The Merwin-Osborne Carriage House

The Merwin-Osborne Carriage House boasts an eclectic history.  Constructed in the 1880s, the 2½-story dark-red brick structure formerly served as two separate but joined carriage houses for the Samuel E. Merwin House at 406 Orange Street and his son’s house at 412 Orange Street.  While later owners (logically) used the two spaces as garages for automobiles, their most recent occupants converted the structure in the 1970s into a mixed-use building, housing a single-family residence in one half and the office of Pozzi Associates Architects in the other half.



Luckily for preservationists, the various owners of the carriage house have preserved its key architectural features.  Chief among these is its symmetry, which is still readily apparent from the front façade, despite some significant changes to both sides (the two sets of carriage doors on the residence side have been replaced with a modern garage door and a recessed entrance door set in by a curved wall; on the office side, one set of carriage doors has also been set in to create an awning over the entrance).  The retention of the original carriage doors and windows on the office side of the front façade allows one to easily envision how the building appeared in the late nineteenth century, when horse-drawn carriages were still stored on the first floor and hay was still hoisted up to the storage loft through the second-floor windows.  Save the pair of circular windows in the gable, all other windows share a segmental arch shape with stone sills and radiating voussiors.  The roof-line is ornamented by corbelled brick work.  Whitewashed brick on the left and right sides of the building are the sole reminders of the horse stables that once stood there.  The symmetry continues in the back façade, although the wooden addition attached to the back of the residence side, complete with a mezzanine and a row of skylights, somewhat disrupts the original aesthetic harmony (despite the owner’s choice of a non-obtrusive dark green color).



This symmetry is a notable departure from the design from the 1854 Merwin house at 406 Orange Street, a side-entrance grey clapboard house boasting both Greek Revival and Italianate features.  412 Orange Street, a large Italian Villa-style home dating to 1868, only shares its symmetry and brick façade with the carriage house.  Unsurprisingly, both houses boast far grander and more elaborate features than the carriage house, reflecting the latter’s original identity as an outbuilding.  The location of the building—at the rear edge of the two Orange Street properties, on a dead-end block of Lincoln Street—further reminds us of its former use.  Interestingly, neither the carriage house nor the block itself is represented on an O.H. Bailey & J.C. Hazen 1879 map of New Haven, although both appear on a G.M. Hopkins 1888 map of the same area.  This perhaps suggests that the block was not formerly built until the construction of the carriage house.  Regardless, the block’s use as a busy urban pathway today is more attributable to the construction of the Lincoln Street Theatre at its terminus and the creation of a pedestrian pathway linking the street to Audobon Street.



Although the use of the structure has changed, its original purpose could also be considered “mixed-use.”  On each side, the first floor housed horse-drawn carriages, while the upper level boasted a loft space for hay storage.  The unfinished basement of the office side served as a small workshop, which was accessible through a backdoor.  It is unclear what was produced there, or whether the other side’s basement also served as a workshop.  According to an architect at Pozzi Associates, this basement originally served as part of the Underground Railroad, as a tunnel running through the basement formerly linked the harbor to the railroad cut by the Farmington Canal, which ran up to Northampton, Massachusetts.



While the carriage house’s contemporary uses are perhaps less noble than aiding emancipation, the physical adaptation of the space to accommodate these uses are inventive.  The conversion of one half of the structure into a single-family residence in 1973 is particularly imaginative.  Designed by its owner, architect Frank Winder, the entire interior was outfitted in teak wood in order to feel like the cabin of a ship—a reflection of Winder’s passion for boating.[i]  The first floor now houses a garage, a dining room, and a kitchen, while the loft is used as a living room and open space and the mezzanine as a bedroom.  While the changes to the interior are indeed sweeping, Winder seems to have made an effort to minimize the visual impact of changes to the exterior, choosing relatively inconspicuous colors and confining alterations to former carriage door spaces.  Pozzi’s conversion of the other half of the structure in 1976 paid decidedly more attention to preservation, conserving the original carriage doors and windows and altering the interior only as necessary to accommodate office use.  Original exposed-brick walls and wooden ceilings remain in the interior.  The loft is currently used as studio space, while the now-finished basement is used for storage.  Accordingly, the New Haven Preservation Trust has presented both owners with a Merit Award for their restoration and maintenance of the property.



What is most striking about the Merwin-Osborne Carriage House’s transition from an outbuilding to a primary component of the built environment is its timing.  Its conversion predated the creation of the neighboring Audobon arts district, which today boasts numerous mixed-use spaces and several architecture studios.  More impressive yet, this conversion occurred in the midst of Urban Renewal, a movement decidedly averse to density and mixed-use development; the now-ubiquitous conversions of former outbuildings or industrial facilities for “loft-living” or office use would not be in vogue for another two to three decades.  Today, the building’s seamless integration into the surrounding urban streetscape affirms the foresight and ingenuity of its re-designers.



While the preservation efforts of its current owners are certainly praiseworthy, it is the ‘imperfections’ currently found on the façade that are perhaps the most telling.  The graffiti art painted on the sides of the building reflects the changing demographics and usage of the surrounding neighborhood.  Unlike the sporadic and forgettable “tags” on the front of the building, the spray-painted images on the side of building, which includes a colorful depiction of the earth, come across more as public art than vandalism.  Its very presence reflects the transition of the neighborhood from a wealthy residential enclave to a more urbanized and socioeconomically-diverse district.  Within close proximity to the former carriage house are several public high schools and after-school arts programs; the resulting user population for the neigborhood is largely comprised of public school students, whose diversity reflects the diversity of New Haven as a whole.  At the same time, the area remains home to numerous professional offices, namely lawyers’ and doctors’ offices, as well as several architecture galleries and art studios.  This dense and eclectic mix of users and uses is typical of an urban neighborhood, and a considerable departure from the neighborhood’s former character.  Since public art, particularly graffiti art and murals, is a distinctly urban phenomenon, its presence on the walls of the carriage house reinforces this modern urban identity, while its presence on this particular historic building unites the old Lincoln Street with the new.



[i] City records indicate that the former owners, Planned Parenthood Inc. (which, by the 1960s, occupied one of the Orange Street houses) initially obtained a permit for conversion of the carriage house into a residence in 1962; however, Winder did not obtain a permit for such a conversion until 1973.  According to Winder’s wife, who still resides at 3 Lincoln Street, she and her husband moved into the space in the late 1960s.