And the answer is...

Great guesses all around — thank you all for taking part! — but Jessie suggested a root cellar, and Maryann thought it would be to keep things cool, all headed in precisely the right direction.

Modernly, it would be a refrigerator, or an really old-timey icebox.

As described by our tour guide, men would gather ice from the nearby mountains — just like in the movie Frozen, she said — and bring it down the hill. They’d store it in this bunker, deep in the ground, with cool earth all around and mounded on top, to keep cheese and meat and other things cold all summer long. It needed to be big because it was a large estate, with the family, hired hands, and of course lots of guests for big parties and such.

And now you know the rest of the story.

###