One of the unusual attributes of the barn at 175 Main Street is that it’s original to the property. Most of the barns we’ve featured in this series were built after the houses, probably replacing earlier structures. But the Johnson’s barn is one of the oldest of the property’s buildings. A board marked “Burnham Brothers 1869” was discovered in the barn during its renovation. Another unique distinction is that the barn is still attached to the house, with a shed connecting it to what was once the kitchen in the oldest section of the house. Like many old homes, this one was built in stages. The newer section visible in the Italianate façade is also evidenced in the interior, with the tall rooms of the Victorian era in the front of the house, and low ceilings in the back.
Like surprisingly several other owners of barns, Scott Johnson was raised in the house he and Kaye reside in, having moved here in 1958 at the age of eight. Scott, his brother Todd and sister Susan were among the fifty to sixty kids living within what he calls the “Magic Mile” of the village. Scott describes an idyllic era, with kids and bikes a constant presence on Main Street and horses in every barn. During his interview for “Random Recollections”, Scott explained, “There were a lot of moms around. There was no Amber Alert. The village was one big day care center a mile long.” The Johnson’s fortunate proximity across the street from the school afforded them additional recreational time and activities. Kids would congregate on the playground before school, after school, and during the noon recess, when Scott would, “run across the street, inhale lunch and shoot back” to play until one o’clock. The Johnson’s home was a welcoming one. Everyone who visited signed it with a marker kept for that purpose, Scott relayed. It was a happy place.
The Johnson’s barn housed farm animals – chickens, a couple of sheep and a goat named “Cleopatra”. There was also a horse named “Billy”. At that time, all the girls on Main Street owned horses, and Susan Johnson wanted one, too. Her father purchased a 20-year-old horse for $100 with the owner’s promise that Billy wouldn’t last another ten years. But Billy was 37 when he went to the “happy prairie in the sky”, long after the kids graduated, and though Mr. Johnson’s dreaded prediction – that he would get stuck taking care of the horse — was eventually realized, the two, Mr. Johnson and Billy, got to be good friends. Years later, Scott and Kaye’s daughter Mary wanted a cow, and settled on chickens instead.
The horse stable was on the lower level of the barn, and bales of hay were on the second floor. It was here that Scott and his friends camped nights, making labyrinths and forts out of the hay. He remembers a night of hurricane-like gales when a maple tree fell on the barn while they were sleeping in it. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Reportedly, Mr. Viens once saw an angelic spirit in the barn, rising from the floor to the cupola. It was a safe haven. Scott and Kaye’s daughters also hosted pajama parties in the barn. It was a perfect place for it – connected to the house, yet separate. They could make as much noise as they wanted and no one would mind. But first, the barn needed many repairs.
When Scott’s parents purchased the property, there were so many holes in the barn’s roof that “you couldn’t stay dry standing in any spot during a good October rain.” They put on a new roof, which Scott and Kaye would later replace, along with other repairs which were the result of moisture from above and from below rotting the hay and consequently the floor. Bob Inman, the well-known local carpenter who Scott calls “a building chiropractor” was enlisted to rescue the barn from deterioration. He lifted the entire building onto jacks and, little by little, slowly raised it to rebuild the foundation first. Bob basically rebuilt the post and beam structure in its entirety, using all salvageable timber and replacing the floor on the first, second and third levels. The original windows were also salvaged for the renovation, as was another of the barn’s exceptional features – the cupola. A new feature was the sixteen paned window viewed over the barn doors, which were also reinstalled to suspend and slide from the ceiling instead of the floor.
Both Bob Inman’s craftsmanship and the Johnson’s commitment to authentic restoration are also evinced in the wrap-around porch added over a decade ago. There were no photographs of the original porch, but one afternoon when Bob was working on its construction and Craig McNally was painting a portion of it, a big Buick drove in the driveway and one of the MacMillans – the family of seven girls who once lived there — stopped to admire the porch. She always went past the old house whenever she visited from Maine and was pleased to see the porch replaced. Apparently, Mrs. Macmillan didn’t like the way the porch shielded the house from sunlight, rendering it dark inside, and removed the roof, leaving the floor of the structure exposed without its protection.
Former Town Clerk William Burnham also lived in the house once and reportedly used the little building on the property as the Town Clerk’s Office. William Burnham was also notable for donating the land across the street from his home for the construction of the Little River Grange.
The property has hosted other community functions as well. Two community plays – Chekhov’s “A Marriage Proposal” in 2006 and “The Boor” in 2007 – have been performed in the barn on Memorial Day, and square dancing has also taken place on the lawn during the holiday. And the porch, festooned with patriotic buntings, is always filled with friends who join the family to view the parade.
It might no longer be part of the Utopian village of the 50’s, but the Johnson’s is still a “happy place”.