Better Built Barns

Iowa barn raising - in Geyserville

Josh Chandler, a winemaker, architect and general contractor, last week began putting together the 1909 Midwest barn on his eight-acre ranch.

His acquisition is part of a movement to save antique, hand-built barns, considered a slice of American history. Valued for their Old World craftmanship, they represent a vanishing era of family farms.

“It's a part of American heritage. If I can bring this to me and save this, rebuild it so it lasts another 200 years, it's better than removing, or burning, or turning it into flooring,” Chandler said Thursday.

The barns, he said, “have appeal that's both beautiful and historic.”

With the help of a mechanized “reach lift,” he and three workers, including two expert framers, had just erected the timbers that will serve as one side of the barn.

Ever so gingerly, the structure was raised and lowered onto its new foundation.

The wood outline served as a huge picture frame of sorts for the backdrop of green hills, blue sky, white puff clouds, and Geyser Peak.

Chandler rhapsodized about the uniqueness of the pine and oak timber frames.

“There is a guy who hand-cut every piece of wood, way-back-when, with a saw,” he said, noting “the effort and the labor and what has happened in the barn.”

“How many cows were born in this barn? How many kisses were in this barn?”

He compared it to the floors in churches and cathedrals in Europe, worn smooth through the centuries by those who trod and worshipped inside. “How many people, how many families have been in this thing?”

Chandler, 46, bought his Geyserville property on Rich Ranch Road, off Chianti Lane, three years ago after selling his Lazy Creek Vineyards in Anderson Valley in Mendocino County.

Once part of the Seghesio Ranch, the Geyserville property has another 1909 building — the stone Chianti winery that Chandler refurbished with a new roof and other modern upgrades.

He and his family live in an adjacent 1905 farmhouse and named their place “Hillend Farms and Vineyards.”

The output from his cabernet and sangiovese grapes will be a relatively minuscule production of 2,000 cases maximum. But he also produces honey, olive oil and fruit from 100 trees and sells his products at farmers markets.

Early in his career, Chandler, a St. Helena native, trained as a chef at the prestigious Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley. He embraces the locally grown and slow food approach and sees his transplanted barn as part of the aesthetic.

Is A Barn Conversion Right For Your Family?

Introduction

A Barn Conversion is exactly what it says it is, ie a barn which is no longer used for its former purpose and has been converted to a different use such as a commercial or residential dwelling. Barns were usually close to the farmhouse and would have been used for storing grain or fodder for animals; housing animals such as cows and horses; or places for food production or storage. Often the stables and barns were the buildings where the business of the farms and manor houses took place so they were built to last and keep out the weather. They were often much better built than the cottages which housed the workers and farm labourers. So it doesn’t take much leap of imagination to see that once no longer needed for the intended purpose their use could be changed to provide much needed dwellings. These days a barn conversion is considered one of the ultimate homes.

History of the Barn Conversion

About thirty or forty years ago there was a sudden spate of new dwellings known as barn conversions. I am not saying barns had never been converted into houses before but suddenly they were all the rage. The barns attached to farms that were no longer being used for their intended purpose became a source of capital for struggling farmers. The change in farm practices such as combine harvester’s, meant that some of the barns previously used as threshing barns were no longer needed for that purpose. What had once been a low value farm buildings could be capitalized on as building land and there was a spate of a new type of dwelling that quickly earned the nickname ‘Dez Rez’ for desirable residences.

The fact that barn conversions were original old buildings yet could be renovated to a high standard while at the same time retaining their original features such as exposed beams or hay stalls, made them different from the average box type house available on the market at the time.

After the war there was an urgent need for housing and lots of homes were put up very quickly and as cheaply as possible to house the many families left destitute after the bombing. As the standard of living improved many people wanted their own home and builders ever willing to supply to demand, built thousands of three bedroom homes to a standard design. Suddenly our country was filling up with lots of little box type housing with no character.

Now when large manor type houses are too expensive to run, they are sold off to developers who then convert the main building into flats and apartments, the barns into individual houses and building more houses on the land around the original buildings. My daughter bought her first house in one such development and her house was the original stable building with a large opening for the carriage which was converted into a large arch shaped window. It was certainly different and had lots of character with very high ceilings and lovely open plan spaces.

The country gentleman

Common places, readings in American vernacular architecture

Rural New Yorker

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