
“We had our wedding there in 1993,” in a gazebo they had built behind the home, Robyn Wilkey said. The gazebo and the tall, stone chimneys were about the only things still standing after a fire destroyed the house at 1421 Halls Chapel Road late Saturday evening.
Wilson Foley, deputy fire chief of the Barren River Volunteer Fire Department, said firefighters got the call around 10 p.m. Saturday. When they arrived it was “pretty much involved.”
The home, which was more than 5,000 square feet, was made mostly of American chestnut logs.
“That timber, once it burns, it burns fast,” Foley said.
Firefighters from Hadley, Browning and Richardsville volunteer fire departments also responded to the call, with about 20 firefighters on the scene on a bitterly cold night. Foley said the subfreezing temperatures made fighting the huge blaze even more difficult.
“At one point it was 9 degrees,” Foley said. “We had ice cracking off of people’s clothes.”
The cause of the blaze hasn’t yet been determined.
— Click here to see a photo slideshow from the scene of the fire.
As Robyn Wilkey stood watching the historic home go up in flames, she thought back to the times she and her family shared there during the 14 years they called the cabin home.
Robyn Wilkey said her husband purchased the home because he was drawn to the isolation and the land, as well as the history. The home is situated on 95 acres in a valley off Halls Chapel Road. Together, they spent much time and money renovating and adding on to the cabin.
“It was a labor of love,” Robyn Wilkey said.
The original structure was a two-story log cabin with a dogtrot between the two sections of the house built in 1812. According to deed records, the Shields family, who came as pioneers to Kentucky in the early days of the county, owned the home and hundreds of acres around it into the 1900s. The Shields family sold the home in the 1920s and several families have called it home since then, including former Warren County Circuit Court Judge Robert M. Coleman.
The first addition to the home was built in 1930. In 1994, the Wilkeys added 2,000 square feet, which included a third floor and two balconies. The additions were patterned in the style of the original structure and the Wilkeys worked hard to renovate the older portions of the home.
“Everything was custom-made,” Robyn Wilkey said. “There are so many people who have worked on this home.”
Robyn Wilkey said they enjoyed living in the home, but as two of four children grew up and left home, they decided to go to something smaller. They purchased a home on five acres adjoining their other property and overlooking the cabin in the valley. They have since rented out the historic home, but no one was living in it on the night of the fire.
“Many people are interested in the home,” Robyn Wilkey said. “We had people from California express interest.”
Robyn Wilkey was scheduled to show the home Sunday, the day after the fire. Instead she had to tell the potential renters the home had been destroyed.
Although the cause of the fire is still under investigation, Robyn Wilkey said they suspect it might have been connected to renovations that had just been completed that day.
After surveying the damage, Robyn Wilkey said everything was destroyed, aside from the gazebo and the stone fireplaces and chimneys. The oldest cedar tree in Warren County stood close to the home and appears to have made it through the fire as well.
On Monday, as the loss was beginning to sink in, Robyn Wilkey said they just wanted to make sure people knew about the home and its historic significance to Warren County.
“There aren’t many homes like it left,” she said.

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