Shirer Burkett and the Superfab ' house on Harvey ' s Hill :
A love story with four walls
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By Christopher Harris Photos by Steve Cornelius unless otherwise noted
The houses of " Harvey ' s Hill " — the formidable slope along North Main Street in Somerset , connecting the heart of downtown with the mouth of the Hal Rogers Parkway — are among the finest and most historic in town . A veritable " who ' s who " of local denizens have made their home there over the years , and the walls of those houses have seen so many different lives grow and thrive within them .
But not until recently have any of them seen anything quite so ... " Superfab ."
Shirer Burkett runs Superfab Digital , a website and graphic design business , out of her home at 405 North Main Street in Somerset , finding a new , modern purpose for one of the stately homes on the east side of downtown ' s most recognizable incline .
And her connection with the home is a love story of sorts for Burkett — ironically , one that came at the point that she was moving forward from another relationship .
" I fell in love with the house when I was going through my divorce in England ( in 2013 ) and building a Leave to Remove case to return to the US with my children ," she said . " The house was listed online , and I put it in my court paperwork as a potential house for myself and my children to live in . ... I think what led me to this specific house was that , like any true modern love story , I fell in love with it online ."
The daughter of Dr . Barry and Sue Burkett of Somerset , Shirer Burkett grew up a " Navy Brat ," moving around a lot ; though she was born in Kentucky , she graduated high school in Pensacola , Florida and attended college at the University of Mississippi before going
on to a globetrotting life in creative fields , serving as Dominique Swain ' s stand-in for the 1997 film adaptation of " Lolita ," bartending at Coyote Ugly , and finding a career in web design in New York . In 2005 , she hopped the pond to London , England , and landed a creative director position with Global Media , the largest commercial radio group in the United Kingdom , overseeing a team of talented designers and developers focused on branding .
She ' d go on to work with Hotels . com and Expedia , then started freelancing with ad agencies . But life is made of many more moments than those at work , and the time eventually came to cut her ties and come back to her old Kentucky home , close to her family .
Burkett had seen the house while putting a Leave to Remove case together in England , one of three in the Somerset area she ' d targeted that would be feasibly available to if given permission to return to the U . S .
" I included it again in the financial part of the case , which occurred after the kids and I had left the U . K . — which , looking back on now , is quite humorous ," she said . " Part of the financial separation process in England entails choosing three houses for yourself to live in and three for your spouse to live in ; maybe the courts do this to get a measure of how either realistic or vindictive you and your separating spouse can be , I ' ll never know ," she added with a laugh , noting that the house featured heavily in all her documents .
When she had to start putting information together for the financial part of the divorce settlement at the end of 2014 , she decided to revisit the search for houses in Somerset with greater intention , but already knew that she was in love with the yellow house on Main Street — and as if it were a forbidden love , she decided not to go look at it , instead going to take a look at virtually every other available house in Somerset that was in her price range .
March 2025 SEKY - Southeast Kentucky Life • 7