Barn designs are rich in history and innovation

By Marty Metzger
Correspondent

Without barns, rural America would lack much of its charm. Horses and their people would be vulnerable to meteorological extremes.

Barn architecture is historically diverse. From ancient Egypt to medieval Europe to pioneer America, imagination and creativity solved stabling challenges.

Settlers with carriages or buggies included wide doors in their blueprints. Draft animals obviously required roomier quarters than did children's ponies. One tightly sealed barn in Quebec, Canada, even included a nice, perfectly round hole cut into the clapboard as a mousing cat's private entrance.

Down through the centuries, walls of wood, mud or stucco have kept their inhabitants safe from the elements. There have been log, timber, sod, brick and natural stone barns topped by slate, thatch, shingles or tin roofs.

Barns have served double duty as canvasses. New York and New Jersey, from their first settlements forward, saw Dutch barns with fancy and colorful designs on exterior walls and doors. Barn sides served as early billboards, sporting such slogans as "Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco."

Stonemasons and barn builders displayed artistic freedom of expression as well: gambrel roofs; barns tall on one side, roof sloped into the hillside on the other; hipped gables.

Antique hardware, especially hand-forged pieces, is fascinating. From simple hook-and-eye latches to hand-carved wooden door sets to mass produced bolts, hinges and tack hooks, they're delicious eye candy for primitives aficionados.

As early as the 1700s, the English, aka Yankee, three-bay barn was ubiquitous from New England through the Midwest.

The Pennsylvania barn, considered the Cadillac of two-level styles, is one of the most important barn types in the United States. Rich brown, green, rust or grey stone often colored its ends. Wooden doors, gables and other accents painted bright white with black trim still present a clean, tidy, pristine appearance on these antique beauties.

Swiss and German designers modified their European style structures to better fit the lay of the land here and added extra touches to these grand buildings: arched stone doorways; brick openings for ventilation and whimsy in geometric patterns, animal shapes and Christmas trees; fretwork; a myriad of colorful hexes; barn sculptures; date stones; and brickwork patterns. Weathervanes, lightning rods and windmills complete the collective image of what a barn should have.

Two highly dramatic and aesthetically pleasing barn designs are round and polygonal. Usually wood or stone construction, these enormous creations sported earthen ramps leading to upper threshing floor levels.

Round barns provided stalls in pie-wedge shaped stanchions encircling an interior, circular alley from which the animals were fed. The mow and ventilation shaft were in the center. Doors and windows were prolific. Steps and long stairways led to upper levels. Silos and cupolas lifted their heads high to the heavens like elegant church steeples.

Barn design has a rich pedigree indeed. From it, 21st century northern Colorado draws and improves on features to meet its own wants, needs and challenges.

John MacFarlane and Patricia Brennan, owners of American Classic Barns in Masonville, are up for those challenges in a unique way. Founded in 2001, the company never builds the same barn twice.

MacFarlane begins each project by meeting with the customers. Questions include how they plan to feed, location of adjoining pastures, where they'll back up trailers, directional origin of utility lines and tack/storage space required.

Wind direction partially determines the planned structure's location on the property. MacFarlane respects Colorado's occasionally wild weather, the resulting county regulations and building codes. His blueprints expertly consider snow loads and wind velocities. A structure that in Fort Collins or Loveland would be built to sustain 110 mph winds would tolerate 130 mph blasts if erected at Red Feather Lakes.

MacFarlane said safety standards improve every year. Foundation post spacing, for example, must now be every 6 feet as compared with the previous 8 feet, thereby increasing initial costs but better preserving the structure.

"We try to build a good barn that will be there 100 years from now," MacFarlane said.

His prime concerns are comfort, convenience and safety. He tries to avoid placing doors on wind-prone north or west sides and accomplishes ventilation in all his buildings by use of a mesh material running along the entire length of the ridge.

MacFarlane recommends steel roofs, as shingles poorly tolerate wind and hail. Conversely, he prefers rough-sawn board and batten siding unless steel is necessary.

Patricia Brennan said that barn owners may select additional features such as Dutch or steel frame swing doors, cedar trim, custom exterior flower boxes, tongue-and-groove ceiling or interior siding, dormers and any size custom-made stalls and dividers.

"That's the difference between us and a kit. Everything is unique," MacFarlane said.

The largest barn, to date, that ACB has built is the just-completed, two-story gambrel at Harvest Farm north of Wellington. The 54-foot wide by 40-foot long structure replaces a barn that burned in November 2005. The new one features wood siding, a widow's peak, decking and a faux pulley beam.

Whether it's a replacement barn or additional barn, anyone adding horse stabling to a property has a new, exciting world of technology and a broad, rich world of antiquity from which to choose when designing the barn of their dreams.