Barns - Englert Inc.

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By Kevin Corcoran,
V.P. Business Development
Englert Inc.
Historic barns are a vital part
of New Hampshire’s heritage.
Not every historic barn can be
saved from encroaching development, or easily brought back into
productive use. Yet thousands of
such structures can be repaired or
rehabilitated for continued agricultural use or for new functions
without destroying the very qualities that make them worth saving.
In many cases, owners of historic
barns are working with architects
and contractors who can draw up
plans that preserve and reuse
these historic structures while
maintaining their historic character.
One of those contractors is
Brian Page, president of the
MadCow Division of Iron Horse
Standing Seam Roofing in
Croydon, NH. Brian loves old
barns. More than 20 years ago,
he worked for a Vermont company that saved old barns by dissembling them and reassembling
them for new owners in other
parts of the state. When he
moved his home and business
from Vermont to an old farm
property in Croydon almost a
decade ago, one of his first tasks
was to salvage a 100-year-old
barn that had fallen into disrepair.
The farm itself dated back to
1790 when a revolutionary war
soldier named Benjamin Cutting
made his living in the dairy and
lumber business.
Saving The Past
Brian Page is a New Hampshire-based metal roofing contractor
who loves old barns. The one on his property is 100 years old.
He recently replaced its deteriorated roof with a standing seam
To learn more about his barn
and what he had to do to restore
it, Brian sought the help of Jeb
Heaney, a barn restoration expert
working in Francestown, NH.
metal system. And he’s not alone. Metal roofing has become a
Brian’s milking barn originally
had a wood shake roof and is
representative of four barn styles
common to northern New
England. Known as a Yankee
barn, it is the style often considered the most traditional. A
modern-day performance and old-world charm.
A Yankee barn is basically an
enlarged and adjusted version of
the English barn, the earliest barn
structure found in northern New
Pages 58 and 59. Built in 1790, the
Strother barn of Hillsboro, NH, is what’s
known as a bank barn. Bank barns had
two levels and were typically built into
the side of a hill, giving the farmer
improved access to the upper floor
through large doors on the high side.
With its old roof in disrepair, the Strother
barn’s roof was replaced with an Englert
1300 Slate Gray standing seam panel.
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speed the process and ease the
cost of restoration.
Owners and architects have also
tapped into a Federal Historic
Preservation Tax Incentives program to foster private-sector rehabilitation of historic barn buildings. And like most residents of the
state with the motto “Live Free Or
Die”, they see the Preservation
Alliance and the tax incentives as
strong alternatives to government
ownership and management of
such historic properties.
Barn owners are also tapping
into a recent state law, RSA 79-D,
that creates a mechanism to
encourage the preservation of historic New Hampshire barns and
other agricultural buildings. The
new law authorizes municipalities
to grant property tax relief to barn
owners who can demonstrate the
public benefit of preserving barns
or other historic farm buildings 75
years or older, and who agree to
maintain their structures throughout a minimum 10-year preservation easement.
without requiring the animals pulling them to have
to back up. And Yankee
barns could be made even
larger by adding more
12’- to 14’-wide bays.
England. English barns were usually approximately 30’ wide x 40’
long. They had hand-hewn wooden frames and were covered with
simple gable roofs. They typically
had a pair of hinged doors on the
front side under the eaves.
As the small English barn
became inadequate to meet
expanded needs, farmers often
built lean-to additions on the side
or rear to provide more animal
housing and hay storage.
Generally, farmers tried to stable
cattle on the south side to take
advantage of the warmth of the
winter sun, while storing hay on
the north side to serve as a buffer
against the northwest winds.
Ultimately, the English barn
gave way to the Yankee barn,
which had its doors located at the
gable end. The roof had a half
pitch, providing more storage and
a stronger vertebrae to withstand
winter snow accumulations.
The driveways of Yankee barns
were wide enough for loaded
wagons to pass through the barn
The lumber in Brian’s barn
appeared to have been cut
at a saw mill, not hand
hewn as in earlier barn
structures. “You could
drive a pickup through
some of the holes in the roof when
I bought this property eight years
ago,” he recalled. Heaney took
care of the floors and foundations,
jacking up the barn floor 3’. Brian
restored the framework across
much of the roof and used his
skills as a metal roofing contractor
to install a new standing seam
roof. “We felt obligated to make it
stand as long as we could,” he
said. “Today, we use the barn for
storage and it will be another 100
years before it needs a new roof.”
