Bellevoir

This two-and-a-half story brick Italianate-style mansion was built in 1867 by Hamilton Ormsby on his estate overlooking the railroad tracks leading into Lyndon.

In 1912, it became the Parental Home and School for children, which later merged with the Louisville Industrial School of Reform, that had been the Louisville House of Refuge, and became known as the Louisville and Jefferson County Children’s Home.

When it moved to the old Ormsby family farm, the home became Ormsby Village, serving dependent and delinquent children. The site originally had a separate home and school, Ridgewood, for African-American children.

The home put into practice some of the most advanced ideas in juvenile care to be found anywhere in the United States. It advocated the separation of juvenile facilities and treatment from those of adults, a rural location for facilities instead of an urban one, and a rejection of work exploitation in favor of education and recreation.

Segregation ended in the early 1960s, and both homes were merged into the Ormsby Village Treatment Center in 1968, serving only delinquent children. It closed in 1979.

The buildings were used by Jefferson County government for offices during the 1980s, until the property was developed as an office park. The institutional buildings were razed and the Ormsby family home, Bellevoir, was preserved.

Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.