Ever want to spend the night in a ghost town? If you took a well maintained ghost town and crossed it with a museum and a bed & breakfast, you'd get something akin to Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky.
The Shakers were a religious sect, and offshoot of the Quakers that created an intentional community in the rolling hills of central Kentucky.
Kentucky had been a state for less than two decades when the Shakers began building the village in the early 1800s.
The Shakers practiced celibacy and between that, the Civil War, and a lack of new converts they had disappeared from Shaker Village by the 1920s. Does that make it a ghost town?
In it's heyday though this was a happening place. The road in the photo above was the main road in the area, troops marched through here on their way to the Battle of Perryville.
When the Shakers died off other folks bought the buildings but in the 1960s a nonprofit was started to restore the place. They built a bypass for the main road and restored the one through town back to its original condition.
Most of the buildings are now part museum and part lodging for overnight guests. The Farm Deacon's Shop in the photo above (built in 1809) is where we stayed. The first floor was exhibits and we had the second floor all to ourselves.
Once the exhibits close at 5 the overnight guests have the village to themselves. Makes for a rather tranquil place to rest and relax.
We spent a couple nights there, and most of the first day was devoted to wandering with the wide angle. Despite the grey, cloudy day it was rather nice, temperature made it into the 60s. Now if only I can make it back there when everything is green and growing instead of midwinter.
So who wants to stay in a ghost town turned museum?