Brian replaced the old shingles
with 3,000 sq. ft. of 20”-wide
Englert Series 1300 standing seam
roof panels. The panels are
Colonial red—one of the most
popular colors chosen to go with
the dark, weathered exterior of a
vintage barn.
Since working together on
Brian’s barn, Brian and Jeb have
teamed to work with the owners of
antique barns and the New
Hampshire Preservation Alliance,
a group of people dedicated to
preserving barns and the other historic structures shaped by New
England’s Yankee heritage. The
Preservation Alliance has created
the Historic Barn Assessment
Grant Program, in conjunction
with the State Division of
Historical Resources and the New
Hampshire Historic Agricultural
Structures Advisory Committee, to
help barn owners assess the needs
of their historic structures. The program offers competitive matching
grants of $250 or $400 to hire a
barn assessment consultant who
determines what’s required to stabilize, repair and reuse the structure. Some of the barns that Brian
has helped reroof have engaged
the alliance and its programs to
Many of the barns that Brian
reroofs are between 150 and 200
years old, have served the same
uses for generations, and need
only periodic repairs and routine
maintenance once they are salvaged. Others have become obsolete and need extensive updating
to adapt them for commercial,
office, or residential use. Whatever
the case, care must be taken to
preserve a barn’s historic character
while making needed changes.
Whatever a barn’s condition,
Brian will tell you that maintaining
the roof of an old barn is the key
to preserving the entire structure.
Pages 60 & 61. Jonathan Gibson is a second-generation pewterer who carries on the
family business in the same 200-year-old barn where he apprenticed as a young boy.
The barn, in Hillsborough Center, NH, looks much as it always has, though it now
features a Charcoal Gray-colored, Englert Series 1300 standing seam roof.
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A roof leak causes moisture to
penetrate board and framing,
inevitably creating decay. One
indicator of decay is a white mass
or fungus found on the faces of
the rafters or timbers, usually
caused by leaks in a roof or its
siding. Large timbers can sometimes be rotted on the inside with
no apparent damage on their
exterior. Such decay will penetrate down through a structure
causing supports to give way.
Brian points out that historically, the roofs of barns and other
agricultural buildings in New
England have ranged from wooden shingles before 1850, to slate
and early metal from 1850 to
1940, and then finally to the
more modern metal systems seen
today. “Each had different
requirements for maintenance
and repair, but all provided a
watertight roof,” he notes, adding,
“Metal will last for generations if
properly maintained.”
some architectural refinements
added at some point in the earlier
life of the structure. Like most
pragmatic and frugal New
Englanders, an early owner of the
Gibson barn added a barn cupola
for ventilation, lightning rods and
a weather vane. As ventilated
cupolas and raking eave trim
became typical of barns built in
New Hampshire and Vermont during the 1870s and 1880s, these
improvements likely occured during the last quarter of the 19th
century.
But even barns whose roofs
have performed as intended for
more than 100 years can have
problems related to water damage as the cumulative effect of
water runoff can cause a barn to
sink, which in turn causes its
frame to sag, loosening the braces
or dropping them out of their
mortises. So, before Brian can
even determine if the planking
boards are solid enough to hold
cleats, the barn must first be
jacked up by a specialty contractor.
Because many of the older
barns have outlived their agricultural efficacy, many New
Englanders like Brian have found
new uses that allow them to preserve their historic character and
gain utility from them at the same
time.
In late Autumn, we visited
Brian and his wife and partner,
Meredith, at their offices in
Croydon. Offering to give us a
tour of some of the barns he’s
worked on, Brian invited us to
pile into an SUV with Lloyd Hook
and Julie Batten, two of his company’s employees, who then
drove us into the central New
Hampshire countryside.
Our first stop was a Yankee
barn that is home to Gibson
Pewter, a family-owned business
founded in 1966 by the late
Raymond Gibson and run as a
seasonal family “cottage” business. It’s in the picturesque hilltop
village of Hillsborough Center, on
East Washington Rd.
The Gibson barn is very similar
to Brian’s. Different, however, are
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Today, second-generation pewterer, Jonathan
Gibson, carries on the family business in this
same 200-year old barn where he apprenticed
as a young boy. Jon is a state-juried member of
the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen and
has been recognized by Early American Life
Magazine as one of Americas 200 top traditional craftsmen since 1992. It was critical that
Jon and his family reroof the old barn if it were
to survive and provide shelter for the family
business. MadCow removed the old roof and
replaced it with 2,300 square feet of 20”-wide
Englert Series 1300 standing seam panels with
a Charcoal Gray finish.
