Dr. Thomas Wendell House

The exuberant “Free Classic” Queen Anne house at 335 E. Third Street was built around 1900 by Thomas Jones, a bartender. Richly ornamented, it features brick corbelling, rough-hewn stone lintels, and carved wooden spandrels and panels.

From 1907 to 1953, it was the residence of Dr. Thomas T. Wendell, a Tennessee native who was educated at Meharry Medical College in Nashville. Wendell relocated to Lexington in 1895, taking up employment with W. H. Ballard, a Black pharmacist who practiced on Mill Street. When Wendell and his wife acquired 335 E. Third Street in 1907, the deed was actually conferred to Laura Allen – his mother-in-law.

In 1928, Wendell joined the staff of the Eastern State Hospital, where he remained until his retirement. A building on that campus was named in his honor in 1953; one state senator at the ceremony suspected this was the first instance of a state facility honoring a living man. Wendell passed away two months after receiving this accolade. In addition to his professional activities, Wendell was a long-practicing Mason and a trustee emeritus of St. Paul’s AME Church.

The house remained in the family until 1994, passing first to widow Mary and then to the couple’s daughters, Clara and Laura. Incidentally, Clara Wendell Sttit served as principal of the all-Black Dunbar High School shortly before its closing in the mid-1960s.

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335 East Third Street, Lexington, Kentucky