Carriage House

Proctor-Brown Mansion // 1861

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The Proctor-Brown Mansion in Wrentham, Massachusetts, is a striking example of Second Empire style of architecture and even retains its historic carriage house of the same period and style. The mansion was built in 1861 by Thomas Proctor, a wealthy businessman and industrialist from Providence who earned his fortune by inventing a gimbel point for screws with his company, The American Screw Company. He and his wife, Wrentham native Zeolyde Antoynette Hawes Braman, lived in the home until their deaths in the 1880s. The Proctor Mansion was later owned by Daniel Brown, owner of Wrentham Straw Works, and passed down through his descendants until 1991, when the building became the Proctor Mansion Inn, named after its first owners.

Eben S. Draper Stable // c.1900

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Located next to his Tudor Revival style mansion, Eben Sumner Draper’s stable on Adin Street in Hopedale, Massachusetts, is one of the finest examples of the type in New England. It is possibly that the stable was built before the mansion was built in 1926 for Eben Sumner Draper Jr. (1893-1959), the son of Massachusetts Governor and Draper Corporation executive, Eben Sumner Draper. Little is known about this building, which stands at the end of a drive and is accessed over an arched bridgeway. The building has its first floor in stone with half timbering above. Two rounded towers with conical roofs frame the center entry, which may have been used for horses and carriage, or for personal automobiles, of which, Mr. Draper would surely have one of the first in the state. The building has been owned by the Ledges LLC, who operated a community for developmentally disabled adults.

Tully Bowen House // 1853

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Designed by great architect, Thomas Tefft, this three-bay, three-story brownstone house located at 389 Benefit Street in Providence, was built for Tully D. Bowen, a cotton manufacturer. The house, one of the finest Italianate style mansions in the state, is constructed of brownstone and features a recessed arched entrance surrounded by a flat-headed Doric-pilastered frame, pedimented first-floor windows resting on brackets with the alternation of flat and pedimented heads at the second story, and quoining at the corners. The property also retains its original Tefft-designed brick and brownstone carriage house. Thomas Tefft, who was just 27 at the time of designing this house and corresponding brownstone and iron gate, would become one of America’s finest architects before he died in Florence with a fever in 1859 at just 33 years old. The residence was converted to 12 apartments in 1941 and the carriage house was converted to residential use as well. Even with the subdividing the interior spaces of the residence and carriage house, the Bowen property remains in a great state of preservation and is one of the finest homes in Providence.

Horatio Adams Stable // c.1880

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This oversized stable and carriage house is located at 3 Maple Street in Kingston, Massachusetts and it dates to about 1880. The stable was built for Horatio Adams (1845-1911), a wealthy resident who operated a successful slaughterhouse and stockyards nearby along with maintaining stores adjacent to the nearby the train tracks. After Horatio Adams died, the stable was eventually purchased by Edgar W. Loring and converted to a cranberry screen & warehouse for his cranberry farm. The significant Queen Anne/Stick style building suffered from deferred maintenance by the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but was purchased in recent years and undergoing a restoration of the exterior. Does anyone know what its use is today?

Joseph and Fanny Turner House & Stable // 1872

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Joseph Stanley Turner (1841-1893) married Fannie Pratt (1849-1930) in 1871 and within a year, had this large, Second Empire style house built on Webster Street in Rockland, Massachusetts, for his family. Joseph Turner was a Civil War veteran and owned a shoe factory in town, making his fortune manufacturing shoes and boots which were sold all over the country. The main house is two-stories with a symmetrical plan with central entrance and projecting portico. An equally significant mansard-roofed stable sits behind and to the side of the main house, and can be classified as an example in the Stick style with applied stickwork at the siding and in the hay door, as well as the pedimented dormer with decorative truss.

