If partitions may discuss, this unassuming home on Central Avenue, whose view from the porch completely frames Churchill Downs’s iconic Twin Spires, would have loads of tales to inform.
The home, as soon as owned by a member of the indie rock band Pavement, Bob Nastanovich, is identified for its all-day (and evening) events. Rockers {and professional} athletes repeatedly rub elbows with trainers and jockeys and racegoers who occur to go by on the best way to the gate (and typically by no means depart).
The home is now owned by the Louisville-based horse coach Grant Forster, who lives there full time and carries on the Derby party custom. There are a number of betting swimming pools, chalkboards with odds, three TVs tuned to the races and racing memorabilia and inside jokes galore. There’s additionally crawfish imported from Louisiana, the place Forster additionally trains, and a Zydeco band on Derby evening.
Lifelong friendships have been constructed due to this home. “These guys are like family to me,” mentioned Forster, who grew up in a outstanding Canadian horse racing household.
One common, Tchalla Green, parked at a home a number of doorways down for his first Derby, in 2013. He stumbled upon the party and hasn’t missed a Derby, or home party, since (save for final yr due to the pandemic).
Another, Jamie Zoeller, was a Pavement superfan. He met Nastanovich at a bar in Chicago within the ‘90s, and Nastanovich told him about his Derby house. Nastanovich (now a chart caller at Prairie Meadows racetrack in Altoona, Iowa) wrote down the address on a bar napkin, and Zoeller carried it around in his wallet until one day he made it, in 1999. He also comes back year after year.
Tim and Beth Clauss of St. Louis have a combined 50 Derbies under their belts. They refused to miss the 2020 race, even though fans were not allowed inside Churchill Downs. They sat on the porch as peaceful protests of the police killing of Breonna Taylor passed in front of the house.
“We love the Kentucky Derby, this is what we live for,” Beth Clauss said. “It’s such a particular place to many of us, individuals come from everywhere in the world to return to this party.”
It all made for a really memorable Derby, however maybe not essentially the most memorable for Tim Clauss. In 2005, on Oaks day, he bought his tickets for the weekend and put the cash within the glove compartment of his automobile parked within the again yard. He left the home to observe a race from the bottom of the observe and shortly after obtained a name, “Tim, you better get back, your car is on fire.”
