Quaint, cheery cottages sat alongside austere ruins, a baroque igloo, a Tolkien-esque battle scene, a seaside surf shack, an environmentally friendly home, an elaborate lighthouse, a workplace replica and a carousel that played music at Port Townsend’s 24th annual Gingerbread House Contest Jan. 7.

Mari Mullen and Scott Rogers found themselves organizing the event for the first time in a new venue at the Flagship Landing building, drawing a dozen entries by builders of all ages. The Port Townsend Main Street Program organized the contest, traditionally hosted by Aldrich’s Market, while that business is in transition.

“There’s so much detail on some of these that you can miss it on just the first pass,” said Mullen, Port Townsend Main Street Program executive director.

“The designs ranged from traditional to ultra-creative,” said Rogers, co-owner of the Dogs-A-Food eatery, who helped round up prizes. “In that sense, it was like Port Townsend as a whole, just as a gingerbread house contest.”

Rogers received gift certificates from The Rose Theatre, Elevated Ice Cream Co. & Candy Shop and Whistle Stop Toys, the last of which also donated the space adjacent to its store for the contest.

In the 12-years-and-younger individual category, 3-year-old Nate Brady took third for “Frosty’s House,” while 8-year-old Blake Flanagan Tinling’s “Hell Brute Slayer” ranked second. Tilly Norton, 9, placed first with “Christmas at the Surf Shack,” which was inspired by her time in Hawaii, before she returned to Port Townsend.

“The hardest was getting the snowman’s eyes and nose to stick onto the frosting,” Tilly said. “Also, the first time I put it together, it fell apart. The roof broke.”

Although she was able to recover through two weeks of baking, Tilly wasn’t the only entrant to suffer this setback. Heather Flanagan’s “Dreaming of a Green Christmas” home sported solar panels and a recharging station for its electric car, but a combination of humidity and insufficient load-bearing strength forced her to submit it with a broken roof.

Heather nonetheless earned an honorable mention, as did Ray Grier for his “Determination! New Life from Old Ruins,” which was intentionally built to resemble the snow-covered rubble of a rustic structure.

Adult Faith Kalous received the third honorable mention for her winter igloo, which she built in a couple of days out of doughnut holes, Styrofoam, clay and string and with tips from the Internet.

Next time, “I’ll cook it longer,” Kalous said.

In the 12-years-and-younger group category, Maddy Geelan, 10, spearheaded her family’s efforts with “Time to Decorate the Tree,” a subtly distinctive gingerbread house inspired by her own home.

“I tried to make it look like our house,” Maddy said, as she looked at its black frosting exterior again, “and my mom was the one who said, ‘Why don’t you use cornflakes to look like our roof shingles?’”

Although it took only two hours to put together, Maddy was hampered by her sister Lenore, “who kept eating all the candy,” and by nearly running out of enough frosting to hold the structure together.

“I didn’t think I would win anything,” said Maddy, who won first place.

In the older-than-12-years category, the powered lighthouse and coastal cottage by Ella Ashford, 15, were capped off with a “Salish Sea Dragon,” made of marzipan, which earned third place, while “Edensaw Crew & Sound Experience” employees teamed up to re-create their workplace in sweets, placing second in the process.

And in first place, the Kuzma family of Anora, 6, and Cabett, 3, were aided by their parents, Eric and Holly, in building a “Merry Christmas-Go-Round,” which played merry-go-round music with the turn of a key.

“We chipped away at it for a few days,” said Eric Kuzma, who works for Jefferson County’s Public Works Department. “We’re not tremendously experienced with gingerbread houses, but I have some experience with architecture, woodworking and building models.”

One challenge was the brittleness of the candy canes that the family used as poles for the merry-go-round. Even though the candy canes didn’t have to support the weight of the merry-go-round’s roof, many of them proved so brittle that they broke as soon as their plastic wrappings were removed.

A couple of gremlins populated the merry-go-round scene, one riding a horse and another sitting on a bench. Their appearance serve as a running joke from the Kuzmas’ entry last year, when they’d built a gingerbread bridge.

“To make the bridge more like a gingerbread house, we gave it these little guys, because even trolls need a home,” Eric Kuzma said. “It was just a fun little family tradition, to give it continuity.”

The gingerbread creations remain on display from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Saturday, Jan. 14.