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He helped design the governor's mansion, then moved into it

James B. McCreary was a Kentucky Democrat whose political career stretched from the Civil War era into the early twentieth century, eventually making him one of the few American politicians to serve two separate terms as governor. A young lawyer from Richmond, he joined the Confederate cavalry in 1862 as its only major, later rising to command after his colonel was killed fighting to capture a Kentucky bridge. Captured by Union forces, he spent months as a prisoner before being exchanged and finishing the war leading scouting missions. Returning to his law practice afterward, he entered state politics in 1869 and twice became Speaker of the Kentucky House, notably helping push through a controversial railroad charter that pitted competing rail interests against each other.

Elected governor in 1875 over future Supreme Court justice John Marshall Harlan, McCreary spent much of his first term wrestling with the economic aftermath of a financial panic, cautiously navigating fights over interest rate caps, taxes, and river improvements while earning a reputation for avoiding firm stances on reform. He later served twelve years in the U.S. House, championing farmers, free silver, and the creation of the federal Department of Agriculture, and pursued Senate ambitions for years before finally winning a seat in 1902 with help from Governor Beckham. That Senate term proved unremarkable, and Beckham himself unseated him in a later primary, souring their alliance only temporarily.

By 1911 the two men had reconciled, and Beckham's backing helped McCreary win a second gubernatorial term, during which he became the first occupant of the new governor's mansion whose construction he personally influenced. His second term produced a burst of progressive measures, including limited voting rights for women in school elections, mandatory primaries, a public utilities commission, local option prohibition votes, and expanded school funding and attendance requirements, though efforts to regulate lobbying and enact workers' compensation largely failed or were struck down. A newly created county was named in his honor during this period. After losing a three-way Senate primary near the end of his term, he returned to private law practice until his death in 1918.

He sat on the commission overseeing construction of Kentucky's new governor's mansion and shaped its plans — then became its first resident.

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