Architectural Salvage and The American Barn: Recycling or Robbery?

In my days in the bowels of Detroit the architectural scalpers came in waves, a clear pecking order.  The professionals and their lackeys removed the most valuable artifacts first: the church windows.  These went straight to New York, some to Europe.  Then the hardware and iron work, remnants of Detroit in its ‘Paris of the Midwest’ days, walked away in the night.  Whatever could be sold in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to architects, interior designers and yupsters who rarely asked for the source or any kind of documentation, gone.  Eventually, long after the hired pickers had exhausted their hunger, in came the hungry….the  bottom of the pecking order: the homeless, the drunks,  the addicts pulling copper wiring, plumbing…anything not of bedrock that could be sold in bulk. The efficiencies of urban salvage are breathtaking in a city like Detroit.

Out in the arid fields and derelict farmsteads of the Midwest the racket is a familiar one for me.  Different setting, same ugliness. They come at all times, day and night.  chainsaw, rope, crowbars, pick up trucks.  Crossing fallow fields, ignoring rusted No Trespassing signs, their bounty a treasure hundreds of years old.   It’s the wood they want: Virgin Oak, Hemlock and Ash.  Virgin Yellow Pine and Red Pine without a knot to be found…smooth as honey.  Virgin timber post & beam barns by the thousands, standing like cathedrals in the fields.  The American icons upon which a nation was built.

Like any market, its supply and demand and throughout the 1990’s the demand for virgin timber was high.   I once sat and listened to an out of work blacksmith brag of his triumphs: he and his crew could pull a barn, load it and drive it west where it would easily claim a bounty of $70,000 or more.  So proud he was of his ingenuity, his little dent in the world of rural capitalism.  He was gittin his.   Most of it went West..into the desert manses where the aesthetic called for big, strong and timeless.  Today, one can go online and buy salvaged virgin timber hand-hewn beams for cosmetic application in new or existing construction. I have heard of timber sellers hiring men with axe and adze who then spend hours hacking away at beams to make them look ‘authentic’.  And the buyer knows no better.  I do.

There is a keen difference between recycling and stealing.  A fine line exists between the two in the food chain life of architectural salvage.

-Break-

I have just taken a call from a woman here in Michigan whose father has contracted with a timber-scalper-posing-as-contractor to ‘remove for free’ the family barn built three generations ago.  She was to inherit the barn.  Frantic, she was looking for any support I could give her in convincing her father to save the barn and stop piecing it out for nothing.  The pillaging of these American icons continues across the heartland as I write…

-resume copy-

When a barn is unethically salvaged ie; dismantled/pulled down and pieced out as scrap what is lost is the artifact as a unified, functioning example of a structural form.  In other words, a standing true post & beam frame in its entirety is the artifact, one that only exists as a sum of its parts.  Dismantled, it exists no longer.  Therein lies the difference between the architectural salvage of a church window and the salvage-for-materials of a barn.  The church window will go on, albeit out of context.  The barn? gone.

-Break-

I just received the phone call..a cease and desist order is being issued against the timber scalper posing as contractor who was in the process of dismantling the 3rd generation family barn mentioned earlier.  Thanks to one phone call made by the daughter, I was able to give her enough information which she then relayed to her father, information which lead to a change of heart on his part toward the barn.

-resume copy-

While the recycling of materials is a responsible endeavor, it is critical that those salvaging timber from historic barns come to understand the ramifications of their actions, however noble they may feel them to be.  The stripping and piecing of barns does not reside in the realm of environmental recycling, it resides in the realm of culturally unethical architectural salvage.

Green Housing? Try an Old Barn

Part One: Why Barn?

If you want to build green you have to consider going back in time.  Think about it: prior to toxic housing materials, clear-cutting and built-in-obsolescence, how did we build? What materials did we use?  What is the prototype?  Here is a big hint:

An American Icon, built green.

