 The cupola functioned as a look-out over the plantation and, along with the great halls, as a way to exhaust heated air out of the house during hot weather.Though no longer extant, the grounds once included formal gardens, a carriage house, a two-story servant's quarters, a schoolhouse, several barns, a corn crib, a shop, five slave cabins behind the main house, and a "slave village" about one mile away.Additionally there was a detached kitchen, now destroyed, that was later moved and attached to the house.