The new roof allowed Jon to do other renovations including the enclosure of the right side
of the barn to create a shop where he designs
and fabricates pewter products. He designs,
drafts, and fabricates models of new casting
molds, using drafting tools, a lathe and hand
tools. And he modifies hand tools to facilitate
the turning and finishing of cast pieces. Inside
his shop, which also houses a retail area displaying his work, Jon joins cast parts to form
product—using solder and a blowtorch—and
shapes, engraves, and polishes product—using
his lathe and his cutting and polishing tools.
Over 100 pieces of traditional and contemporary designs are available for sale. Each leadfree piece is made with hands-on care,
whether cast, hammered or spun. The Gibson
Fruit Bowl and Wood-grain Beaker are the only
pieces of 20th century pewter taken into the
permanent collection of the Museum of Fine
Arts in Boston.
Pages 62 & 63. Near the shores of Lake Sunapee, NH,
is a transplanted Yankee barn that dates back to 1850.
As part of its reconstruction and restoration, the owner
replaced the original roof with 3,400 sq. ft. of Englert
Series 1300 standing seam in a Slate Gray color.
We bought some small pieces including a
pewter bowl, a pair of pewter earrings and a
key chain, and piled back into the SUV for our
next stop. Less than 10 miles down the road in
Hillsboro, (yup, it’s spelled differently) we
stopped on Center Road at a 1790 barn owned
by Tracy Strother, a Massachusetts native who
moved to New Hampshire six-and-a-half years
ago.
Tracey owns a “bank” barn, which gets its
name from a simple-but-clever construction
technique. The barn is built into the side of a
hill, thus permitting two levels to be entered
from the ground. The lower level would have
housed animals while the upper levels served
as a threshing floor and for storage. The hillside
entrance gave easy access to wagons bearing
wheat or hay. The general form of the bank
barn remained the same whether it was built
into a hillside or not. Gable front bank barns,
like the one Tracy owns, permitted manure to
be dropped and stored below the main floor.
Our arrival started two collies barking in a
part of the barn that now houses some space
for a small kennel. Tracey told us that when she
first saw the building the residential side was in
mint condition but the barn portion was rotting
away. Nonetheless, it was love at first sight. “I
received a flyer in the mail with the property
for sale on its cover,” she recalls. “I needed to
go and look at it. I saw it the next day and
wanted it. ‘That’s for me,’ I thought.” Even
though no one else had placed a bid for the
property, a codicil existed giving family of the
owner’s first rights to the barn. “The family
expressed some interest but never made a bid
and I was finally able to buy it,” notes Tracey.
Surrounded by aged stone walls, the farm
abuts state conservation land and includes
miles and miles of trails for hiking, biking,
cross country skiing, snowshoeing, horseback
riding or snowmobiling, right from the back
door.
The side walls of the barn are sheathed in
cedar shakes. However, at one time it probably
had vertical boards covering the building. It is
hard to tell what kind of wood originally cov-
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ered the barn without removing
the shakes. Tracey simply does
not know.
In most cases, the earlier the
barn, the more likely it was built
from trees growing close to the
site. The age of Tracey’s barn
would indicate that local timber
was used. It either contained
exterior timbers of species that
are not replaceable because the
species are extinct—like
American chestnut—or species
such as walnut, cherry, beech,
poplar, maple, or red oak, which
have become very expensive
be incorporated under the name
of George Washington, first
President of the United States and
commander-in-chief of the
Continental Army. The town was
incorporated as Washington on
December 9, 1776; 230 years ago.
We enter town and right away,
spot the green and white classic
Yankee bank barn we are seeking—directly across from the street
from a quaint general store.
Owned by Lincoln and Lollie
Gilbert, it is one of 52 barns that
The farm almost certainly supported sheep and cattle raising.
Earlier 19th-century farmers in
Hillsborough and nearby towns
were growing sheep to provide
wool for the burgeoning textile
mills in Hillsborough and other
towns that were lucky enough to
have been built near waterfalls.