Yes, the Barn.  Standing over a million strong throughout the US, true virgin timber, post & beam barns may hold the key for hundreds of thousands who want to live in an environmentally sound home.  Converting one of these architectural gems into a rural monster mansion is cool.  (Easy McMansion haters, you can zone the heck out of these things and make the living quarters closet-esque if you so desire).  The idea is starting to catch on.

Why Barn?

It is really quite simple.  It’s all about efficiencies, always has been.  Efficiencies in materials, money and time.  Most virgin timber, true post & beam barns were built by farmers and aspiring farmers who were lacking three things: time, money and labor. (Now that I think of it, a modern issue…) So the need was clear: how do I build the strongest structure possible, a functional agrarian tool,  with no money and the materials I have on hand:  lots of really big old trees?  The result of this conundrum turned out to be one of the greatest contributions in the early years of building our nation: the American Barn.  As it turns out, it is also may be the greatest contribution to the concept of green building our ancestors could have left us.

The legacy of American barn builders are standing in fields across this country ready to teach us virtually everything we need to know about building Green.  Our grandparents and great Grandparents were ‘green’ out of raw necessity and circumstance rather than an optional lifestyle choice.  It is this approach to goods and materials that we are now being consciously and economically forced to institute once again and it carries well into the built environment.  We should be actively recycling our built environment and that means recycling our barns for new uses.  New, novel idea? No, just a logical continuation in the life of these amazing structures.

In professional circles its called Adaptive Reuse.  The preservation term for recycling.  For those as yet unfamiliar with the term: When a building, historic perhaps based on its age alone, is no longer appropriate or needed for the original intended use, it is ‘adapted’ to a new use in order to meet an economic or aesthetic need. Witness the urban warehouse turned artist studio or the Firehouse turned night club.   Adaptive Reuse often brings buildings  back onto tax rolls, a good thing for struggling communities.  Barns have been continuously ‘adaptively reused’ since practically day one of their existence.  They were purposely built to allow easy disassembly and relocation.  What was their original use? threshing grain. With huge threshing floors in the center bays, storage in each side bay, spaced vertical siding for airflow and large hinged doors which could be opened in a funnel like manner to capture the wind, they originally functioned as gargantuan drying machines. The tobacco barns of Kentucky and Tennessee still function as such.   Toward this end, the barn was always sited on the land to maximize wind power. (Terribly convenient for green builders today don’t you think?)

As farmers became financially able, livestock became a possibility.  This required a ‘adaptive reuse’ of the barn in order to accommodate a variety of hoofed beings milling about.  Grain needed to be stored, feed shoots added, drainage in basements, etc.  More importantly they now needed to store feed for the beasts in the form of hay, lots of hay.  This required blowing out the straight gable roofs, adding an intermediate ridge beam and creating the Gambrel roofline that so clearly defines the barn as ‘Icon’ in the landscape.

A Gambrel roofline

*Note the mysterious absence of poly vinyl chlorides in this photo.

In an effort to maximize timber, time and labor, barn builders, trained by the great cathedral builders of Europe in the art and often incorporating the Masonic principles of sacred geometry, utilized the ancient construction method known as  post & beam.  Ancient in its roots, it has been traced back to the end of the neolithic era in what is now China.

Post & beam remains one of the strongest construction methods available to us.   It is the basis of the modern day skyscraper.  This method of construction utilizes approximately 1/6 the amount of lumber vs. the conventional stick or balloon frame construction method accepted as standard and heralded by the modern lumber industry.  300-500 yr old timber post & beam structures, including barns, remain standing and in use throughout Europe.  Our post and beam structures here in the U.S. can remain functional for similar lifespans.  We simply have to realize its possible and get to work.

So why not just build a new post & beam house?  Why is an old barn better?  Two words: ‘Virgin’ and ‘Timber’.  Most pre-1920 post and beam barns were built of virgin timber: Oak, Ash, Pine, Beech, Hemlock, etc.  All of this material is now harvested and in use.  It is impossible to find timber with 400 years of growth on it.  The best you can hope for is 30 years and there is a world of difference.  Virgin timber possesses the following characteristics that differentiate it as a building material in ways you may find interesting.

