The Kent Administrative Center

Named after Douglas R. Kent, an early member of the Friends of Hyde Hall and a major Hyde Hall benefactor, this collection of conjoined buildings contains offices, a public restroom, a meeting room, collections storage, and a reference library. The two-story structure on the left is the Carriage House, built in 1817 and one of the earliest buildings on the Hyde Hall site. Originally in the center and flanked symmetrically by the two single-story hyphen wings (also of the same date), the Carriage House was moved to its present place in 1885 to allow for the construction of a large barn in the central spot where the Carriage House had stood.

The new Barn contained a milking room and storage space for the machinery used on the estate. The hyphen section joining it on the right continued to serve as the stables, and the hyphen to the left connected it to the Carriage house on the far-left hand side.

Now substantially rebuilt, this complex of buildings looks much as it did in 1885.