Former Lexington council member who served four terms, ran real estate business, has died

Paul Rose, a real estate broker and investor who served four terms on the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council, died Wednesday after battling cancer, his family said. He was 89.

Rose was among the members of the first council under Lexington’s merged government, having been elected to serve the 11th District in 1974. He was elected to three more terms before deciding not to run for re-election, said his son Dan Rose.

Dan Rose said his parents raised him and his three siblings in the Meadowthorpe neighborhood, and he decided to enter public service because “he just took an interest in that area.”

“He really cared about Lexington and was proud to be a Lexingtonian,” his son said.

At that time, Dan Rose said, “they were still feeling out how the government operated,” and council members didn’t have aides.

“We could get two to three calls a night about somebody’s trash didn’t get picked up, somebody’s dog barking,” he recalled.

Rose was a graduate of Lafayette High School and was recruited to play football at the University of Kentucky by Bear Bryant and attended on a full scholarship, according to his obituary.

However, his time on the team was cut short in 1955, when he was drafted into the Army. Rose later served in the Army Reserves and was honorably discharged in 1962.

After his time in the military, he completed his degree at UK and worked as a proofreader and in advertising at the Lexington Herald-Leader before beginning a 50-year career in real estate.

Eventually, he formed Paul Rose Real Estate “and expanded his real estate ventures as a syndicator of several investment properties in the 1980s,” the obituary states.

“He was right in the middle of Lexington’s transformation,” Dan Rose said.

Rose was an avid golfer and went on to develop Highpoint Golf Course and subdivision in Jessamine County with a group of family and friends.

Rose moved to Nicholasville in his later years. He and his wife Norma Annette Rose were married 65 years, according to the obituary.

Kerr Brothers Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.