Louisville Glassworks

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Snead Manufacturing Building
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
The outside of one of Louisville Glassworks studios in downtown Louisville
Location:	Louisville, KY
Coordinates:	38°15′22.41″N 85°45′51.78″W / 38.256225, -85.7643833Coordinates: 38°15′22.41″N 85°45′51.78″W / 38.256225, -85.7643833
Built/Founded:	1910
Architect:	Murphy D.X. & Brothers
Architectural style(s):	No Style Listed
Added to NRHP:	August 01, 1978
NRHP Reference#:	78001367 ^[1]
Governing body:	Private

The Louisville Glassworks is located in the West Main District of Downtown Louisville, Kentucky and is a multi-use facility. There are three working glass studios, two glass galleries, and daily tours.^[2] Lofty Living manages the building leases.

1 History
2 Other features at the Glassworks building
3 External links
4 References

[edit] History

From 1850 to 1901, at least seven different glass factories operated in Louisville. Six were bottle houses, and the other did window and plate glass. In 1850 the Kentucky Glass Works was formed, which would later become Louisville Glassworks but at no time was either referred to as an actual company.^[3] The firms' names since 1850 that bottled under the names of Kentucky Glassworks or Louisville Glassworks consisted of Taylor Stanger Ramsey & Company (1850, for a few months), Douglass & Taylor (1850-1855; listed as the "Douglass Glass Works" in an 1851 city directory), Douglass Rutherford & Company (1855-1856), Stanger Doyle & Co. (1856), Krack Stanger & Co. (1856-1864), J.A.Krack & Co. (1864 - Feb 1, 1866), Krack & Reed (Feb.1, 1866-1869), Krack Reed & Co. (1869-1871), and L.S. Reed & Brother (1871-1873).^[3] During the 19th century the glass companies in Louisville mainly purchased their sand from a business in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. In 1896 Edwin Penna began operation of the Glassworks, and has gone under five generations of Penna ownership.^[4] The Louisville Glassworks opened in 2001 with the Architectural Glass studio fathering it, but still under ownership with Page von Roenn passed down from Kenneth F. von Roenn Jr which received ownership from Edwin Penna III. The Louisville Glassworks is currently under its fifth generation of ownership.^[4]

The downtown location has historically been known as the Snead Manufacturing Building, and was put on the National Register in 1978. Snead was responsible for building many iron buildings around the country. After the old building burnt down, the architect was told to build a "first-class fireproof power building".^[5]

[edit] Other features at the Glassworks building

The Louisville Glassworks location also houses a jazz club restaurant which offers tapas-style food, a salon on the 7th floor, and a luxury hotel. Loft Living also has an office inside the building.