The historic Goodwood Museum & Gardens in Tallahassee, Fla., has opened the doors to its new meeting and conference facility, the Carriage House Conference Center. The facility includes 4,200 square feet of meeting space inside a recreation of the property's original carriage house, which was built in 1911 but lost more than 20 years ago.
"We really believe this will help our bottom line, as well as service the community," Larry Paarlberg, Goodwood's executive director, told the
Tallahassee Democrat.
Although it's a recreation, the Carriage House Conference Center was built using materials salvaged from Goodwood's original carriage house, which was constructed as part of a major renovation made to the estate in the early 20th century. The estate itself—which is preserved as a Civil War-era museum—dates back to the 1830s and was completed in the mid-19th century as a cotton and corn plantation.
Designed especially for meetings and events, the reconstructed carriage house can accommodate up to 300 seated attendees and includes a 6,000-square-foot bricked terrace, 13 restrooms, a warming kitchen for food service and a green room for speakers, not to mention wireless Internet access and the latest audiovisual equipment—all accented in the background by Goodwood's antebellum plantation home.
For more information on the Carriage House Conference Center at Goodwood Museum & Gardens, visit
www.goodwoodmuseum.org.