Carriage House at Foothil College

INTRODUCTION

On the campus of Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, there are two historic structures that date back to the original "estate" located on this property many years before it became a college campus.
For a brief insight into the historical context of these buildings, and how they came into being, you can click in the following box
Excerpts from NATIONAL REGISTRY OF HISTORIC PLACES
to see some brief text and a few images copied from the relevant entry in the database of the National Historic Registry.
The primary building of these two is "The Griffin House", and associated with this Estate Mansion is its associated "Carriage House" - sort of what today we might call a garage for the estate vehicles - except these structures were built long before modern vehicles existed in the form we know then today.
Thus the "Carriage House" (the subject of this web-page) more closely resembles a very large barn, capable of housing a number of farm animals in addition to horse-drawn carriages and farming implements, together with accommodation for associated support equipment and personnel. Note - there is evidence that this building also served as housing for the horses (used to pull the carriages) based on the presence of a "barn door" located in the southern-most dormer on the East-facing roof. This was a large opening through which large amounts of Hay (Alfalfa, Oats, whatever...) could be loaded and stored in the "loft" out of the weather. There would have been holes cut in the floor of the attic above each horse's stall through which hay could be conveniently dropped at feeding time.(See Fig 7, left-most dormer with secondary barn door above the one on the ground floor)
According to the records of the National Registry of Historic Places, "...The carriage house, in its early days, housed six work horses, stalls for two cows and the carriage, as well as workshop and upper loft...".

Location

The Carriage House is located on the left side of the main "Campus Loop" soon after you pass the fountain on entering the Campus. (The Griffin House is just beyond that on the other side of the road.)

The Carriage House has basically a rectangular footprint, with a short and a long side, the latter "fronting" onto the Campus Loop Road, while the driveway entrance to the building leads to the short side. For purposes of clarity, we will be referring to these as the "East Face" and the "South Face" respectively.
The following image shows the location in the context of a satellite view that includes the surrounding buildings and landscape.

PHOTOGRAPHS THROUGH THE ERAS

The Carriage House building has undergone a number of separate eras during its lifetime, where the building underwent modifications to adapt it to serve different purposes.
We can break these down into three distinct periods, each relating to a different primary use for the building.

Original Carriage House
Fire Station housing Fire Equipment and associated personnel
College Campus building used for archival storage of college records
The first black-and-white picture below is an aerial view of the location taken in 1965.
Following this is a set of six black-and-white pictures from the first era when it was still the original Carriage House - the first two of these pictures are dated 1959, the other four are dated 1961.

Fig 1, 1965. Aerial view of the Carriage House. As can be seen in this view, there are two dormers on the roof of the East Face, and none on the opposite face - this gives us a useful way of determing which face we are looking at in subsequent photographs. *(Ref: Flight CAS-65-1304, Flown on 5-12-1965, Frame 4_146, Top Left of frame)*
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Fig 2, 1959. Original South Face before modification for use as a Fire Station.

Fig 3, 1959. The two dormers on the roof tell us this is the East Face, (The roof on the West face is a simple flat slope - see following image).
This view is fronting onto the Campus Loop road, and shows it before it was modified for use as a Fire Station, so it still has the two original "carriage doors" from before they were closed off and new doors created at the front (South Face) for Fire Apparatus entry and exit.

Fig 4, 1961. The absence of any dormers on the roof tell us this is the West Face. Also the view over the top of the left end of the roof is toward the hill on the other side of where Highway 280 runs today - as opposed to the Coastal Range of hills which we would see if we were looking toward the ocean.
Note also the PG&E Power Pole that is visible on the far right of the image in front of the East Face of the building - we will see this again in other images below..

Fig 5, 1961. This view is of the Northern Face (opposite to the face with the main entrance on the driveway). This can be concluded from the dormer on the roof facing the left-hand edge of the picture, and the absence of any dormer on the roof facing the right-hand edge of the image.

Fig 6, 1961. This view is of the Southern Face with the main entrance on the driveway. Note the two dormers on the roof of the Eastern Face (facing right) as well as the presence of two PG&E power poles in front of the building, one on either side.

Fig 7, 1961. This view is of the Eastern Face fronting on to the Campus Loop Road. This image gives a very clear view of the two dormers on the roof on this side, one with a barn door for loading hay on to the second floor, the other containing a regular window.
We can also see one of the PG&E power poles in front of the building (South Face).

The "Fire Station Era"

The following two images show the Carriage House when it was in use as a Fire House for the Los Altos Hills County Fire District. It was the only firehouse for the district, and became known as "The El Monte Firehouse". (Later on a purpose-built Fire Station was built elsewhere on the Foothill Campus and this building was returned to the College for their use.)
The exact date of when the Carriage House became adapted for use as a Fire Station is unknown, but we can see that two new "Barn Doors" were created in the South Face of the building, replacing the original single barn door in the center of this face, and a new "Front Entry" door with an awning is to their left and it is all that remains of the original barn door that was at this location.. To the left of this new door there are now two windows where formerly there was only one. (See Fig 6 for comparison.)
The two new barn doors are to enable the various kinds of fire apparatus to enter and exit the building onto the driveway connecting to the Campus Loop Road.

Fig 8. This picture is dated 1970, and we are looking at "the front" (South Face) of the building which we see has two new "barn doors" on the right-hand side of the central door. The building is now clearly in use as a Fire Station, and it is hard to tell, but it looks like the two original barn doors on the East Face (fronting on to Campus Loop Road) have been removed and replaced with windows in the wall.

Fig 9. This picture was taken by the Chief Safety Officer of the Town of Los Altos Hills, and this would date from some time in the early to mid 1970's.

The Present Status (Pictures taken 2022)

Following are a series of pictures showing the status of the Carriage House as of 2022.

Fig 10. One of the two barn doors built into the South Face for the Fire Sataion has been removed and replaced with shingled wall, but the "Front Entry" door remains in the spot where it was moved, shifted to the left of the center of the facade.
Upgrades to the electrical system over time are apparent in the clutter of electrical panels, boxes, and conduits evident near the right-hand corner of the South Face. (See Fig 15a for detail).

Fig 11. View from the South showing both the South Face and the East Face from across the Campus Loop Road.

Fig 12. A frontal view of the East Face. Note that the Carriage Doors on this face no longer exist - it would appear that they were replaced with windows when the building was converted for use as a Fire Station,
Also a new door was placed towrd the North (right-hand) end of the face, and the "Hay Loading Door" that used to be in the left-hand of the two dormers on the roof was replaced with a smaller window - not matching its original sibling window in the right-hand dormer. (See Fig 7 for comparison)

Fig 13. Another view of the East Face. More electrical clutter near the corner with the South Face.

Fig 14. A vew looking at the North-East Corner - here we can see the "back of the building" that is at the opposite end from the driveway entrance. This end too has a door with a small red awning over it.
The confguration of openings for doors and windows on this "North Face" wall have also been completely changed from the original - compare with Fig 5.

Fig 15a. Detail showing the electrical clutter at the South-East Corner of the building (both faces) Fig 15b. Detail showing the Window Frames (typical of the rest) and door at the end of the East Face