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For many years guests to the museum grounds would ask staff about "the big red barn" which would then prompt the conversation about what a carriage house is and how it differs from a barn. But after 2018's refurbishment of the carriage house which included fixing up all the windows, replacing the roof, and repairing all the siding that question comes up a lot less. Now Dr. John Nugent's Carriage House has a bright white exterior to match the Rogers Mansion as it would have many years ago.
In years past it was used as a Carriage House but today contains The Carriage House Shop which is open every Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 4pm. The shop offers a plethora of mid-century items, antiques, vintage clothing and jewelry and treasures of all sorts. You can learn more about the shop here.
Below you can see the information that helped us learn more about the Carriage House' history and original purpose. The historic structure report below was an integral document to the securing of grant money for the reconstruction and how the building would look after. You can scroll down to read through the information or download the PDF at the link below.
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The Nugent Carriage House 17 Meeting House Lane, Southampton, New York
HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT July 2016, by Sally Spanburgh
PRECIS
The Nugent Carriage House was built about 1891 for Dr. John Nugent who owned the property at 17 Meeting House Lane from September 1889 to November 1899. It replaced an earlier barn previously on the property and removed in September 1890. The Nugent Carriage House was relocated about ninety-five feet east and ten feet north in 1926.
CONTEXT
The Nugent Carriage House is situated at 17 Meeting House Lane within the Incorporated Village of Southampton, Long Island, New York, and is one of a complex of other buildings on the site. The property’s original street address was along Main Street, which runs north-south, is just a third of a mile long, and lies at the heart of the village’s central business district. Main Street is a very old street, one of the first ever in the entire township in fact, dating back to the mid-17th century and to the second settlement area of the original English puritans who arrived in 1640. Main Street (originally known as “Town Street”) is broken up today into three parts, the middle section (“Main Street”) which is the central business/shopping area, the north portion (“North Main Street”) which is lined with homes dating between the early 1700s and the mid-1900s, and the south end (“South Main Street”), the residential portion of the second settlement area but most closely affiliated today with the summer colony. The entirety of Main Street was laid out by the settlers in 1648 into “house lots” approximately three to nine acres in size. “It was a small farming village situated in a fertile plain stretching south to the Atlantic beach a mile from its center and in 1870 contained slightly fewer than one thousand inhabitants and less than one hundred dwellings.” The homes were located fairly close to one another, and besides them there was only one other building, a central community meeting place that functioned as church, courthouse, school, and hotel. Meeting House Lane is also an old street, created about 1663 as the route leading to the “meeting house” before the formal organization of the church. In 1707 a church structure was located on the northeast corner of Meeting House Lane and Main Street, and in 1843, the present First Presbyterian Church of Southampton was built on the opposite corner where it survives today.
SITE
The subject property is located behind Main Street’s commercial structures, northeast of the intersection where Jobs Lane (east-west; west of Main Street), Main Street (north-south), and Meeting House Lane (east-west; east of Main Street) converge. It is situated on the north side of Meeting House Lane and is surrounded by the church property, a village ambulance garage and residential properties to the south, Main Street commercial buildings to the west and north, and a mix of commercial and residential buildings across Pine Street to the east. The subject site was one of the original house lots of the settler’s second settlement division and was allocated to William Rogers in 1648. As the downtown area of the central business district developed, so evolved the subject lot. Originally consisting of a house and related farm buildings, by the time the subject property was acquired by Dr. John Nugent, it had been reduced to four acres and contained only two structures: the residence and a barn.
FORMER BARN
The barn that was replaced by the subject structure is still extant and was relocated in 1890 to the east side of what is now Oak Street. A sign on the structure today states its original construction date to have been 1843 but its massing, orientation and shingle coursing indicate that it may be considerably older. It is an English style barn with a south facing front elevation. It is three bays wide and one-and-a-half stories tall with a side facing gable roof and full width, rear, one-story addition with shed roof. It was likely used to house livestock and their feed with one side containing the animals, the other side functioning as a haymow, and the central passage operating as a threshing floor. It is a precious and rare survivor of Southampton’s early agrarian history, historically and culturally significant on its own, and worthy of preservation.
