Barr Mansion Dutch Barn

 

 

 

Barr Mansion barn rises from ashes

Timbers from 1790 barn form building's backbone

By Jim Swift

Back in the 1990s, Melanie McAfee paid a visit to Homestead Heritage , a traditional crafts village located just north of Waco. There was a vintage barn on the site that village workers had moved to Texas from New York. McAfee wondered if they could bring another one to the grounds of the Barr Mansion, the organic-food-based wedding venue she owned with her then-husband, Marc McAfee, in northeast Austin.

"It was our first Dutch barn and we didn't know what we were doing at all," laughed Kevin Durkin, the man in charge of the move and reconstruction of the barn. The project worked out well, though, and the McAfees used the 1770 vintage timbers as the skeleton for the barn.

The building hosted wedding receptions and other celebrations until a lightning strike ignited its thatched roof, burning the structure to the ground.

"What attracted me to these old timbers was the fact that they were so organic and authentic," Melanie McAfee said. "We were in the midst of getting our organic certification and we wanted our building to reflect that energy. So when I came across Homestead Heritage and the timbers, I knew that had to be the bones of our artisan ballroom."

If the project worked out well for McAfee, it benefited Homestead Heritage even more. The village created a division called Heritage Restorations to replicate the successful venture at other sites.

"Right now, we probably have 20 or 30 going right now, from Connecticut to California," said Durkin, who is still on the job and now the general manager of the Heritage Barn division. "We were in Tokyo this year doing an American barn from New York. So we get around."

So, in the wake of the fire, McAfee turned to him again and found the man more into the notion than ever.

"Its character and being surrounded by a sense of history," Durkin said. "You know, you look at those timbers and you see some farm boy's initials from 1830 carved in the post and you know that people lived and worked in this building. It was their lives. I think they'd have a hard time realizing we took it to Texas, but here it is. Originally, when all these craftsmen came and immigrated from Europe, they came to this American virgin forest, which was spectacular timbers, like in this barn, which we don't find today."

The replacement structure was built in 1790 in New York State's Mohawk Valley. When Homestead Heritage found it, things had changed.

"It was broken down and old and abandoned," Durkin said. "You know, I'm sorry to say a lot of them get burned down. A lot of them get bulldozed down and not a whole lot gets saved. So we've saved a lot of barns."

Again, the Barr Mansion site will use only the ancient timbers from the New York structure. The rest of the building will look much like the 1999 version, including its signature glass wall on the front.

"The glass wall is coming back," said McAfee, "but it will be much greener and have much bigger panes of glass. So hopefully the timbers will be more visible as you approach the building and become more like a jewel box to show off the timbers."

That's not the only change, either. Take the thatch roof, for example. It's not conducive to Texas thunderstorms and it won't return.

"The thatch came from Turkey," McAfee recalled. "This time we're using galvalume for the roof. That's recycled steel, obviously American. We're using aerated concrete block which is made in Texas. We're using insulated SIP panels; they're locally made."

The job is facing an end-of-January deadline for completion. Since the fire, the mansion has been using a state-of-the-art tent as a temporary ballroom, but the busy spring wedding season will be quickly marching down the aisle -- and brides and grooms will want to be sure their marriages will have a barn to be born in.

 

Published in Kxan.com (April 26, 2013).