152 Music Mountain Road, Canaan (Northwest Highlands)

Designations

n/a

Historic Significance

Architectural description:

The agricultural buildings on this site are a collection of fieldstone buildings. Barn I is a large 2 ½-story gable-entry bank barn with a gambrel roof. A smaller single-story gable-roof addition extends off the north gable-end of this barn to the north. Barn II is situated to the north of Barn I and is a smaller 2 ½-story eave-entry bank barn with a gambrel roof. Both barns are parallel to Music Mountain Road and located to the immediate west of the right-of-way. Music Mountain Road passes this property at a north to south angle.

Barn I is a large 2 ½-story gable entry bank barn with a gambrel roof. The barn is placed slightly below grade along its east side, although it is level with the ground on the other sides. The primary façade of this barn is the south gable-end, which contains the main entry. This entry consists of a wide, centered door with external X-bracing. This door is flanked by a window opening to each side, each containing twenty-four glass window blocks. Directly over the primary entry on the first story is a smaller pass-through size wooden plank door, also with X-bracing. Centered within the gable-attic are a pair of large centered hay doors, also with exterior bracing. These are flanked at the sill by a small nine-pane window to each side. A projecting hay track and hay hood is present on the roof at this end.
The east eave-side is directly along Music Mountain Road. Eleven window openings, each with twenty-four glass window blocks, are spaced along this eave-side. The north gable-end has an attached 1-story gable-roof addition. The upper part of this gable-end contains two nine-pane windows symmetrically placed into the gable-attic. A rectangular louvered vent is located just beneath the roof ridgeline. The west eave-side is not visible for the purposes of an Historic Resource Inventory.

The addition to Barn I is a full-width 1-story gable-roof structure. It extends to the north of Barn I off the north gable-end. The east eave-side contains four unevenly-sized window openings, each filled with glass window blocks. A wooden pass-through door is located in the northeast corner. The north gable-end and west eave-side of the addition are not visible for the purposes of an Historic Resource Inventory. A concrete and metal silo is located along the west side of Barn I, where it meets the north addition.

Barn II is a smaller 2 ½-story eave-entry bank barn with a gambrel roof. It is located to the north of Barn I and also parallel to Music Mountain Road, though set farther back from the right-of-way. A large, more modern addition extends west from the west eave-side. The primary façade of this barn is the east eave-side, which fronts Music Mountain Road. The grade is banked up slightly along the southern half of this side, to a height just below the window sills. The primary entry is a recessed wooden pass-through door, with six window panes, located in the north half of the façade. Three windows are evenly spaced along the southern portion of the façade, which appear to be four-over-four double-hung types. A small louvered vent is present near the center of the building, between the second and third windows north from the south corner. Another small vent is located near the northeast corner.
The north gable-end contains three equal-sized window openings along the first floor. The center and west window are double-hung types, while the east window is full of glass window blocks. Centered on the second story is a tall double-hung window. The gable-attic contains two square window openings, set symmetrically, and a small pentagonal shaped window set beneath the roof ridgeline. The west eave-side is not visible for the purposes of an Historic Resource Inventory, but does feature a large gambrel-roof modern addition. This addition projects to the west and is faced in vertical wooden siding. The south gable-end appears to mimic the north gable-end. From the roof ridgeline down to the second story, the window openings are identical. The first story cannot be seen due to a high wooden fence between the southeast corner of the building and Music Mountain Road.

Barn I, its addition, and Barn II are all externally faced in mortared fieldstone. The roofs of all three are covered in gray asphalt shingles. The gambrel roofs of Barn I and Barn II both have flared eaves. Three diminutive gable-roof cupolas, each with short louvered vents, are spaced along the roof ridgeline of Barn I. A rectangular skylight is located on the east half of the roof of Barn II, directly over the main entry. A brick chimney also projects from the roof of Barn II, near the northeast corner.

Historical significance:

Fieldstone is plentiful in New England. It is a building material collected from the surface or just under the surface of fields where it occurs naturally. Farmers needed to remove the stone before they could plow the fields and the by-product became a useful resource for boundary walls, foundations, and even buildings.

The New England barn or gable front barn is 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. With the main drive floor running parallel to the ridge, the size of the barn could be increased to accommodate larger herds by adding additional bays to the rear gable end. 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 as both types continued to be constructed.

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 name “30 by 40” originates from its size (in feet), which was large enough for 1 family and could service about 100 acres. The multi-purpose use of the English barn is reflected by the building’s construction in three distinct bays - one for each use. The middle bay was used for threshing, which is separating the seed from the stalk in wheat and oat by beating the stalks with a flail. The flanking bays would be for animals and hay storage.

The gambrel roof enclosed a much greater volume than a gable roof did, and its shape could be formed with trusses that did not require cross beams, which would interfere with the movement and storage of hay. Also known as the curb roof, the double slopes of the gambrel offer more volume in the hayloft without increasing the height of the side walls.

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

Gambrel roofed stone barns.

Use (Historic)

agriculture

Use (Present)

residence

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Demolished

n/a

Location Integrity

Unknown

Related features

Environment features

Relationship to surroundings

Both Barns I & II are oriented parallel to Music Mountain Road close to the right-of-way. Barn I is the southern barn and the primary façade faces south. The façade is accessed by a lengthy driveway which begins some distance to the south of the barn and curves north to parallel to road, opening into a wider parking area in front of the façade. The primary façade of Barn II is the east eave-side, which faces Music Mountain Road. The barn and west addition are accessed by a gravel driveway which enters the property on the north side of the structure which opens into a circular parking area. A wooden privacy fence lines the west side of the road south of Barn I and between the two. A split-rail wooden fence lines the west side of the road to the north of Barn II. Scattered trees are located in the immediate vicinity of the barns. Music Mountain Road is bordered in the immediate area by primarily active agricultural fields and open space. Agricultural fields surround these barns. Most fields are separated by lines of trees. A small creek passes to the west of this property and then crosses under Music Mountain Road to the east side south of this site.

Roof type

Approximate Dimensions

CONVERTED BARN (BARN I): 65 X 40 FEET, ADDITION to BARN I: 40 X 40 FEET, BARN II: 47 X 31 FEET.

Date Compiled

04/28/2011

Compiled By

N. Nietering & T. Levine, Reviewed by CT Trust

Sources

Photographs by Liddy Baker & Nathan Nietering.

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.

Map of Canaan, CT, retrieved on April 27, 2011 from website maps.google.com.

Canaan Assessor’s Records - Town of Canaan Assessor’s Office site visit - April 21, 2011.

Historic Barns of Connecticut

Barn Record Canaan