ARCHITECTURE
The Nugent Carriage House is of the Queen Anne style and measures approximately forty-five feet wide by thirty feet deep. It is two stories tall and three bays wide with a side-facing gable roof and large, central, front-facing, cross-gable wall dormer. Its gable end eaves are accentuated by engraved fascia boards whose striations terminate at decorative panels with carved circles (like a domino but with a larger center circle) at each end. The carriage house is clad with painted clapboard siding between corner boards on the first story and painted scalloped shingles over four rows of standard shingle coursing on the second story that skirts out slightly over the first story. The building rests on concrete block piers over earth. The roof is clad with asphalt shingles over cedar shingles over 1x4 lath. A variety of fenestration types punctuate each elevation. A small rear one-story ell with a shallow shed roof measuring approximately ten feet wide by twelve feet deep extends to the north at the east end of the building and is thought to be original. It is clad with painted cedar shingle siding without corner boards. The carriage house was expanded by three additions: a single dormer with shed roof on the second story is thought to have been added while the property was owned by the Parrish family (extant), a one-story extension to the west with shed roof was built in the mid-1950s specifically to exhibit carriages (no longer extant), a one-story rear extension with shed roof on the north side measuring 24 feet deep and 36 feet wide was added in 1968 (extant). The red paint scheme is not original and was likely introduced by the Southampton Colonial Society when they began to lease the property in 1952.
South Elevation (front)
The western bay of the front elevation contains a two-panel human door with diagonal wood patterning within the panels, flat casing, and crown profiled drip cap at the first story and a narrow shed-roofed dormer with a double-hung window with six-over-six divided light pattern on the second story. The center bay has one pair of large sliding, two-panel doors with matching diagonal patterning within the panels, flat casing and a shallow board supported by brackets acting as a drip cap and protecting the hardware of the sliding door support from weather. Each sliding door has a square glazed cut-out. One double-hung window decorates the gable end of the cross gable wall dormer with three over three divided light pattern. The eastern bay contains one triple window unit with three ganged awning windows with twelve light pattern (not original). The original south elevation would have appeared as it does presently, but without the three eastern windows, and without the shed dormer on the second story.
East Elevation (side facing Pine Street)
The first story of the east elevation is punctuated by four small casement windows with a four divided light pattern, flat casing and crown profiled drip caps symmetrically positioned. The second story contains a large window unit consisting of a pair of four light casement windows with a fourteen light transom above. It is also surrounded with flat casing and a crown profiled drip cap and is in place of an original hay loft door that no longer survives. Centered in the top of the east gable end is a projecting beam with iron eyelet that once enabled the pulley system for the loading of hay. One six-over-six double-hung window decorates the east side of the northern ell. This ell is clad with painted shingle siding without corner-boards. A rudimentary wood framed wall with painted horizontal board siding clads the east side of the 1968 shed extension. The original east elevation would have appeared as it does presently, but with a hay loft door most likely matching the character of the building’s other original doors, and without the 1968 extension.
North Elevation (rear)
Rudimentary board walls and glazing make up the northernmost shed extension elevation. Behind the present shed extensions, the north elevation of the main volume would have been similar in character to the front/south elevation except in hierarchy, with a pair of sliding doors near the center of the elevation and a human door to its left, and without any other fenestration or dormers, or cross gables.
West Elevation (side facing Rogers Mansion)
Three double-hung windows with six-over-six divided light patterns decorate the west elevation: two symmetrically positioned at the first story, and one centered within the second story gable end. Only the gable end window has a crown profiled drip cap. Above it is a small louvered attic vent.
