Barn Record Litchfield
RETURN TO ‘FIND BARNS’- Building Name (Common)
- Kar-Mic Dairy Barn - Part 1 of 2
- Building Name (Historic)
- Kubis Farm
- Address
- 68 Prospect Mountain Road , Litchfield
- Typology
- Overview
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Designations
Historic Significance
Architectural description:
See Milton/Bantam Survey, IF # 116. (n.b.: date of this barn in 1941, not 19C. Silos are concrete block, not poured concrete). The red-painted Kar-Mic Dairy barn stands on a massive fieldstone foundation with its gable ends oriented to the east and west. The structure is banked to the south and east to accommodate the sloping site, and the stone foundation rises a full story at the south. The two-story design offers primary access at the upper level on the north façade, adjacent to the north silo, and on the lower level through a door on the west gable end next to the one-story concrete-block dairy room projecting form the southwest corner. The upper level serves as the hay barn and loft, now used to store bailed hay. The metal cupolas are designed to ventilate hot air during the curing process. The lower level is the cow barn. The lower cow barn, finished with a concrete floor, is fitted with galvanized steel pipe “mushroom” stall dividers and stanchions. The wide center aisle was designed so a tractor could drive between the manure troughs. Additions to the east were made to accommodate more cows in the 1980s. Box stalls, mainly for calves, were located in the northeast section.
Historical significance:The oldest barns still found in the state are called the “English Barn,” “side-entry barn,” “eave entry,” or a 30 x 40. They are simple buildings with rectangular plan, pitched gable roof, and a door or doors located on one or both of the eave sides of the building based on the grain warehouses of the English colonists’ homeland. The New England barn or gable front barn was the successor to the English barn and relies on a gable entry rather than an entry under the eaves. The gable front offers many practical advantages. Roofs drain off the side, rather than flooding the dooryard. Although it was seen by many as an improvement over the earlier side entry English Barn, the New England barn did not replace its predecessor but rather coexisted with it. In this case the two styles are combined; both a gable entry and an eave entry are used.
The term dairy barn is used as early as the 18th century (along with “cow house”). Modern dairy barns are characterized by their interior arrangements of stanchions and gutters to facilitate milking and the removal of manure. In some cases this is just a few stalls in the corner of a barn, in others it can be a large barn dedicated to that single purpose.
Historical background:Built before World War II with the help of Bantam neighbors, this barn embodies an important part of the rich immigrant history of Litchfield’s farming community. Karen Horgan, the present owner of Kar-Mic Dairy, with her husband Michael, represents the third generation of the Kubis family to run a dairy farm at this address. The line began with Josef and Agnes Kubis, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia in the early 1900s. Josef Kubis (1890-1962) worked in Philadelphia coal mines and a scissors factory in Bridgeport, CT, before moving to Cornwall with his wife Agnes Tibor (1890-37) in 1915. They bought a 190-acre farm in Bantam in 1919 because there was no school near their Cornwall home. The location on Prospect Mountain Road location made it possible for their 6 children to walk down the hill to the Bantam school.
The Kubis’ Bantam farm included an old, one-story farmhouse (c. 1800), located on the west side of the road and a barn across the street. The 1874 Beers Atlas identifies the property as belonging to H. L. Wheeler. To help pay the note for his property, Mr. Kubis did plowing and odd jobs using a pair of workhorses. He became a naturalized citizen in 1926. Two more generations of the Kubis family lived in the old house, without benefit of plumbing or central heat, until a new house, built behind it (to the west)was completed in 1949. For a time, the empty, dilapidated Wheeler farmhouse remained standing directly in front, but it was eventually torn down. The remarkable granite fence and steps at the roadside are all that remain of the original farmyard on this side of the road, and they are an important historic resource at this site.
Josef Kubis did most of his farming using a horse-powered mowing machine and an old wooden tooth rake. The mowing machine enabled him to go directly over the windrows, pick the hay up and ride it up a shoot into his wagon. In the 1940s, Josef’s son Joseph took over the farm, where he had been working full time since finishing the 8th grade. At the onset of the war, farmers were exempt from service to ensure continued dairy production; to prevent his son from being drafted, the elder Kubis sold him a dozen cows. The family has always raised Holsteins, which they prefer for their excellent milk production and for traits (such as butter fat yield) that can be controlled and enhanced through natural breeding. Josef had about 200 chickens, and sold eggs to market; they also raised pigs and sold piglets.
Joseph Kubis met his future bride, June D. Hess, on one of her many walks to the farm to buy milk and eggs. June pitched in to all aspects of farming—except she refused to milk the cows. Of their five daughters, Karen, the eldest (b. 1946) now runs the farm with her husband Michael Horgan (hence “Kar-Mic” Dairy).
Joseph and June Kubis initially expanded the herd to about 20 cows. Before they bought their first electrically cooled bulk tank (c. 1954), they cooled the milk in an icebox. Cans of milk were picked up by a wholesale distributor from a wooden platform at the bottom of Prospect Mountain Road at the intersection of the Bantam Turnpike.
During the early winter of 1941, fire destroyed the old Wheeler barn. At the time, ash from the stove was saved for fertilizer. Live coals were accidentally dumped into the gutters. Neighbors pitched in to rebuild. A sawmill was set up behind the house, and all of the lumber for the replacement barn, rebuilt on the same site, came off the property. A few years after the barn was finished, the Kubis’ replaced the wood-stave silo with a concrete version they believe to be the first concrete silo in Connecticut.
Over the years, the working farm has been reduced from 190 acres to 65 acres. The Horgans are milking 17 cows twice a day, yielding 1,500 pounds of milk that is picked up by a wholesaler every other day. Two of the Holsteins each produce 100 pounds a day. The cows are raised and fed according to traditional practice to keep them from being finicky eaters and getting too much protein. The Horgans still cut all of their own hay.Field Notes
Listed on the State Register of Historic Places 2/19/2014. Materials: Vertical board(tongue and groove). Roof materials: Corrugated metal. Style: Vernacular bank barn.
- Use & Accessibility
- Environment
Related features
Environment features
Relationship to surroundings
Barn stands on the east side of Prospect Mountain Road just south of Donahue Road Ext. The 1949 Kubis farmhouse sits directly across the street. The west gable end of the barn fronts directly on the road and the site slopes to the south and east. One silo is located near the southeast corner and the other silo is at the northwest corner. Fields stretch to the south and east.
- Typology & Materials
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Building Typology
Materials
Structural System
Roof materials
Roof type
Approximate Dimensions
30 x 75
- Source
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Date Compiled
07/07/2008
Compiled By
Rachel Carley
Sources
Litchfield Tax Assessor Records
Interview with Karen Horgan 7/07Sexton, 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.
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