Census project documents state's barns
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By Peter Hirschfeld Vermont Press Bureau - Published: August 7, 2008
HUNTINGTON – The rugged pine-board exteriors of Vermont's old barns lend the state much of its agrarian identity.
But not even the state's own Department of Historic Preservation knows how many of these barns there really are.
This summer, a grant-funded census project seeks to inventory the whole of Vermont's barn stock. And organizers say the move may engender the support needed to salvage the aging relics.
Nancy Boone, an architectural historian for the state of Vermont, said the collapse of dozens of barns over recent winters has intensified efforts to preserve them.
"When you see holes in the landscape where these barns used to be, it's a wake-up call," Boone says. "These barns are something you have taken for granted would always be there."
On Saturday morning in Huntington, Eliot Lothrop ducked through a rusted cow stanchion and climbed up old hay bales into the upper level of an 1830s-era hay barn.
"It all just opens up and you can see exactly how the barn was made," Lothrop says. "This one is in pretty bad shape."
Lothrop, owner of Building Heritage, heads a five-man crew that specializes in the restoration of old barns in Vermont. He has volunteered to document barns in Huntington, where he lives, for the Vermont Barn Census.
"If it's something that raises the profile of barns, then I think it's a good thing," Lothrop says.
Lothrop, a New Hampshire native with a Master's degree in historic preservation from the University of Vermont, herded a handful of reporters into Helen Philip's hay barn, where he explained that barn preservation is often a patchwork affair.
Vermont has a program that provides up to $10,000 grants for work on eligible barns – money that often funds the projects done by Building Heritage. But the money is usually only enough for a new roof or foundation.
"You're usually trying to buy time," says Lothrop. A full barn restoration typically costs well over six-figures. "You're looking at what it is you can do to keep it standing so that down the line, when someone from Connecticut or something moves in and decides to restore it, it's still standing."
The hand-hewn hemlock and chestnut beams that support the weight of Vermont's older barns were made to last. And even after decades of virtual neglect, many barns need only roof repair and foundation work to last decades longer. Lothrop says a well-built, well-cared for barn can last for 700 years.
"Many of them have hundreds of years of life left," Boone says. "And there are straightforward things – like fixing a leaking roof, keeping the frame dry – that can extend the life of barns."
Boone says that the best estimates peg the number of barns in Vermont at anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000. Some date back to the late 1700s, she says. The barn census seeks to inventory all barns 50 years or older, cataloguing the age, condition, and type of barn for use in a central database. The census will take place over four weekends this summer.
"We have hundreds of volunteers from across the state who will go to barns in their communities, photograph them, talk to the owners, find out what condition they're in, what they were used for," Boone says. "We're trying to take the pulse of where we are with barns in Vermont."
Annette Lynch, head of the Mount Holly Barn Preservation Association, says a barn inventory in that community in 2005 heightened residents' awareness of the structures. The initiative got underway after volunteers worked to restore a particularly well-known barn in the area.
"We thought that if we really wanted to look after Mount Holly's barns as best we can, we really need to know where they are," Lynch says. "We thought there were two, maybe three. To our great surprise, we had more than 50 historic barns just in Mount Holly."
Lynch says the inventory fed a growing effort to preserve the barns. Since 2005, the Mount Holly Barn Preservation Association has won state grants to help preserve 11 barns.
"Having an organization that values the barns increases other people's perception of the value of the barns," Lynch says. "It helps people to kind of open their eyes."
Boone says she hopes to see the same phenomenon on a statewide level.
"The inventory is just the first phase," she says. "I hope it leads to some additional thinking about how we can preserve barns, because many people you talk to have this sense that we really are losing them."
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