Welcome to the Equestrian Suite. This is a special feature in the self-guided tour, just for those who are staying in the Equestrian Suite and can’t get enough local history.

The Cotton Mansion carriage house is an exceptional space, and it held the carriages and early automobiles of the Cotton family. Also, traditionally in a turn-of-the-century mansion, the carriage house was where male servants lived.

At that time, female staff would live in the main house, often on the third floor, as it was in Cotton Mansion and many other turn-of-the-century mansions in this neighborhood. The Cotton family had two male staff members, a chef and a chauffeur or coachman, and they lived on the second floor of the carriage house.

We’re in the Congdon neighborhood, which was a neighborhood of turn-of-the-century mansions. Most of these homes were built between 1900 and 1912, which was still vastly dominated by horse and carriage. Because it was an affluent neighborhood, it was designed as a horseless carriage neighborhood, so there were actually no horses kept here. There was a large stable a few blocks down on Fourth and 26th, where Holy Rosary’s parking lot is today.

The residents of the neighborhood would lodge their horses there. This meant that the horses didn’t need to be lodged at the mansions or in the carriage houses behind them, and the neighborhood was kept much cleaner and better smelling.

A coachman of the era would go to the stable, fetch the horse, bring it up to the carriage, and prepare it for the family’s day of travel.

The Equestrian Suite is an homage to that time period. Cotton Mansion and the carriage house were built for horse-drawn carriages, so much so that there was even a rare carriage step that still exists at the side entrance of the main house.

If you’ve gone into the main house, you’ll notice a really large double step under the porte-cochere going into the side entrance. It was built for carriages and is carriage height.

Most of these large carriage steps have been ripped out because they wreak havoc on car doors. And it’s a tight fit, but we keep it because it is so unique to this time period and Cotton Mansion in Duluth history.

All of this design for horse and carriage, only to be outdated in just 10 to 15 years. By the 1920s, Duluth and many cities across the country would have Model Ts rolling down the streets and thousands and thousands of cars and very few horse and carriages.

If you’d like to learn more about the Cotton Mansion, the Cotton family, and early-1900s Duluth history, consider following the main self-guided audio tour. There are 12 stops that take you from top to bottom through all the common rooms in the main house, and it starts with a QR code on the console in the foyer on the main floor.