Historic Barns of Connecticut

Designations

n/a

Historic Significance

Architectural description:

This is a 2 1/2-story with basement, gambrel bank barn in a Colonial Revival style. The main eave-side facade faces south. Joshuatown Road runs approximately west-east until it angles to the south to the east of the barn. The south eave-facade is arranged with a center bay flanked by two wider bays on each side, separated by wide pilasters. The first level pilasters are fieldstone and the other floors are clad in wood shingles. The main entry in the middle bay is a pair of arched hinged doors with multi-pane top halves. The second level has a multi-pane Palladian window. The third level has a gambrel dormer with a multi-pane Palladian window. Above the dormer centered on the top of the roof is a two-tiered cupola. Along the ridge-line to the southeast of the cupola is a chimney. A smaller chimney is towards the north-west end of the structure. The flanking bays at the first level have two pairs of twenty-over-twenty double hung windows each, as do the outer-most bays. The mortared fieldstone foundation is visible at grade along the south, east, and north sides. The first level infill between the stone piers is wood shingles. The second level flanking the middle bay has three (a pair and a single) twenty-over-twenty double hung windows each, as do the outer-most bays. Wood shingles sheathe the rest of the facade. The west gable is built into a bank, with the second level opening at the upper grade. The east gable-end has four pairs of six-over-six double hung windows on the first level; four pairs of six-over-six double hung windows are on the second level; two six-over-six double hung windows are on the third level and there is a small vent under the apex of the roof in the gable attic. The west gable-end at the third level has a modern trapezoidal window panel with full-height glazing. The north eave-side has a simpler arrangement of double hung windows on the first and second levels. The roof has two shed-roofed dormers between the outermost bays and the inner bays of the south side, each with a pair of multi-pane double hung windows. The north pitch of the roof has no dormers. The roof has asphalt shingles.

Historic significance:

The 19th century saw the introduction of the Gentleman’s barn. While many farmers were striving for efficiency to compete with farms in the middle of the country, a new type of farmstead appeared in Connecticut: the gentleman’s farm. These barns were frequently designed by famous architects and were part of giant complexes that combined the luxury of a weekend retreat with the grit of a working farm.

This barn has been adaptively re-used as a home and artists’ studio.

Field Notes

Note: photos are labeled as 412 Joshuatown Rd. This is a prime example of a gentleman farmer's barn from the beginning of the 20th century. The building skillful execution in the shingle style has prompted speculation that it may have been designed by McKim, Mead & White. Research into Leland Roth's _The architecture of McKim, Mead & White, 1870-1920 : a building list_ and the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals has yet to turn up an architect for the building. It is known that it was constructed for Dr. John Morgan as part of a much larger complex. A carriage house from the original estate (and with matching doors) can be seen further down Joshuatown Road at "Grey Rocks." Note added 1/19/2014 by CH: The barn was purchased in 1962 by artist and teacher Harry Holtzman (1912-1987) and his wife Betsy McManus, and became their home and studio. Holtzman was an abstract painter, friend and executor of Piet Mondrian, involved in artistic and theoretical movements in New York City from the 1930s on, and taught at Brooklyn College for 25 years from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. http://flogris.org/archives/exhibition-note-hadlymes-grand-barn/ - excerpted from web site: Dr. John Morgan (1845-1920), a house builder’s son who grew up in Hadlyme, was 62 when he added the elegant barn to his country estate. By then he had been raising trotting horses for thirty years. His interest in “runner-horses” developed in Middletown, a small industrializing city on the Connecticut River about midway between Hadlyme and Hartford, where he settled after completing a medical degree at Yale in 1869. It was the size and scale of the deteriorating barn on Joshuatown Road that attracted Holtzman on a visit to Lyme in 1962. Even with brambles blocking the doorways, he decided within days to purchase the massive shingle and stone structure on a 3.4-acre plot for ten dollars from then-Connecticut State Police Commissioner Leo J. Mulcahy. Four hired high school students helped him clear away the brush. Transforming the 100 x 50 x 64-foot barn into a combined living and studio space took Holtzman more than a year. After creating a central flue from the hay chute, he constructed huge stone fireplaces in each of three outsized living areas. Gradually the calving pen on the first floor became a kitchen, the horse stalls on the second floor became a living room and studio, while the upper hayloft provided storage space. Holtzman called his reclaimed Hadlyme home “Bull Run Hill.”

Use (Historic)

• dairy

Use (Present)

• residence

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Demolished

n/a

Location Integrity

Original Site

Related features

• Other
• Stone Walls

Environment features

• Open Land
• Residential
• Rural
• Scattered Buildings
• Woodland

Relationship to surroundings

The barn holds a commanding place on a rise overlooking a small pond and the road. The barn is on the north side of the road and to the west is the Morgan estate “Grey Rocks” with which it was originally associated.

Building Typology

• English
• English/New England Hybrid

Materials

• Fieldstone
• Wood Shingle

Structural System

• Load-bearing Masonry
• Post & Beam
• Wood Frame

Roof materials

• Asphalt Shingle

Roof type

• Gambrel

Approximate Dimensions

51' x 102'

Date Compiled

05/19/2010

Compiled By

Todd Levine, reviewed by the Connecticut Trust

Sources

Photographs and field notes by James Sexton, PhD.

Harry Holtzman and American Abstraction, exhibit at the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme CT, 2013, museum catalog,
http://flogris.org/archives/exhibition-note-hadlymes-grand-barn/ .

Sexton, James, PhD; Survey Narrative of the Connecticut Barn, Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, Hamden, CT, 2005, http://www.connecticutbarns.org/history.

Visser, Thomas D., Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings, University Press of New England, 1997.