Hidden in Plain Site: Side-Gabled Log Barn

This is a guest post by Jeroen van den Hurk, Ph.D. He is an Architectural Historian based in North Carolina.

You never know what the lush climate of North Carolina hides until the dead of winter. While out of a drive on Sunday afternoon, I came across this abandoned side-gabled log barn in Halifax County, NC. This is an unusual building for eastern North Carolina. It was a one-story, double-pen or dogtrot structure used to store hay. It appeared to be an earthfast building with the log sill laid directly on the ground.  The logs were halved and saddle notched at the corners, and there was evidence of pegs near the center of the walls to keep the logs together.  The plate was hewn, and there was evidence of both cut nails and wire nails, suggesting that the barn was at least 100-years old.  The rafters may have been replaced at some point and the roof was clad in a standing-metal seam roof. One of the gable ends still had the original weatherboard siding, whereas the other gable end was covered with standing-seam metal.

Time, storms, and neglect had taken it’s toll, but it was still standing.

 

More photos of this barn:

The Grooms’ Heritage Barn. How a Family Restored their 1915 Stockman’s Barn

This is a post by Charles Leik. Charles is chairman of the National Barn Alliance.

It was James Grooms’ great-great grandfather (five generations back) Martin Becker, a German immigrant, who settled in north central Nebraska (Cherry County) in the 1880s.  He built a typical barn for this ranching and diversified farming area that housed the cattle, work horses and several cows that produced milk for family use.

 

According to family lore, this first Becker did well given high wheat prices during WWI and as a result raised his second barn around 1915, which was a very large barn for the area.  Mr. Becker soon retired and passed the ranch and barn to his daughter Anna and son-in-law Edgar J. Grooms.

 

During the ‘dirty 30’s’ the barn was lifted up and set down by a tornado. At that time, it was disassembled, turned to face a different direction and rebuilt with the addition of large side sheds that highlight the changes in farming occurring. It also lost one of the cupolas.  In the 60’s a metal-covered north shed was added, which provided ample space for the growing cattle feeding operation and move from diversified farming. At this time James’ grandfather George and his sons entered the purebred Angus bull business, i.e. sold select breeding stock for other ranchers.

 

By the 80’s, like so many other western barns, the deterioration was underway as the cattle feeding operation changed and purpose built pole barns were constructed.   First it was the loss of the cupola from high winds and then gradually the prairie winds blew off the wood shingles installed in 1933.  Fortunately the foundation was of poured concrete and dated from this same reconstruction, thus the structure was solid.

 

In 2007 the Grooms family decided to rescue the barn, the centerpiece of the 26 Ranch and repository of so many memories.  In the winter of 2008 a replacement cupola was constructed on the ground.  Dimensions were determined from old photographs and in the spring a crane raised the module at the gable end to a location past the hay hood, and “come alongs” winched the cupola mounted on skids along the ridge to a central location.

 

The weathered wood shingles were gradually replaced with a metal roof.  Family members did the labor over the Memorial, Fourth of July and Labor Day holidays.  The roofing began with the west top level and the pressure mounted after the old shingles were removed in stages. As a level was stripped, the steel had to be installed before the end of the holiday to cover the exposed deck.  Four weeks were required to do the west side (the Memorial Day and Fourth holidays) and after gaining experience, only two weeks on the east side (Labor Day).

 

James, who lives 600-miles away in Kansas City built window sills, moldings, some of the four-pane windows and some doors at his residence during the winters.  He worked hard to save a number of the original windows and their unique period glass. This leaves barn siding repair (to be complete in part with reclaimed wood from another Becker barn!), painting and replacement of detail trim for the future.  But as James says contemplating the future, “she’s high and dry and time is on our side now.”

 

James stresses that except for the rented crane, that family members provided all the labor.  “There was no way we could afford or justify the labor to install the roof.  However, after a slow start my father, Alfred, and I became pretty adept at installing steel.  And, all the rest is pretty much basic carpentry”.

 

The James family took an intimidating job and divided it into segments over a number of years that made it both manageable and affordable.  James, a passionate barn lover, concludes that, “I tell everyone…that you can do this yourself”.

Forming the Future of Barns: Winter Meeting

Are you part of a barn preservation organization? And are looking to network and gain knowledge to strengthen your organization? Then…

Join us for our Winter Meeting!!! February 17-19, 2012 • Upper Arlington, OH •  The Amelita Mirolo Barn

As part of the mission of the National Barn Alliance, we are committed providing a platform for barn preservation organizations and owners to connect and share information. On February 18, we invite barn preservation organizations to join us for networking, educational workshops, informative speakers, and socializing.

Joel McCarty, Executive Director of the Timber Frames Guild, will share his organization’s secrets for success as the morning keynote and Alex Greenwood, co-founder The NJ Barn Company and co-author, Barn: The Art of a Working Building, will speak to adaptive reuse for barns in today’s world.

Workshops will cover barn surveying, marketing the organization, and membership development. Breakfast, lunch, and snacks will be served throughout the day.

Previously the winter meeting was limited to Board members as important face time for an organization where the current Board hails from eight states; so usually our “meetings” are necessarily monthly conference calls. This year the NBA is attempting for the first time ever to bring together representatives of all barn preservation organizations.  The goal is to foster improved communication and the interchange of Best Practices.  We need to learn from each other in order to better promote the awareness and preservation of America’s Heritage Barns and Rural Vernacular Architecture.  This is an exciting development for our small niche of preservation.

Please let us know if you plan to attend to info@barnalliance.org.

NBA 2012 Winter Meeting Full Agenda

Imagine a landscape without barns? No? Then join us in saving them!

Yellow Barn

This beautiful barn outside of Erie, CO, is endangered. And due to real estate crash slowing development, has been given a reprieve. For now. In high growth areas near cities and resorts, new development is literally consuming the historic rural landscape.

As age, obsolescence and sprawl take their toll, barns are disappearing from the American landscape at a tremendous rate. There are more than 55 million people and 80 percent of our landscape is rural. It is a diverse landscape including farmsteads and ranches. The National Barn Alliance is working with state, local, and national partners to strengthen efforts to document and preserve these icons of our rural heritage.

Are you passionate about barns as we are at the National Barn Alliance? Yes? Our historic barns need an advocate. And that advocate be you. Join us as member.

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Thanks to barn enthusiast and photographer, Shaun Dalrymple, for sharing his “Yellow Barn” photograph with us.

Old New York Barn Survives & Adapts to join the Hi-Tech World

Authored by Keith Cramer

This abandoned 19th-century barn was spared as the 1,250 acre high-tech commercial office park grew around it for many years. The developer, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the first engineering college in the US, renovated  the 1760’s farmhouse for the Park’s main office. They had no real use for the farm’s barn, but were committed to saving it until a use was found. After  twenty years, and twenty-three office buildings were built, a donor, Pat, stepped forward to support Park Director Michael Wacholder’s, vision of turning the barn into a meeting and event space. Now, Pat’s Barn provides 5,000 square feet of conference space and also hosts weddings and parties of every kind. This Fall, Wacholder received the preservation Award from the Rensselaer County Historical Society which included a collection of artwork and books of historic barns. More more information, please visit: www.rpitechpark.com