Historic Barns of Connecticut

Designations

• State Historic Resource Inventory

Historic Significance

Architectural description:

The barn is a 22’ x 40’ four-bay gable-roofed structure with vertical siding and a series of window openings on the long [eave-side] wall facing Prospect Street. The northeast [eave-]side wall features a series of large door openings. (Lusignan, HRI p. 3). The second bay from the right shows evidence of a taller barn door opening, the original door has been replaced by a shorter overhead garage door. The gable-end attic siding terminates in a saw-tooth pattern overlapping the main level siding. All siding is tongue-and-groove bead-board type. Roof has overhangs and closed sloped soffits. The northwest gable-end has two six-pane stable windows with trim; the southwest eave-side has several additional stable windows.

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 pattern persisted through the 19th and early 20th centuries although the barn frames were increasingly machine cut of standardized members.

This extended four-bay barn was an outbuilding related to the Jewish summer resort business of Dember’s Hotel during the early 20th century.

Field Notes

Jewish Farms and Resorts - documentation by Cunningham and Ransom. Barn has the date "1894" painted on it.

Use (Historic)

• agriculture

Use (Present)

• unknown

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Demolished

n/a

Location Integrity

Unknown

Related features

• Barn
• Garden
• Other
• Stone Walls

Environment features

• Commercial
• Industrial
• Open Land
• Residential
• Woodland

Relationship to surroundings

The [complex] occupies the entire block bounded by Prospect Street, Halls Hill Road, and Elmwood Heights. The main lodge sits immediately on the Elmwood Heights street line with a large front lawn to the southwest. The lawn is crossed by walks and features a rustic stone wall and a row of pines along the Prospect Street border.
Several associated buildings exist on adjoining lots to the south, including a barn, a dining room facility (see 11 Prospect St.) and an auto garage. The original house and resort office, which predated the lodge, stood north of the dining hall.

Building Typology

• English

Materials

• Vertical Siding

Structural System

• Wood Frame

Roof materials

• Asphalt Shingle

Roof type

• Gable

Approximate Dimensions

22 feet x 40 feet

Date Compiled

11/29/2010

Compiled By

Charlotte Hitchcock, reviewed by CT Trust

Sources

Additional photographs by Kristen Young - 5/18/2012.

Aerial views from:
http://maps.google.com/

http://www.bing.com/maps/ accessed 11/30/2010.

Cunningham, Janice, and Ransom, David; Back to the Land: Jewish Farms and Resorts in Connecticut 1890-1945, State of Connecticut Historical Commission and Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford, 1998, 186 pages, pp. 60-64.

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, 213 pages.