AT 8: Carriage House

The Martin Mitchell Mansion’s carriage house is less decorative and eclectic than the main home, serving a more practical function as a shelter for the family’s horse and carriage. The structure is mainly Gothic Revival in design. Its vertical board-and-batten siding (a type of siding using batten, a thin strip of wood material, to cover the seams between vertical boards) is similar to the Century Memorial Chapel and a common detail in Gothic churches. The quatrefoil windows (a shape forming the outline of four overlapped circles) are another detail characteristic of the Gothic style. There are some classical details on the building, mainly the triangular pediments above both the pedestrian and garage entrances (alluding to Grecian temple-fronts) and the dentils (small square blocks) surrounding the quatrefoil windows. The pitched roof functions as space for the hayloft which stored hay for the horses to keep it from absorbing moisture off the ground, and prevented it from rotting.