The Tower
According to a surviving postcard view of the subject property taken from the bell tower of the First Presbyterian Church of Southampton located across Meeting House Lane to the south, circa 1913, the Nugent Carriage House had a tower component at its northeast corner that no longer survives and is assumed to have been removed between 1913 and 1932. The square tower was two stories tall with a tall hipped roof and may have possibly sprang from the surviving rear ell at the same corner, now with a shed roof. Its purpose would have been to house grain or water. A tower feature on this structure would have been in perfect harmony with the building’s Queen Anne style which often employed such features in order to enliven the architectural envelope of what would have otherwise been a large and plain barn.
EXTERIOR PHOTOS
EXISTING CONDITIONS
To date, a structural engineer’s evaluation of the Nugent Carriage House has not been completed. The building is in good condition but requires general maintenance repair throughout and restoration in some key areas.
Framing: The Nugent Carriage House has a milled timber frame on the first story and traditional late 19th century – early 20th century framing on the second story and as infill on the first story. The framing throughout is sound and dry. There are no indications of rot, water or insect issues.
Siding: According to vintage views, the carriage house was not originally painted red. The first story (clapboard) was painted white and the shingle siding elsewhere was left to weather in a natural grey color. The existing paint is in poor condition throughout. The elevations should be restored to the original color scheme. The original finish of the northern additions is unknown but was likely painted red. The clapboard siding appears to be in good condition. The shingle siding is in poor condition and requires repair and replacement in some areas.
Roofing: The non-original asphalt roofing should be removed and replaced with cedar shingle or shake roofing. The surviving cedar roofing under the existing asphalt finish should be salvaged and restored as much as possible.
Doors and Windows: The human doors and windows (except those on the northern extension) appear to be in salvageable/restorable condition. All original doors and windows should be restored and made operable.
INTERIOR
The interior of the Nugent Carriage House is presently used for events, special programming, exhibits and storage purposes. The western two bays of the first story are unfinished with exposed framing except in a few places where horizontal boards have been hung for exhibit purposes. The interior stair to the second story in the northeast corner of the center bay does not appear to be original. The pair of doors leading to the northern shed extension also do not appear original. The framing on the north wall suggests that another pair of sliding doors, similar to those on the south elevation but smaller and not centered on the north elevation, were likely original. The eastern bay of the first story, and the northeast ell, are finished as a whaling exhibit room. The walls are finished with white painted beaded board and a varnished beaded board ceiling (wider widths than the walls). The floor boards run north-south and are not original. This area of the building would have been the original stable area, with four stalls with one small window in each stall, and would have had a dirt floor. The awning windows on the south elevation are not original. An exterior door exists in the northwest corner of the room but is covered over and not visible from the interior of the whaling exhibit room. The northeast ell, where the tower would have been located, is now open to, and expands upon, the square footage of the whaling exhibit area. Also covered over and invisible from the interior of the north east ell are a side-by-side pair of double-hung windows equipped with bars. These can be seen from the interior of the north/rear shed extension. The floor of the shed extension is mostly brick with a partial area of dirt floor. The east wall is part shingle siding from the northeast ell and part rudimentary horizontal board wall. The north wall is half rudimentary horizontal board wall and half glazing. The north portion of the west wall matches the north wall while the south portion has one panel and one pair of out-swinging doors. The south wall is the exterior north wall of the carriage house and is finished partly in clapboard and partly in contemporary painted siding where the original sliding barn doors would have existed. At the southeast corner of the shed extension’s ceiling, the charred survivors of ceiling framing and finish are visible after a minor fire during the summer of 1957. [Colonial Society minutes, December 10, 1959. From the Southampton Historical Museum Archives.] On the second floor, the eastern bay of the hay loft is presently finished with gypsum board and used for exhibition and storage purposes. An original trap door in the floor is located in this area that would have allowed for the distribution of hay to the stable area below. The second floor level would have originally been entirely open and dedicated to hay related purposes. Later, after the Nugent family’s ownership, two rooms were created for the accommodation of staff associated with the keeping and caring of the carriages and horses. These two rooms, at the southwest corner and south central bay of the second story, are finished in white painted beaded board. Along with the gypsum clad eastern bay, these are the only finished spaces on the second level. The rest of the area remains open, allowing the roof framing to be clearly observed, and is presently used for storage and exhibit purposes. There are no water penetration or apparent insect issues visible from the interior of the second story. When undertaking maintenance, repair, and restoration work, the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings should be followed as closely as possible. (http://www.nps.gov/tps/standards/rehabilitation/rehab/stand.htm)
INTERIOR PHOTOS
Architectural Summary:
The Nugent Carriage house was originally symmetrical in plan and elevation with the exception of its exterior door arrangement and the tower element at the northeast corner. It is a good example of the local Queen Anne style because of the character defining features of its central cross gable, the tower, and its variety of decorative wall materials and textures. Despite the loss of the tower, the building retains a good level of integrity that can be raised through sensitive rehabilitation.
