Richards Carriage House

As a building type, the carriage house in America dates to the horse and buggy days—clear back, in other words, to at least the 18th century. The “house” was constructed as an outbuilding—never attached to the owner’s living quarters, for reasons of hygiene—and was available only to those who could afford what it sheltered; that is, only to the comparatively well-todo. With the invention of the automobile in the first decade of the 20th century, necessities for the two modes of transport—that is, horse, carriage, and auto—were often stored side-by-side, in the same building. Owing to the obvious disadvantages of this arrangement—a Model T reeking of horse manure being not the least of the problems—around 1910, a new type of outbuilding, the automobile garage, came into being. But the house built for DeForest Richards in 1904, on the cusp of the technological shift, came equipped with the standard, full-fledged carriage house. Built of brick and wood, with wood shingle siding to match that of the residence, the building was replaced by a garage (attached to the Richards House), and then remodeled into a residence sometime after 1920. Built for a single purpose, the building’s lines and detailing were spare to begin with; refurbishment across the decades has yielded a structure that, today, appears sleek and ironically modern. Yet the exterior has seen only minor, superficial changes, and looks today much as it did in 1904, when it was home to the Richards’ horse, buggy, and (perhaps) Model T.