According to the barn survey information at Historic Barns of Connecticut, the barn at 41 Hebron Road in Andover dates to 1780. An English side-entry barn, it was moved to its current address from further up the road. Its owner dismantled and rebuilt it in 1998 to reflect its original period. The nomination for the Andover Center Historic District dates the barn to c. 1850. The barn is associated with the Phelps-Bingham House, a colonial house across the street.
On the northwest corner of the Bradley-Wheeler House property in Westport is a heptagonal (seven-sided) cobblestone barn with an octagonal roof. It is thought to have been built circa 1847 by Farmin Patchin, a mason and blacksmith who owned the house at the time. The original uses of the barn are unknown, but it was possibly a smithy. The northwest corner of the building was originally attached to a wood frame barn that is no longer standing. Renovated in late 1980s/early 1990s, the barn is now home to the Museum of Westport History run by the Westport Historical Society.
Happy Halloween!! In keeping with the Fall spirit, today’s building is the Old Cider Mill in Glastonbury. Recognized as the oldest continuously operating Cider Mill in the United States (starting in the early nineteenth century?), the current building was constructed as early as the 1870s.
Hilltop Farm, located between Mapleton Avenue and the Connecticut River, just south of the Massachusetts border in Suffield, was developed in the early twentieth century as a country estate and gentleman’s farm by George Hendee, the co-founder of the Indian Motocycle Corporation of Springfield, Mass. Hendee devoted the farm to raising prize dairy cows and poultry. He developed a prize herd of Guernsey cows known as Hilltop Butterfats. In 1913, Hendee began assembling the property for his farm, which by the 1920s had grown to nearly 500 acres. His large manor house, built in 1916, was torn down in 1961 to make way for the sprawling campus of St. Alphonsus College, later occupied by the Lincoln Culinary Institute. The largest and most impressive surviving building from the estate is a massive Dairy Barn (18,700 square feet), constructed by Hendee in 1914. The architect of the manor house, Max Westhoff, may also have designed the barn, which has been called a “Monster Barn” and “Connecticut’s Agricultural Cathedral.” A two-story, Colonial Revival-style building, it is a ground-level stanchion barn with a high drive entrance. Two cylindrical silos flank the entrance on either side.
Later owners subdivided the farm. The parcel containing the barn was part of the former farm that was acquired by Pinnacle Developers in 1999. After local protest about the developers’ plans to build an assisted living facility on the land, Pinnacle sold 127 acres, including the barn, to the Town of Suffield. In 2004, the town sold 7.9 acres, including the barn and other farm buildings, to Educational Properties LLC, which owned the neighboring culinary school (aka the Suffield Conference Center). Educational Properties provided a renewable 99-year lease on the barn to the Friends of Hilltop Farm, which eventually purchased the building in 2013. The organization is restoring the barn and leases 65 acres of adjacent open space owned by the Town of Suffield. The property is now dedicated to agricultural and educational purposes.
Powder Hollow, in the Hazardville section of Enfield, was once the site of the Hazard Powder Company, which flourished in the mid-nineteenth century. The company furnished an estimated 40% of all the gunpowder used during the Civil War. Surviving friom the company’s original complex of buildings is a barn built around 1845. Constructed as a horse barn, it was converted by Ralph Sweet for Square Dancing in 1959. The Powder Mill Barn (also known as the Powder Hollow Barn) is also a popular rental hall for weddings, auctions and other events.
At 16 Main Street in Plainfield’s Central Village is a large Italianate barn. Built c. 1880, it now serves as a business.
In the nineteenth century, Salem was home to what is considered to be the first music conservatory (the first degree-granting school of music, or at least music teaching certificate-granting school) in the United States. Founded around 1835 by Orramel Whittlesey, son of the local Methodist minister Rev. John Whittlesey, the school was first called Mr. Whittlesey’s School, later the Salem Normal Academy of Music, and eventually the Music Vale Seminary. Young women from all over the country came to attend the school. After its original rambling classroom building burned down in 1868, it was replaced by an elaborate Italianate structure. The school closed soon after Whittlesey’s death in 1876 and the main building was destroyed by fire in 1897. The school’s large barn, built c. 1849, does survive. It is typical of an “English barn,” a type also called a side-entry or eave entry barn, a “thirty by forty” (based on its dimensions), a “Yankee barn” or a “Connecticut Barn.” The school‘s farm played an important role for the institution, supplying animals and crops. The Bodman family later owned the Music Vale property and donated much of it to the Salem Land Trust. The barn is now part of what is known as Music Vale Farm. (more…)