The Queen Anne Style
According to A Field Guide to American Houses (McAlester, 1993), the Queen Anne Style, “This was the dominant style of domestic building during the period from about 1880 until 1900; it persisted with decreasing popularity through the first decade of [the 20th] century. In the heavily populated northeastern states the style is somewhat less common than elsewhere. There, except for resort areas, it is usually more restrained in decorative detailing and is more often executed in masonry… The style was named and popularized by a group of 19th-century English architects led by Richard Norman Shaw. The name is rather inappropriate, for the historical precedents used by Shaw and his followers had little to do with Queen Anne or the formal Renaissance architecture that was dominant during her reign (1702-14). Instead, they borrowed most heavily from late Medieval models of the preceding Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. The half-timbered and patterned masonry American subtypes are most closely related to this work of Shaw and his colleagues in England… The half-timbered Watts-Sherman house built at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1874 is generally considered to be the first American example of the style. A few high-style examples followed in the 1870s and by 1880 the style was being spread throughout the country by pattern books and the first architectural magazine, The American Architect and Building News. The expanding rail road network also helped popularize the style by making pre-cut architectural details conveniently available through much of the nation.” [A Field Guide to American Houses, Virginia and Lee McAlester, Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.]
The Carriage House Building Type
According to the Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings (Visser, 1997), “Until the 1830s, on most small farms, the horses used for riding and driving carriages were often kept in the main barn along with the other farm animals. On larger farms and in villages, however, separate stables were built for riding and carriage horses, typically with space for box stalls, carriages, harnesses, grain, and hay… As the scale of many farm operations increased from the 1830s through the 1850s, space grew tight in the old barns, and some New England farmers built separate horse stables and carriage houses. Early carriage houses were built just to shelter a carriage and perhaps a sleigh but not horses. The precursor to the twentieth-century garage, these outbuildings are distinguishable by their large hinged doors, few windows, and proximity to the dooryard. Inside, they usually have wooden floors and often a workbench along one side or in the rear. The second story may have a trap door or be only partially floored so that carriages or sleighs could be hoisted aloft for storage during the off-season…
The construction of carriage houses accelerated in New England during the 1860s and 1870s as many farmers replaced their oxen with workhorses… Inside, horse stables often have standing stalls or box stalls with a feed box, a manger, and a receptacle for water. Workhorse teams often stand together in eight-foot-wide double stalls. Five-foot-wide single stalls are for saddle and driving horses, and box stalls – measuring about twelve feet square – may house three or four animals or a mare and colt. In addition to a hayloft above, many larger stables also had a grain room, harness room, an area for washing and grooming, and quarters for hired help, as well as an area to store carriages and sleighs… The combined horse stable and carriage house continued to be a common farm building through the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century.” [Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings, Thomas Durant Visser, University Press of New England, 1997.]