1.  Virgin timber contains a 200+ year growth cycle vs. on average in today’s milled lumber a mere 20 to 30 yrs.  This provides a core wood that is of much denser/compressed cellular structure and hence much stronger and less vulnerable to penetrating infestation, rot etc.;

2. The posts and beams traditionally were harvested and hewn in such a manner that the growth rings, the ‘heart’ of the timber remains intact allowing the strength of the growth rings to continue to function in a radiant manner.  This is extremely strong when compared with milled timber in which the rings are compromised via 1/4 sawn, etc.  This type of milling eliminates if not removes the cellular structural integrity of the material.  This is particularly true in hewn posts which hold loads in a vertical manner.  The weight of the load is dispersed out in an equally radiant manner from the center of the post out through the growth rings of the timber.  Remember, man has only been designing load bearing material for a few hundred years.  Nature has been designing load bearing material for millions of years.  I trust natures design;

3.  Virgin timber contains a higher ‘pitch’ content, (I have seen virgin 200+ yr old timbers still sap out when cut).  This provides us with material that is much less prone to infestation and bacterial accumulation;

4.  Virgin timber in its hewn state and configured as a true post & beam frame has been seasoned through freeze thaw cycles for 100+ years.  It will no longer warp, split, or shrink.  Many franchise ‘timberframe’ companies have gone bankrupt when buildings constructed using less than seasoned timbers shrunk, literally blowing out installed windows.

So in essence, when you consider a virgin timber post & beam barn for conversion to a house, you are already starting with the best ‘bones’ any green residential builder could hope for.  Local materials, the most efficient use of lumber producing the greatest inherent strength,  proven load bearing capacity, raw beauty and no toxic anything went into the construction.

These American icons are ready for the next evolution in their lives as structural citizens: Green Homes.

Next: The ins and outs of conversions…

Copyright 2009  Nancy Kotting all rights reserved, reproduction by permission only.  Please email NancyKotting@gmail.com

Green Housing? Try an Old Barn/Part 2

In Part 1 of this series we looked at the question of why historic post & beam barns are suitable candidates for green housing.  Here, in Part 2, we will begin to look at just how one goes about  acquiring a barn for conversion to a home.

Standing in fields and hamlets throughout the East and Midwest…with a drizzle stretching out West, virgin timber true post & beam barns number some 600,000 according the most recent census of farms generating more than $1000 annually from agricultural activity.  These are the barns accounted for on active farms.  I would venture to guess, based on my own years in the business here in the Midwest, that the number standing on inactive agricultural, residential and even commercial land is well over 1 million, probably approaching 1.5 million or more.  That’s a lot.

Acquiring a barn for conversion to a home is extremely economical in cases where one already owns land with a barn on it.  Inherited agricultural land, active farmsteads, investment farmland, etc. often contain derelict barns long thought useless and written off as ‘ruin’.  Owners 9 times out of 10 have no idea the value of the structure.  Granted many are in need of repair, sometimes extensive.  However, the value of irreplaceable virgin timber in the form of a true post & beam frame that his proven itself as a load bearing entity for 100+ years usually renders repairs economically viable in the big picture.  Even barns that look at first glance to be ‘gone’ may indeed be salvageable for adaptive reuse.  I have seen a 120′ x 48′ arch-style roofed barn converted to a stunning home, this after a total collapse of the roof prior to restoration.  Again, when dealing with a finite supply of irreplaceable material, whose future lifespan numbers in centuries, the economics of restoration begin to make sense.

The second most economical way to acquire a barn for conversion is to find land for sale with a pre-existing barn.  The market is such today that 100+ yr old barns are most often viewed as a liability by both owners and real estate professionals. In almost all cases the barn is assigned little value, maximum $15,000-$20,000.  The price generally reflects the land itself.  In essence, in today’s market most buyers basically get the barn for free.  I do expect this to change over time as the value of these buildings begins to get recognized but for now, this is the reality in the current market.  Ideally, one will acquire land with a pre-existing barn sited on the property suitable for the new owners needs.  Relocating a repaired/restored barn on a parcel of land is relatively simple albeit will require a new foundation which in some cases is a good thing if drainage or freeze/thaw induced heaving has created extensive damage to its original foundation over the decades.  Normally however, the original foundation to most barns are works of art that can measure 2′ thick and contain extraordinary masonry work worthy of restoration. Incurring the expense of an on-site relocation is a cost/benefit decision a new owner must consider specific to their unique situation and future needs.

