KY’s stone fences are iconic. Meet the people who preserve, protect and build them

Don Hopper pivoted over the limestone slab on a makeshift raised table in front of him.

Holding a round hammer in one hand and a chisel in the other, Hopper gently tapped the chisel. A flat bit of rock flew off the dictionary-sized stone.

“I’m still getting used to it,” Hopper said of using the hammer and chisel to tame and shape the limestone.

Hopper knows stone.

The Berryville, Arkansas, native has worked in construction with a focus on drilling and blasting for 40 years.

But he traveled more than 600 miles in late November to the Dry Stone Conservancy workshop on shaping stone in rural Jessamine County to learn dry stone masonry, which uses no mortar, instead using a little bit of geometry and a lot of gravity and creativity.

On Nov. 22, Hopper and five others were learning how to use hammers and chisels to shape limestone into specific dimensions to build a small arch or mini-bridge.

Dry stone masonry is an ancient technique — think Egyptian pyramids and Mayan ruins — that the Lexington-based conservancy, a nonprofit, has worked for more than 25 years to preserve and promote.

It’s one of the only nonprofit organizations in the country that teaches the skill.

And it’s in Fayette County for a reason.

In Central Kentucky, dry stone masonry is woven into the landscape and identity of horse country. Stone fences line nearly every rural road in Fayette County and the surrounding counties.

“Stone fences are one of the things that is Kentucky through and through,” said Russell Waddell, the executive director of the conservancy. “You got basketball. You got bourbon. You got horses, and you have stone fences. Preserving them is about preserving a sense of place.”

The conservancy offers workshops, classes and certificate programs for people ranging from qualifies journeymen to master dry stone masons. Since its founding in 1996, thousands of people have attended its workshops and hundreds have participated in its certificate programs.

Hopper hopes to use what he has learned to do projects on his property in Arkansas, which is rich with rock.

Seth Thomas, the instructor of the late November stone-cutting workshop, said it’s not uncommon for people to travel hundreds of miles for the conservancy’s workshops, classes and certificate programs. The Nov. 23-24 workshop brought people from all over the country and from opposite coasts — one came from Alaska and another attendee from Boston.

Dry stone masonry has taken Thomas, a lawyer who is also a master dry stone mason, hundreds of miles from home.

Since he became interested in dry stone in 2008, he’s traveled the country to repair and build dry stone structures, including Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming and a recent trip to the U.S. Military Academy West Point in New York.

“We have trained so many dry stone master masons in Kentucky,” Thomas said.

And that’s no small thing.

Twenty-eight years ago there were none in Kentucky.

How a road project spurred a revolution in dry stone

When the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet wanted to widen Paris Pike from Lexington to Bourbon County in the late 1990s, it ran into a problem.

Well, miles of problems.

Paris Pike has one of the longest stretches of continuous and iconic stone walls lining many of the horse farms that abut the scenic corridor. To do the project, they would have to move or rebuild those picturesque and iconic stone walls.

No one in Kentucky was qualified or knew how to build or rebuild stone fences without using mortar.

The cabinet turned to Carolyn Murray-Wooley, who, along with Karl Raitz, wrote the 1992 book “Rock Fences of the Bluegrass,” for help. Murray-Wooley is an architectural historian and later became executive director of the Bluegrass Trust for Historic Preservation.

Murray-Wooley contacted dry stone masons in the United Kingdom, including Scottish mason Neil Rippingale, who ultimately oversaw much of the Paris Pike corridor project.

Some masons had tried to rebuild stone fences in Kentucky, but they were not properly trained, said Jane Wooley, Murray-Wooley’s daughter who helped found the conservancy with her mother.

Wooley, a landscape architect, worked at the conservancy for 20 years and served as executive director for more than 10 years.

Stone fences built without the proper technique would often fail, Wooley said. That’s why the conservancy had to bring master masons from Great Britain to teach the craft. The Paris Pike Corridor project allowed the conservancy to train 26 people on dry stone construction over a roughly two-year period, Wooley said.

Because the conservancy is a nonprofit, it uses a unique training model. It can get contracts with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and then pay apprentices for the work. Those apprentices can work toward various certifications. The state gets a larger pool of dry stone masons to bid on future work, creating more competition, Wooley said.

It’s a model the conservancy still uses today. It frequently works with the U.S. National Parks Service restoring dry stone masonry structures across the country. Wherever the group is working, it hires local apprentices so those people can also become certified in dry stone construction, Wooley said.

Rippingale, who later moved to Kentucky and still serves on the conservancy’s board, acted as “mason zero” in Central Kentucky, teaching hundreds of hobbyists to master masons who now have thriving companies.

Rippingale has worked on several dry stone projects for Maker’s Mark Distillery, including building multiple new dry stone bridges on the distillery property.

“It’s a technique that has been passed down for generations,” Rippingale said. He learned the craft from stone masons in Edinburgh, where he’s from. It started as a hobby and morphed into a business.

“This was a hobby for me 35 or 40 years ago. I can’t retire. I love doing stone work,” Rippingale said.

Rippingale said he used to get jealous when his former pupils surpassed him. Not anymore. To see the craft expand on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean over his nearly 40-year career has been thrilling, he said.

“You can’t take this knowledge with you,” Rippingale said. “The knowledge that I have has been passed on from people that I’ve met over the years.”

Why stone fences?

Stone fences became popular in Kentucky for a few reasons, including a ready supply of rock and the skill set of the people who settled in Central Kentucky in the 1700 and 1800s.

Waddell, who has a master’s degree in historic preservation from the University of Kentucky, said as settlers cleared land, the earth gave those settlers a cheap, stackable building material — rock, particularly limestone.

Many of those settlers were Irish and Scottish who brought knowledge of dry stone masonry with them, Waddell said.

There were two phases of rock fences built in Central Kentucky.

Between the late 1770s and mid-1820s, many landowners built those stone fences to designate property lines, said Wooley.

“They were building those fences for generations,” Wooley said.

Then during the turnpike area, the forerunner to highways, stone fences were built around the edges of those turnpikes from the mid to late 1880s. Those stone fences were not built to the same rigorous standard as the farm fences, Wooley said.

Those turnpike companies wanted those fences built quickly.

“The goal became efficiency rather than quality. That’s the demise of any craft,” Wooley said.

Research, including by Raitz and Murray-Wooley, shows slave labor was sometimes used to build the fences. Older farms in Central Kentucky, have records that show Scottish or Irish masons constructed their fences.

Waddell and others said there are records showing slaves help quarry and bring rock to stone masons. However, Black slaves weren’t counted in U.S. Census records until the late 1880s and don’t appear in many historic records. That makes the issue of who built those stone fences murky.

A thriving, creative industry

Preserving those fences is still a top priority of the Dry Stone Conservancy — as is teaching the craft. Spring, when snow and drainage runs through the old, stone walls, is often a busy time.

Another threat to stone walls is a 20th century invention — the automobile.

“We get a lot of calls in the spring,” Waddell said. “Someone has driven through the fence.”

Waddell spends a lot of time in New England, where dry stone masonry also has roots and is popular. Dry stone fences are expensive to build but can last generations and increase property values, Rippingale said.

“What’s old is now new again,” Waddell said. “We want to make it hip.”

Wooley said the conservancy lists available certified masons on its website. But that list is a fraction of the dry stone masons the conservancy has trained. Many are so busy that they can’t take referrals or aren’t looking for work, she said.

“Their schedules are full,” Wooley said. “It’s not just historic preservation anymore. It’s a thriving, very creative industry.”