English: Built in 1841-1842, the Dinsmore Homestead sits along Burlington Pike near the small town of Belleview, Kentucky, and was purchased by James and Martha Dinsmore, natives of Louisiana, in 1839, and was where the family, with the assistance of several slaves, farmed the land. The family’s multiple children included Isabella Dinsmore, Susan Dinsmore, and Julia Stockton Dinsmore. Julia Stockton Dinsmore was a poet and documented her life extensively through her journals, which spanned her entire residence at the property between the 1850s and her passing in 1926. The property remained in the family until Julia Stockton Dinsmore died 1926, and during this time, the family had many connections to notable people. The house was maintained by subsequent owners in much the same condition it had been in under the ownership of the Dinsmore family, though some alterations were made.
The main house is a rather substantial but simple wood-frame Greek Revival-style building with a side-gable roof and gabled side ell, and features wooden clapboard cladding, a stone base, six-over-six double-hung windows, wooden shutters, a front portico with square columns, a wooden balustrade, and a decorative rooftop balustrade, a front door with sidelights and a transom, a side ell with a recessed corner porch, a shed-roof rear porch, and several brick chimneys. Around the house are multiple outbuildings built of wood frame and log, including a smaller dwelling known as the Roseberry House, which today houses a gift shop and visitor information center, a springhouse, garage, and several other structures. The house and its outbuildings were purchased by the Dinsmore Homestead Foundation in 1987, and restored to their condition during the time the Dinsmore family lived at the property, and furnished with artifacts and furniture that were owned by the family.
The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, owing to its architectural significance as a well-preserved example of a mid-19th Century farmstead, as well as being associated with the historical figure of Julia Stockton Dinsmore. It is presently operated as a museum that is open on weekend afternoons.