The third way of acquiring a barn for conversion to a home is to find one that is available for removal.  Many are available due to the fact that they are threatened with demolition either by neglect or encroaching development.  Others have become too big of a liability for property owners who do not want the risk of injury in an unsound structure or who simply can no longer afford maintenance and insurance on the building.  Still others are owned by elderly property owners with a strong emotional attachment to a family barn. Such owners would rather see the beloved structure go on to a new use verses watching it fall into ruin.  A new owner must acquire the right to remove the barn from the current owner either through a sale at an agreed upon price or a removal agreement which normally requires that the new owner assume all responsibility for the removal of the entire structure leaving a clean site.  The new owner then makes any repairs required. These should be done prior to dismantling the frame to insure a safe dismantle and clean raising.  Following repairs, the new owner is then responsible for the actual dismantle, relocation and raising of the frame on the new site.

What is the market for buyers and sellers of historic virgin timber post & beam barns?  One word: thin.  Due to the extensive number of derelict barns currently in need of restoration and/or relocation, particularly in the Midwest,  a seller should expect to receive anywhere from ‘free removal’ of a barn up to $3000.00 for a pristine barn in need of no repair.  While this may seem remarkably inexpensive to acquire such a structure and perhaps an insult to current owners, this is the market at this point in time.  There are exceptions of course to this.  Rare barns such as round barns or Octagon barns command a much higher price due to the lack of supply.  A good rare barn should command anywhere from $80,000 to $150,000 and up.  It is a case of price determined by willing buyer/willing seller.

Note that barns of historic significance are excluded from this analysis and should only be transacted by curatorial professionals.   Having said that, buyers must also recognize the cultural significance of rare barns within their original context.  Ideally, such barns, like all barns, should remain in their original context and be adaptively reused in a culturally sensitive way and  according to the Secretary of Interiors Standards for Rehabilitation.  Relocation and adaptive reuse is a tool implemented by all historic preservation professionals when less intrusive remedies are not an option in the preservation of threatened historic structures.

Relocation of an historic post & beam barn is NOT a job for modern general contractors.  They are simply not trained to work historic barns.  Repairing and relocating a true Post & beam barn is extremely dangerous and requires the services of a master barnwright. Also, while there are extraordinarily talented timber framers in the US, those trained in mortice and tenon joinery, there are very few professional barnwrights.  A true barnwright is one with the skill and experience to walk into any historic post & beam barn of any ethnic building tradition, ‘read’ the barn and its repair needs accurately, make said repairs and be able to safely disassemble the barn.  He or she must be sensitive and respectful to the historic fabric of the building and able to execute a dismantle in such a way as to insure a successful raising at a new location…and then raise it!  My personal experience is that here in the US, such barnwrights of notable skill and experience number less than a bakers dozen.  Yes, given the number of existing barns and the emerging market for conversions in the US, (the market is well established in Europe) this lack of skilled barnwrights is an issue… and an opportunity.  Again, those skilled in the art of timber framing far out number those who can claim to be true barnwrights.  Individuals seeking to relocate a barn are strongly advised to take time in identifying a true barnwright for a project.  I recommend extensive interviews, referrals and recommendations.  Do check references!  Barnwrights are largely unregulated as they specialize in an ancient building method, their work generally confined to agricultural projects that rarely require a builders license, depending on local jurisdictions.  Skilled  barnwrights are master craftsmen, preservationists and artisans in the truest sense.

In Part 3 of this series I will discuss in more detail the process of dismantling and relocating a historic post & beam barn.

Copyright 2009  Nancy Kotting  All rights reserved, reproduction by permission only.  Please email: NancyKotting@gmail.com