89 Duncaster Road, Bloomfield (Central Valley) | Historic Barns of Connecticut

Designations

n/a

Historic Significance

Architectural description:

This is a 2 1/2-story gable front barn with a 1-1/2 story gable-roof bank addition. The two ridge lines run east-west. The barn is set on a hill side that declines from west to east, exposing a mortared cut stone foundation. The main east gable-façade is a few feet above grade. A wide cut stone foundation driveway ramp rises from grade to the first floor of the main façade. Centered on the first floor is the main entry: a wide overhead garage door, flanked by two six-pane windows. One window has trim and is offset to the north corner of the east gable end, while the other window is set near the south corner of the door and has a sill. The second story of the main facade has two symmetrically spaced rectangular openings aligned over the north and south corners of the main entry. Centered near the apex of the east gable attic is an eight-pane window. Clockwise from the main façade, the south eave-side grade has a concrete ramp on the east corner and a centered urn. The first floor is a few feet above grade and has two entrances and two windows. Directly over the east corner ramp is a side-swinging Dutch door. Centered on the south eave-side is a pair of full length side-swinging doors, flanked by two symmetrically spaced six-pane windows with trim. The second story has a closed rectangular space centered directly over the pair of full length side-swinging doors, flanked by two rectangular openings set directly over the two first story windows. The red siding of the east half of the south eave-side extends down lower on the wall than does the red siding of the west half. Encompassing the entire width of the west gable-end of the barn is a bank barn addition with gable roof, with its sides flush with the eave-sides of the barn. The addition grade declines dramatically from west to east. The south-eave side of the addition has four almost evenly spaced rectangular openings. The opening near the southwest addition corner seems to be sealed, while the other three openings are six-pane windows with trim.

The walls of the barn are vertical red flush-board siding, while the bank addition is mortared cut stone. The roof of the barn and addition has projecting overhangs and is clad with metal. Centered over the roof ridge for both the barn and addition is a square louvered cupola with overhanging gable roof, clad with metal.

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 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, both an eave entry and a gable entry are used.

The 19th century would see the introduction of a basement under the barn to allow for the easy collection and storage of a winter’s worth of manure from the animals sheltered within the building. The bank barn is characterized by the location of its main floor above grade, either through building on a hillside or by raising the building on a foundation. This innovation, aided by the introduction of windows for light and ventilation, would eventually be joined by the introduction of space to shelter more animals under the main floor of the barn.

Field Notes

n/a

Use (Historic)

agriculture

Use (Present)

garage

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Demolished

n/a

Location Integrity

Unknown

Related features

Environment features

Relationship to surroundings

The barn is behind and to the north of the house it is associated with. The main ridge of the house is perpendicular to the barn. The house is on the southern edge of the property and faces Duncaster Road. South of the house are foundation garden outlined by a low fieldstone wall, and a suburban lawn. The fieldstone wall continues east. From the southeast corner of the house, the fieldstone wall has white wood fence set on top. The stone and wood fence is the southern border of a patio east of the house. East of the patio is a garden outlined with a low curvilinear fieldstone wall on its east border. Further east is a suburban lawn. It extends north of the house to the barn. The lawn extends northwest and west of the house. East of the house and lawn is an asphalt driveway that starts at Duncaster Road and proceeds north through a turnaround marked by two urns until it turns west to meet the main east-façade of the barn. One footpath proceeds from the patio east to the turnaround. A second footpath proceeds from the northeast corner of the house north to near the concrete ramp near the southeast corner of the barn. It continues in a quarterly southeastern circle to three steps that lead to the top of the south side of the driveway ramp. Northeast of the barn is a lawn and then a square garden. North and west of the barn is woodland. A low fieldstone wall starts west of the barn and comprises the west border of the lawn and probably the property. The size of the property is 0.76 acres. Outside of the site is residential, suburban, rural, and woodland.

Parcel ID No. 2276

Building Typology

Materials

Structural System

Roof materials

Metal

Roof type

Gable

Approximate Dimensions

2400 s.f.

Date Compiled

03/21/2011

Compiled By

J.Toner & T.Levine, reviewed by the CT Trust

Sources

Field notes and photographs by Charlotte Hitchcock on 04/17/2010.

Town of Bloomfield Assessor’s Record:http://data/visionappraisal.com
Parcel ID: 2276
Aerial Mapping:
http://www.bing.com/maps accessed 03/06/2011.

McAlester, Virginia and Lee. A Field Guide to American Houses, Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.

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.

Barn Record Bloomfield