Gallup Farm Carriage House // 1906

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This handsome Shingle style building was constructed in 1906 as a carriage house of a larger farm property in Scotland, Connecticut. The barn is said to have been built for Archie Gallup, who purchased the old Manning farm just west of the town green in Scotland. The 1 1/2-story carriage-house with a gambrel-roof stands out for its principal entry of paneled wooden doors and above, a large, flared hood featuring two pedimented gable-dormers. The entire building is clad with varied shingles to add complexity to the design, catching the attention of all who drive by.

Roughwood Estate Carriage House // 1891

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Built on the expansive grounds of “Roughwood”, a country estate in Brookline, Massachusetts, this former carriage house has seen many iterations in its lifetime. Like the mansion house, the carriage house is a blending of Queen Anne/Shingle styles with fieldstone and shingle construction, designed by the architectural firm of Andrews, Jacques & Rantoul. When the Roughwood Estate was purchased and converted to Pine Manor College, the carriage house was adaptively reused and added onto as the Annenberg Library with a large imaginatively designed wing by Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott completed in 1986. The building remains as a library as part of the newly established Messina College, a campus of Boston College, which opened in July 2024 for over 100 first-generation college students. Gotta love adaptive reuse!

Wright Carriage House – Soule Recreation Center // 1897

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The Soule Recreation Center in Brookline, Massachusetts, was originally the stable and carriage house on the John G. Wright estate. John Gordon Wright (1843-1912), was a Boston wool merchant who purchased farmland on this site in the 1890s and hired architects Chapman & Frazer , to design an estate house (since demolished), and this building to serve as a carriage house and stable for horses. The stone Tudor Revival style mansion house was complemented by the earlier wood-frame Tudor carriage house, resembling an English manor with grounds designed and laid-out by the Olmsted firm. In 1942, the property was purchased by the Rivers School (now located in Weston) and converted into classrooms and administrative offices for the private school. When the school moved to Weston, the Town of Brookline in 1961 bought property for recreational purposes. Sadly, in 1967, the mansion house burned down, but the carriage house and gate lodge remain as lasting remnants of a once great Brookline estate.

John T. Andrew Carriage House – Cornwall Historical Society Building // c.1865

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This ornate carriage house on Pine Street in Cornwall, Connecticut was built by John T. Andrew around 1865 adjacent to his late 18th century home in the village. Andrews was born in Bethany, Connecticut in 1811, graduated from Yale College in 1839, becoming a minister and later a teacher. For health reasons he left both professions and turned to farming and stonework. After Andrews’s death the property was purchased in 1890 by Charles Marsh, a local undertaker, and his wife Inez. In 1954 the barn was converted to a home by their daughter, the town librarian Emily Elizabeth Marsh, a charter member of the Cornwall Historical Society. In 1966, the Society raised funds to buy the building from her estate, but could do little to adapt it for their specific exhibit and storage needs. The Society restored the exterior to its original appearance, down to the brackets, round arched windows and cupola.

Kipling Carriage House // c.1893

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Located at the Naulakha Estate in Dummerston, Vermont, the Kipling Carriage House has long served as a companion to the larger Shingled home. This charming building originally stored author Rudyard Kipling’s carriage and an apartment space for his coachman. The quaint structure sits atop a high stone foundation and retains much of its original detailing, and inside, the structure oozes charm! After Rudyard Kipling sold the estate, the next family converted the structure to a servant’s quarters. In 1992, the British-based Landmark Trust acquired Naulakha as its first American building, later creating the Landmark Trust USA who maintain the property to this day. Like Naulakha, the Kipling Carriage House is available for short-term rentals, which helps the Landmark Trust USA maintain and restore these historic buildings.

I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a couple nights at the Kipling Carriage House and the experience is something I will hold with me for the rest of my life. The wood-lined walls, historic windows, cozy furniture, and fireplace, make you feel so at home, and sweeping views of the Connecticut River Valley add to the splendor. There is something so great about “unplugging” from screens and reading one of Kipling’s books by the fireplace in one of his properties!