When we moved to Hampton, we were charmed by the old farmhouse but not blind to its deficiencies. Besides needing a great deal of structural work, it lacked two necessities for writers: bookcases and storage. Fortunately, the solution to both of those stood in the side yard: a large red barn. On the left side was an enclosed space, most recently a shop selling tack and other riding paraphernalia. On the right were two open, doorless bays that once might have served for farm equipment but now, cement floored, would hold two cars.
Above both sections was a loft accessed by a narrow, newish stair from the shop. The loft had a trap door for bales of hay, as well as a door in the east wall so bales could be off loaded from a tall hay wagon. The hay was long gone and access via the door in the east wall was no longer possible except for bats and other wildlife because there was a lean-to shed attached to the lower story. This had a proper cement footing but an earth floor and was divided into a small stall and a larger L shaped open area. There were boxes that might have held feed and space, I’m guessing for two, or possibly three, horses.
Given that we were having numerous rooms stripped to the studs, floors refinished, and a bathroom redone, all this space was very welcome. There was room in the garage to set up a work table to make bookcases, and the former tack shop had a built-in bench with shelves underneath, very suitable to store my share of my dad’s hand tools and my recently purchased skill saw.
What was to prove more problematic, and can serve here as a warning for anyone else fortunate enough to buy a place with a large, mostly empty, barn, was the ease with which potentially useful, or too good to discard, items can be stored out of sight and mind in a barn. The previous owners had succumbed to that in part, but I’m afraid we have topped up the store. Two glass fronted bookshelves now hold copies of novels past. The changing cubicle of the shop first held books and, when they were moved into the house, paintings. The latter have been particularly difficult, expanding to two improvised racks and a professional steel video rack, useful to a sportswriter before sports moved to on demand tv and streaming services.
The pony shed, meanwhile, held a generator for years and when we upgraded to one that did not need a manual start, the garden equipment, previously held at bay, took over the rest. In the garage, old shop, and shed, useful wood and rescued planks from otherwise unsalvageable floors have taken up lodging. I can foresee a dumpster in someone else’s future.
According to Bob Burgoyne’s inventory of historic Hampton buildings, the barn was most likely built soon after Nathan Holt bought the land from his father in 1859 and erected our present house. The younger Holt operated a blacksmith business, either in the barn or in another now lost structure. But if the basic framework of the barn is 19th century with post and beam construction and hand cut nails and pegs, the joists in the garage area look to be 20th century and much of the sheathing looks to be recycled boards. The wall between the shop and garage is plywood, while the cupola on the roof probably dates from the 1980’s and does not provide for ventilation.
Still, at purchase, the barn seemed authentic – at least from a distance. Its air of solidity also proved deceptive, when we discovered with the first heavy spring rains that the roof leaked, depositing a steady stream of water in the shop area. Berard Builders, already virtually in residence in the house, removed the worn-out asphalt shingles, laid plywood over the boards that had once supported wooden shingles, and installed a new roof.
Earlier the barn had needed even more drastic assistance. The previous owners had hauled it into something like plumb with a steel cable, and we suspect they also put in the windows, given the supply of used sash and doors that resided in the loft. The walls of the pony shed, which might also be partly 19th century construction, had been sheathed in flake board, an ugly modern product now hidden under amateurishly applied clapboards. One learns a lot with an old place needing repairs!
Clearly our barn is not a fine example of 19th century rural architecture, just as our house, notably lacking in architectural detail or quality craftsmanship, is not a prime example of historic construction. By and large, notably preserved and designed buildings did not belong to working farmers of modest means, and the houses and barns that have been well preserved most likely belonged to wealthy families, probably with an antiquarian bent.
But the beautifully-preserved are all too often rendered obsolete. One only needs to see the sad state of what were once impressive post and beam agricultural structures to see that change and renovation are often the instruments of survival. Our old barn once held hay and provided shelter for animals and farm equipment. Later, the house belonged to a carpenter/ builder, and I suspect the barn was his workshop.
The owners immediately before us kept riding horses and rescued the barn from near collapse with modern materials and a good deal of dump picking and recycling. They divided it up and added on. As we have. Now it is an inauthentic yellow with blue doors and sports solar panels, earning its keep as a garage, work, and storage space. If it is lucky, the next owners will find it useful, keep it in reasonable repair, and preserve it, not as an historic artifact, but as a machine for living and working.
Janice Trecker