Blue Grass Energy (Fox Creek RECC)

​Consultants working with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet worked to survey the Blue Grass Energy/Fox Creek Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation (RECC) office in 2022. These investigations documented the electric co-op office building and auditorium/community room at 1200 Versailles Road in Lawrenceburg, an example of mid-century modern architecture in Anderson County.  The design, a local variation of the prevailing International Style of the mid-century, is composed of three distinct bays or sections:  the central entrance bay sheltered by a canopy, offices to the right (west) and an auditorium/community room to the left (east).​

​The Blue Grass Energy/Fox Creek RECC building in Anderson County helps to document the local expression of the International Style of architecture which emerged in the 1920s and 30s but still found purchase in 1960s Kentucky.  It also documents the continued importance of electrical cooperatives for farmers in rural areas who originally took advantage of funding from the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 which provided Federal funds for the construction of power lines to serve rural areas.  The original location of the Fox Creek RECC, organized in 1938, was on Main Street in Lawrenceburg.  There are only two other rural electric cooperative headquarters known to have been designed by the same Lexington architectural firm of Bayless, Clotfelter and Johnson, one in Nicholasville and the other in Gray, Kentucky.  Unfortunately, mid-century design is disappearing every day.  Another Bayless designed structure, the quirky and cool Peoples Bank at 343 South Broadway in Lexington (circa 1961) with its zigzag central canopy and turquoise brick cladding was demolished in 2017.  The Blue Grass Energy/Fox Creek RECC building is a reminder of the importance of preservation of structures representing the more recent past.​