THE ORIGINAL CARRIAGE HOUSE IS REBORN
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WE ARE HAPPY TO REPORT THAT on October 26, 2006 THE BASIC
STRUCTURE OF THE REPLICATED 1865 CARRIAGE HOUSE Was FINISHED.

"A Carriage House is History's Garage"(1)

"Transportation-related outbuildings of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries included chair houses and an occasional one- or two-horse stable.
 The chair house provided shelter for the riding chair or carriage, which
was drawn by one or two horses.  Chair houses also sometimes
incorporated stable functions.  Little is known about the appearance of
early examples of these structures, but by mid-1800s, carriage house
builders were raising functionally complex structures that stabled two to
six horses, garaged one or two carriages, stored riding gear, and provided
hay lofts and feed bins." (2)

"The carriage house was a status symbol.  ... As an adjunct to the residence
it served, a carriage house was usually built in a related architectural style
and with consideration for style." (3) The rebuilt carriage house at the
Cherry Creek Inn resembles the massing or size, setback and architectural
detailing, particularly the arched or hooded window frames, or the original
structure.  It is not located in precisely the same place due to the grove of
grown fir trees.  Its measurements were taken from similar structures in the
Village of Cherry Creek, most notably the barn on the old Richardson
homestead on Main Street.

The original structure was struck by lightening in late July 1949.  The
Buffalo Evening News headline read: "Farmer's Life Saved by Mayor of
Cherry Creek: Milspaw Drags Raymond Gooseman Out of Blazing Barn; Victim
Knocked Out Trying to Rescue Horses."  When Ray Gooseman visited the Inn
on the occasion of a reunion dinner celebrating the 60th anniversary of his
graduation from Cherry Creek High School, he related the story of trying
to untie the horses and after succeeding being overcome with smoke and
then stumbling over the bodies of the felled horses.  Mayor Irwin Milspaw, a
member of the Cherry Creek Volunteer Fire Department, rushed into the
burning building to drag the 23-year old to safety.   According to the
article, "The mayor suffered shoulder bruises and the effects of smoke
inhalation." (4)  The gooseman family farmed the land around the George
Nelson Frost home which was owned at the time by James McLaughlin.

The current structure, created by J. Schoening and Co., a young firm of
Salamanca carpenters, is basically a two  story pole barn, reinforced for
the weight of a 3500 volume library on the second floor.  The concrete
foundations were poured by Countryside Landscape Borders, owned and
operated by the Kirk Brumagin family of Cattaraugus who also created the
stamped concrete patios and the gardens.  All of the interior work is
hand-crafted including the kitchen cabinets and handicap bathroom.  The
library space is sheathed in beadboard, applied one random length at a time
following the staining process.  No longer smelling of "timothy, horses,
neat's-foot oil, leather, oats, salt  hay, unpainted wood, lacquered
carriages, kerosene, and tallow,' (5) the elegant library reflects the tastes
of devoted bibliophiles.  Sherlock Holmes and King Tut guard over the
various subject groupings.  This space may be rented for small conferences,
for scrapbookers, quilters, poetry readings or musical events.  The antique
Portland Cutter sleigh embellished with G-clefs, holds the musical
entertainment center while an elegant hand-crafted stone fireplace
dominates the great-room,  

(1) Small Homes: Design Ideas for Great American Houses by Fine
Homebuilding.
(2) Everyday Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic by Gabrielle M. Lanier and
Bernard L.Herman.
(3) Portraits of American Architecture by Harry Devlin.
(4) Buffalo Evening News, July 27, 1949.
(5) Devlin.