DR. JOHN NUGENT
Dr. John Nugent acquired the subject property in June 1889 from the Rogers family – the original owners of the property since 1648 - for $1,200. [Liber 322 of Deeds, conveyance page 194, recorded Sept. 6, 1889.] Ten years later, in October of 1899 he and his wife sold the property to Samuel L. Parrish for $19,000. [Liber 486 of Deeds, conveyance page 291, recorded Nov. 11, 1899.] John Nugent (1859-1944) was born in Riverhead, Long Island, New York (one town to the west of Southampton) to Irish parents Robert (b.1820) and Ellen [Ducey] (b.1825) Nugent who immigrated to America about 1851. He was raised in a household with three other siblings, two older brothers and a younger sister; his father worked as a farmer. After graduating with a medical doctorate degree from the University of Michigan in 1881 [The New York Times, January 19, 1944.], Nugent settled in Southampton and partnered with Lemuel R. Wick (1831-1892) as a druggist. This early portion of Nugent’s career was generally focused on everyday ailments and care while the major medical issues were handled by Dr. David H. Hallock. Lemuel Wick was a Southampton local who had spent twenty-five to thirty years in California before returning to Southampton in the late 1870s – early1880s for the remainder of his life. ‘Wicks & Nugent’ built a drug store on the north side of Jobs Lane [Jobs Lane was called Academy Lane then, named after the Southampton Academy located on the northwest corner of Academy Lane and Main Street, catty corner to the First Presbyterian Church.] in January 1882 [The Long Island Traveler (Southold), January20, 1882. “The price paid for the lot would make an acre cost between four and five thousand dollars.”] but the partnership ended in the summer of 1883, shortly before Wick would be put on trial for the illegal sale of liquor without a license. [The Corrector (Sag Harbor), November 14, 1885.] Wick continued to operate his drug company until the autumn of 1890 when he sold it to a Mr. Howell of Centre Moriches. [The East Hampton Star, July 5, 1890.]
From 1884 to 1887 Dr. Nugent maintained an office in Captain Charles Howell’s building on Main Street (now located just behind Main Street to the east and just north of the subject property). In 1886 Nugent married Helen Howell Fordham (1866-1955), a daughter of Southampton local Henry A. Fordham (1836-1901). Henry A. Fordham was a descendant of Rev. Robert Fordham, the second pastor of The First Presbyterian Church of Southampton who was from England and arrived in Southampton in 1648. [The Early History of Southampton, L.I., New York with Genealogies, George Rogers Howell, 1887] Henry was one of seven children by Daniel and Mary Fordham. Henry was very active in Southampton Town and Village and a member of the Democratic party. He was the secretary of the Southampton Village Improvement Association (while Dr. T. Gaillard Thomas, co- founder of the summer colony was president), he was Secretary of the Southampton Literary Society before being elected its president in 1895. He also served as Southampton Justice of the Peace and Collector for many years. Henry married Harriet Howell Post (b. 1840) in 1860. They had daughter Helen Howell in 1866, and son Henry Post 1881. Henry’s wife Harriet became very ill and was homebound for nearly seven years before passing away in 1888. [Sag Harbor Express, Jan. 26, 1888] Henry then married Caroline A. Bishop (b. 1840) in 1889. In mid-September 1901,Henry and his wife were thrown out of their carriage when their horse was frightened by an automobile. “Both Mr. Fordham and wife were picked up unconscious, bleeding from cuts and bruises.” [Suffolk County News, September 13, 1901.] Two weeks later Henry died and was buried in the Southampton Cemetery. His second wife Caroline passed away twenty-five years later, in 1926.
