Water slides, theme parks -- these are mainstream today. But how many new carousels do you know that were recently constructed?

On Memorial Day weekend 2006,  the Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown, NY, celebrated the grand opening of the beautifully handcrafted Empire State Carousel. The full-sized merry-go-round presents the history, culture and environment of New York State through extraordinary hand-carved riding animals and contemporary folk art, and is musically accompanied by a grand wagon-mounted pipe organ.

Housing this wealth of talent and history is a handsome pavilion designed by Altonview Architects, PC of Cooperstown, NY.  An important aspect of the pavilion is its open-air feeling, achieved through the use of  nine arched overhead operating doors specially designed and built by Hahn’s Woodworking Company.  

Knowing that Hahn’s Woodworking prides itself in working collaboratively to create custom doors that best suit the project, the architects approached Hahn’s with an unusal set of demands.

When the overhead operating doors are in the open mode, they must rise up into a very limited space, where they are concealed from the carousel riders behind a sloped ceiling.  In addition, an after-hours emergency entry system was needed, consisting of a personnel door with adjacent side lites, constructed to look just like one of the tri-panel overhead operating doors. And finally, two additional fixed door blanks were needed to balance the design scheme. 

“Cooperstown’s design emulates the style of carousel pavilions of my youth. They had awning-like windows that would swing in and latch to the sloped ceiling," explains Roger Jurczak, National Sales Manager for Hahn’s Woodworking Company, who grew up an area where three difference carousels were available for riding. "But this one uses the motor driven Hahn's doors to make visible the historic merry-go-round and allow the pipe organ music to quaff the surrounding ears and provide ventilation to those enjoying the ride."