Today was positively beautiful–in the 70s, sun shining, light breeze.  I took the long and easy way home from work this afternoon and passed this big house with its smaller carriage house on Perrier.  It reminded me of my first trip to Connecticut after moving to New York City from Idaho for college.  My friend J. was driving me around, showing me her neighborhood.  I asked her, “Why do all these houses have little houses next to them that look just like the bigger house?”  “Those are garages,” she said, looking at me like I was a little bit crazy.  But architecture is like any other space–we take our own for granted, but not everyone will make sense of the buildings like we do.  Take this carriage house.  It clearly goes with the huge house next door, but it is a bit run down in comparison, lacking the new siding and paint of its neighbor.  My first thought is to fix it up, make it into a house for someone to live in.  I live in a small house behind another house, and I love it.  And I still don’t understand why cars need their own homes, no matter that I’ve lived with the reality of detached garages for over fifteen years.  My experience tells me what this building could be, but that’s certainly not all it could be.  There are lots of possibilities around here.