Up Home at Holly Hill Inn
story by Donna Hecker & photography by Talitha Schroeder
“All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today……” Inscription on a cross-stitch sampler sewn by Desdemona “Mama Des” Wingate Parrish
“Mama Des”, or more accurately – her ghost – is a featured character in the first episode of our video series. She was the matriarch of the Parrish family, owners since 1900 of the home that eventually became the Holly Hill Inn in Midway, Ky. Mama Des and her husband Isaac had three children: Honeywood, Katherine (Nat), and Jim.
We wander the grounds of Holly Hill Inn today and wonder at the stories living in its walls and gardens, and marvel at the new chapters still being written when a gardener unearths a hand-cut stone block or lays a path with bricks from a fallen chimney.
It’s impossible to know how long the spring beauties have bloomed every March, only that they’re so widely and deeply rooted that acres are blanketed by their snowy blossoms. A pin oak towers over the side yard, said to have been planted by Mama Des around the time Honeywood’s son Isaac (Ike) Rouse was born nearly 100 years ago. A bench dedicated to Mama Des sits at its base.
Our knowledge of Holly Hill only goes back as far as the early nineteenth century, when it was the site of Stevenson’s Tavern, with a post office and shops located nearby. In 1839, Thomas Stevenson sold the property to Hancock Davis. After the tavern burned to the ground, Davis built a three room structure in its place which would later become Holly Hill, working some of the tavern’s reclaimed wood and stone into the new house.
He sold the house and grounds to Squire William Moore in 1854. The squire and Mrs. Moore added many of the Victorian touches still in place and Mrs. Moore continued living there after the squire’s death, eventually selling it to the Parrish family.
The Moores had named their estate Hermosa for a rosebush blooming on the grounds, but to the Parrish family it was simply “up home.” The Parrishes added the wide front porch and poured a concrete floor so the children could roller skate under cover. “Up home” was a bustling, self-contained enterprise with the staff and resources capable of supporting a family and innumerable guests.
Honeywood’s journal describes the time her father piled everyone into his brand-new automobile and drove them down to Harrodsburg, Ky. to visit family. While on that outing, they picked up five-year-old Tom McAfee from the colored orphan’s home. Isaac Parrish added a room for Tom to the servants’ cabin and he lived there until adulthood.
It’s shocking today to try to comprehend a world in which a child of five could be pressed into service. When Tom McAfee came to live and work at the Parrish household, hundreds of children were living in orphans’ homes across the state and Kentucky had not yet enacted compulsory education.
We’ve often wondered about the people who lived “up home” at Holly Hill but not in the “big house.” Those who cooked and cleaned and gardened and looked after the Parrish children. We intend to learn their story, including Tom’s, so their voices can be added to our collective Holly Hill story and shared with all.
After Isaac Parrish’s death, Mama Des and Honeywood’s sister Nat lived on at Holly Hill; brother Jim had died in a drowning accident in his 20s. Honeywood went on to marry Julius Howard Rouse and they had a son, Isaac (Ike) Parrish Rouse. Ike’s daughter Amy Rouse Perry lives next door to Holly Hill Inn today with her husband Mike, in a 1950s ranch-style house built by Ike and his wife Jean.
It was Ike and Jean Rouse, with Honeywood’s guidance, who were responsible for Holly Hill Inn’s transformation into a country inn, continuing its reputation for hospitality, albeit on a larger and more public scale. After considerable renovations, Holly Hill Inn opened to guests in 1979, hosted by innkeepers Rex and Rose Lyons.
Some 20 years later, after a chance meeting with Ike’s son Bob Rouse, Chef Ouita Michel and her husband Chris were offered the opportunity to buy Holly Hill Inn. More renovations ensued and on May 9, 2001, the Michels re-opened Holly Hill Inn as Kentucky’s first true farm-to-table restaurant, fulfilling their dream of supporting Kentucky farmers and creating prix fixe dinners meant to be enjoyed with good wine.
For Ike Rouse, the progression of Hermosa to “up home”, to Holly Hill Inn as a country inn, to Holly Hill Inn the restaurant, was all part of a natural life cycle. He wanted Holly Hill to hold on to its place in the community and for the community to be able to support Holly Hill. In fact, we hardly know where one starts and the other ends, so rooted we are in our landscape.
We never stopped planting seeds at Holly Hill Inn, although these days they’re more likely to bear sugar snap peas or salad herbs than flowers. And we’re still writing our story, watched over by Mama Des, and counting on her to keep an eye on us until it’s complete.
© 2022, Holly Hill Inn/Ilex Summit, LLC and its affiliates, All Rights Reserved
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