The roof, which was in disrepair, was replaced with an Englert
Series 1300 Slate Gray standing
seam panel, allowing for a somewhat unique renovation of the
three-story structure. One half of
the second and third floors serve
as a residence with open postand-beam architecture typical of
such barns. This area houses a living room, dining room, large
kitchen, two baths, three bedrooms and an office. The other
half of the main floor and the
below-grade first floor still serve
as a barn where Tracey breeds
collies and raises chickens, ducks
and goats. She will soon be making space for tack and feed rooms
for horses.
Tracey has also borrowed a
page from another type of early
rural New England layout called
the connecting farm. Her living
room has a door that opens right
into the livestock area of the
barn.
We leave Tracey’s old barn
with the dogs yelping behind us
and head northwest up Route 31.
That road was originally known
as the Second New Hampshire
Turnpike. It was chartered in
1799, completed in 1801 and
was a connecting route between
Boston and Vermont. A line of
four-horse coaches ran three
times a week from Windsor, VT,
to Boston, returning on alternate
days.
We are headed to Washington,
NH, a small hamlet that claims to
be the first incorporated community named after our country’s
founding father. In 1776, the
inhabitants petitioned the New
Hampshire General Assembly to
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survive in this community of little
more than 1,000 people. The early
1800’s barn stands adjacent to an
exquisite brick colonial that over
time has served as a combination
general store and post office, private
residence and part of a large hotel
resort with several outbuildings
including our barn. In its lifetime, the
Gilbert barn has housed farm animals
including cattle, pigs, sheep and
horses, and is believed to have
served as a stagecoach stop for the
Boston to Vermont line, where a fresh
team of horses were always kept
waiting in the barn.
Brian Page’s 100-year-old barn in Croydon, NH. It’s original shingles have
been replaced with 3,000 sq. ft. of Englert Series 1300 standing seam panels
in a Colonial Red color.
The Paul Marin Barn near Lake Sunapee, NH, was built more than 150 years
ago. It is a classic English barn, measuring 30’ x 40’ with a pair of doors on
the front side under the eaves. Like both the Strother and Gibson barns, it
features a small line of transom windows over the barn doors. Putting on an
Englert Series 1300 standing seam roof was just one of several steps taken
to give the once dilapidated building new life.
The structure is somewhat unique
for a bank barn. One side of the
gable roof is about 20’ wide and the
other is more than twice that. Unlike
Tracey’s bank barn, the Gilbert barn
has a frame wall only one-story high
on the bank side. The builder extended the longer gable side down two
stories to the first level, limiting the
interior space of the structure. The
rest of the building is a classic gable
bank barn with entry ways into the
barn from the narrow side of the
gable and from the banked side as
well.
The barn itself is in remarkably
good shape. The owners have
replaced some vertical siding on the
bank side of the barn, but the only
other renovation we can see is the
new roof that Brian has added to preserve its condition—an Englert Series
1300, 21”-wide, Forest Green standing seam panel. The 26-gauge material covers an area of approximately
2,500 sq. ft. We circle the barn taking photos. It is now a little after
noon and we’re hungry. We cross the
road to the Washington General
Store, a classic New England country
store with food, household goods,
hardware and electrical supplies
crammed into a relatively small
space on one side and a tiny lunch
counter with eight stools on the
other. We order our sandwiches and
soda pop and head back for the SUV,
eating as we drive to our next destination
Our next stop is a connected barn
in East Washington, less than two
miles away on East Washington Rd.
The house is owned by Tom Zacaroli,
a management consultant, who
bought the original house, its two
additions and the 30’ x 30’, two-level
barn several years ago.
The Gilbert barn in Washington, NH, is believed to have once been used as
a stable for fresh horses on the Boston to Vermont stagecoach line. The barn
was built in the early 1800s and despite its age, is in remarkably good shape.
The only major renovation work has been the recent installation of a new
Englert Series 1300 standing seam metal roof, Forest Green in color.
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The original barn was not connected to the other buildings but Tom has
taken a page from the 1700s and
connected the house, its additions, a
mud room and the barn for easy
access.
Connected barn architecture is
rare outside Maine and New
Hampshire, where high snow falls
were a primary reason for this layout.
But it made perfect sense in this area
of the country because it made it
possible to work the entire day without ever having to step foot outside, a
major advantage on stormy days and
in wintry weather.