In 1887 Dr. Nugent was appointed Southampton Town Health Officer upon the death of Dr. Hallock. [Seaside Times, October 20, 1887.] For the two years between 1887 (the year after he was married) until the year he bought the subject property, Dr. Nugent kept an office at his father-in-law’s home on the southeast corner of Culver Street and First Neck Lane. During that time, he and his wife started a family with their first son, John H. Nugent, born in 1888. After buying the property at 17 Meeting House Lane, Dr. and Mrs. Nugent had two more children, both sons, in 1893 and 1897. Once Dr. Nugent became the Town’s official health officer, his practice handled all varieties of cases, but while he was capable of addressing any size ailments or malady, he appears to have been mostly involved with major medical events and was most often referred to, for the remainder of his life, as a coroner rather than a general physician. He mended cuts to appendages made from axes, he removed bullets, he dressed wounds made from animals, he attended broken bones, he pronounced victims dead or alive, and dictated how corpses should be disposed if unclaimed within certain time periods. In 1902 he was also involved in a highly publicized murder case that took place in Hampton Bays (then Good Ground) as the County Coroner. In addition to serving as the Southampton Health Officer for thirty years and County Coroner for eighteen years, Dr. Nugent was also one of the first board members at Southampton Hospital and the first president of Southampton’s First National Bank for twenty-two years. For at least a year before Dr. Nugent sold the subject property, he was hounded by many “New York syndicates” [The New York Times, September 10, 1899.] who were angling to possess it, but Dr. Nugent held out until finally giving in to a worthy candidate, Samuel L. Parrish, in the fall of 1899. Dr. Nugent didn’t leave town, however, he merely moved from the southeast end of central Main Street, to the north west end, into a larger but equally publicly visible home that graced the corner of Main Street and what would become known to this day – appropriately - as Nugent Street (then Bridgehampton Road or Hampton Road) for many years. In 1926, Samuel L. Parrish moved both the Rogers-Nugent residence and the carriage house west on the property and commissioned the construction of new commercial structures along Main Street. (The Nugent Carriage House is, therefore, not in its original location.) His friend and accomplished architect, Grosvenor Atterbury, was involved in the work. [Original blueprints in the collection of the Southampton Historical Museum Archives during the relocation of the house and carriage house to the west in the 1920s bear his name in the title block.]
After sixty-two years in the medical profession, Dr. John Nugent died in Southampton 1944. His widow, three sons (two of whom became area doctors), a sister, and seven grandchildren survived him. In his will he left bequests of $500 to his sister and each of his grandchildren, and five properties in Southampton Village (two at the intersection of Nugent Street and Windmill Lane, and three adjacent flag lots off of Main Street near Hildreth’s Department Store) to his wife along with several life estates. The value of his personal and real property at the time was $106,455.82 with less than $10,000 in debt.
CONCLUSION
Dr. Nugent rose above his modest upbringing to become a professionally and socially prominent member of the Southampton community whose medical and family affairs were often published in the daily and weekly newspapers, both locally as well as in the New York Times. While he only owned the subject property for ten years, he had enough changes made to it during that period overall so as to allow guests and visitors today to observe his mark on the property and the reasons that likely motivated those changes. Architectural modifications to the residence were likely realized for practical purposes, such as the accommodation of a thriving medical practice and a growing family. The removal of the former barn may be indicative of the degradation of the property’s value and usefulness as a 17th century farm and its evolution into a proper residential estate. The construction of the Nugent Carriage House, finally, while programmatically necessary, also allowed Dr. Nugent to introduce the Queen Anne style to the property, a style that became very locally popular in the 1890s, and demonstrates a desire and personal willingness to stay in fashion.
ELIGIBILITY
The Nugent Carriage House is recognized as a contributing structure within a historic district and was evaluated in 1977-1979 by the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities (SPLIA) while Southampton Village prepared to adopt a local preservation ordinance in 1986 (Form SH-13). The following criteria are used to evaluate properties as landmarks or contributing properties within Southampton Village (Code §65-3 (A)):
Possesses special character or historic or aesthetic interest or value as part of the cultural, political, economic or social history of the locality, region, state or nation;
Is identified with historic personages;
Embodies the distinguishing characteristics of an architectural style;
Is the work of a designer whose work has significantly influenced an age; or
Because of a unique location or singular physical characteristic, represents an established and familiar visual feature of the neighborhood.
The criteria in bold above are those for which the subject property appear to qualify. In addition, the following criteria are used to evaluate properties for listing on the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places.
The quality of significance in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association, and:
that are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or
that are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or
that embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or
that have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
The subject property was added to the New York State Register of Historic Places in 2011.
HISTORICAL MAP REFERENCES
Examples of Other Similar Carriage Houses in the Town of Southampton:
