In its heyday, the house had many dependencies.  Among these were the smokehouse, springhouse, and stone barn, which with many alterations and much rebuilding are all still standing.  Other outbuildings included at least one privy, separate stables for the farm and carriage horses, a carriage house large enough for six carriages (built in 1835), barns, a schoolhouse, a weaving house, a hemp house, and slave quarters.  There was a family graveyard on the property until about 1865 when the graves were moved to Cave Hill Cemetery.

The recently discovered 1820 watercolor drawing of Farmington by artist John Rutherford (left) gives an excellent view of the front prospect of the house and provides detailed information about some of the outbuildings existing at that time.

The summer kitchen/cook's quarters are a recent reconstruction (1992).  It was built after an extensive archaeological dig found that the foundation was exactly where it was shown on the early map and that the dimensions matched those of the kitchen/washhouse at Ridgeway in St. Matthews (a house closely related to Farmington and built at about the same date).  The summer kitchen at Ridgeway is still standing and was used as a model.  Our kitchen building shows up clearly on the 1820 Rutherford drawing of Farmington which documents its location and brick construction.  It is presumed that as the weather got warmer in the spring, cooking functions were moved out of the winter kitchen and into the summer kitchen to keep the heat out of the house.

The stone and timber barn or stable in the field was rebuilt on its original foundation in 1963 and is used for storage.  You may hear it referred to as "the fort" but it almost certainly never served a military or defensive function. 

The blacksmith shop (left) is a somewhat fanciful interpretation of a smithy of the period, although there is no evidence to suggest that there ever was a forge at Farmington.  It was built in 1961. The building is located on or very near the site of the historic carriage house which shows up in the Rutherford drawing.

The springhouse (below right) probably began as a small shelter to keep animals away from the source of the drinking water for the plantation.  As the family grew, so did the springhouse.  Dairy products and other fresh produce were kept cool in the flowing water.  The present structure is a 1968 reconstruction based on historic photographs and utilizing the early stone that had fallen in at the present site.

At certain times of year, the spring water was dammed up to create a shallow pond near where the parking lot is located today.  Ice was cut from this pond in the winter months and stored in an icehouse for year-round use.  This building was located in front of what is now called the carriage house. 

The brick section of the carriage house was actually the original smokehouse which shows up clearly in the Rutherford drawing.  At some point after 1934 (when it appears in a photograph as a free-standing building) a wood-frame barn was attached to it.   The last private owners of Farmington adapted this combined structure into a house which they used as a retirement home after they sold the main house to the Historic Homes Foundation.