During the 1800s and into the
early 1900s, many in-town families
had a cow for their personal milk
supply, a light harness horse for transportation and perhaps a pig and
some sheep. To accommodate these
animals, families replicated the connected barn design, building a small
attached barn with a horse stall and a
few stanchions for cows. The upper
floor stored loose hay to feed the animals during the winter.
“I bought this 1840 barn in pretty
bad shape and debated whether I
should tear it down or resurrect it,”
recalls Tom. He chose to save it and
began a project that required extensive renovation. The building was
sagging and its mud floor was letting
in water. Tom called in a specialist to
jack-up the barn and replaced the
mud floor with a poured concrete
slab. Much of the facade has been
reskinned with new pine siding. He
topped it off with new 20”-wide
Englert Series 1300 standing seam
panels in a Charcoal Gray color. It
extends over all of the connected
buildings from the farmhouse to the
barn
“There was different vintage shingles all over the roof when I was first
bought the house. I liked the look of
standing seam and my dad had been
a sheet metal contractor, so it was an
easy choice,” said Tom. “Iron Horse
did a great job connecting the metal
across the different buildings.”
Work is still unfinished. The
ground level which once housed animals is now a workout room and the
loft which has new floors made from
old barn board will someday serve as
a family room. The look is a classic
connected town barn with a house,
smaller addition, mud room and barn
all strung together.
It’s now nearly 2 p.m. and we have
two more stops to make. We crowd
back into the SUV with the camera
equipment and head in the opposite
direction toward Lake Sunapee, the
sixth largest lake in the state.
Our first stop is the summer home
of Connecticut resident, Paul Marin,
whose colonial cottage sits directly
across a dirt road from a classic
English barn built more than 150
years ago. Like the Strother and
Gibson barns, Marin’s has a line of
small windows (commonly called
transom windows) over the barn
doors to add height, light and an
open feeling to a dark, windowless
pre-1800 structure.
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A carriage shed and another
addition that had likely housed
animals—and nearly doubled the
size of the barn—both collapsed
several years ago. Like most barns
of its genre, it had been used to
shelter milk cows and horses for
haying.
Paul began reconstruction a
couple of years ago. “Five more
years and this barn could not
have been preserved,” he recalls.
“There were two or three places
where it lacked sheathing and it
had to be replaced, and the old
corrugated tin roof was leaking.
But it is part of the history of this
property and it was important to
save it.” To save the building, it
was necessary to jack-up the
barn, replace some siding, and
install 2,000 sq. ft. of 20”-wide,
Englert Series 1300 standing seam
panels with a Hartford Green finish.
than replace, and only replaced
when it was imperative. We have
also witnessed a new generation
that embraces the challenge of
preserving a region’s history—people like Brian Page who know that
a little care, an iron will and a
good standing seam metal roof
can maintain an irreplaceable
legacy.
Kevin Corcoran is vice president of business development at
Englert, Inc., a New England
native and former manager of the
company’s New England office.
The 170-year-old barn above was very nearly torn down. But the owner chose to
save it. A specialist was brought in to jack up the frame before pouring a concrete
floor. The facade was then reskinned and the barn topped with Englert Series 1300
standing seam roofing in a Charcoal Gray color.
The sun is starting to sink in the
west and we want to get to our
last stop before we lose the light
for photo taking. We have saved
one of the best for last. This barn
is different. It is a transplant—disassembled, moved, and reassembled near the shores of Lake
Sunapee—by Brent Stocker, a
fourth generation Sunapee carpenter and woodworker whose
grandfather and great grandfather
built many of the homes around
the lake.
Stocker dissembled the 1850
Yankee barn plank by plank and
beam by beam, carted it to
Sunapee in two tractor trailer
loads and reassembled it in its
original magnificence. He discarded the old roofing material
and replaced it with 3,400 square
feet of Englert Series 1300, with
the 20”-wide panels being a
Slate Gray color. He added a few
touches to the old barn, including
a new silo, which added three
stories of rounded living space.
He painted the silo, playing with
an assortment of barn reds to give
the exterior a weathered, timeworn appearance. In doing so,
he has perhaps unknowingly
given the barn residence an
authenticity it never had.
Darkness is setting in and we
have used the waning rays of the
weak Autumn sun to capture the
last images of this magnificent
barn residence. We have other
structures we’d like to visit but
there is no more light to shoot.
Nonetheless, It has been a satisfying journey back in time. Not
only have we seen the craftsmanship of another time, but we have
learned to appreciate a way of
life that chose to repair rather
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