Isaac C. Lewis Barn (14 Wallace Road, Branford (Eastern Coastal Slope))

Designations

National Register

Historic Significance

Architectural description:

This is a 1 ½ - story gable-entry bank barn with a cross-gable eave-entry barn intersecting its south eave-side. The ridge line of the main barn runs east-west while that of the cross-gable barn runs north-south. The north eave-side of the main barn has a gable-roof addition towards the west. The west eave-side of the cross-gable barn appears to be the main façade with the main entrance at the center through a pair of double-height diagonal braced hinged wagon doors with blacksmith hardware. The west gable-end of the main barn has an entrance towards the extreme south through a pair of hinged wagon doors and an entrance towards the north through a hinged wagon door. Both the entrances on the west gable-end of the main barn have blacksmith hardware. The second floor level of the west gable-end of the main barn has a two-pane window with lintel trim at the center flanked by a square window with trim on either side. The gable-attic lined by deep soffit has a window with lintel trim at the center. The west eave-side of the gable-roof addition on the north eave-side of main barn is flush with the west gable-end and has an open bay with upper corners chamfered at an angle of forty-five degrees. The east gable-end of the main barn has low grade level revealing the concrete block masonry of the bank level which is accessed by a hinged pass-through door at the center. The first floor level of the east gable-end of the main barn has a single-pane tall window towards the south and a three-pane window towards the north. Four single-pane windows can be seen closely spaced at the second floor level while the gable attic lined by deep soffit has two square single-pane window inserts. The south eave-side of the main barn has a hinged pass-through door at the center accessed by a wooden deck that runs along the east eave-side of the cross-gable barn. The east eave-side of the cross-gable barn appears to have a wagon door entrance at the first floor level which is now cordoned off by the wooden deck. The bank levels of the south eave-side of the main barn and the east eave-side of the cross-gable barn have a window each at the center and a metal chimney rising along the inner junction of the two eave-sides. The cross-gable roof has two square skylight roof inserts towards the south. The first floor level of the south gable-end of the cross-gable barn facing the road has a window with lintel trim at the center while the gable attic lined by deep soffit has a one-over-one double-hung sash window at the center. The barn has a cupola at the intersection of the cross-gable roofs with a single-pane window centered on each side wall.

The wooden frame of the barn is supported on concrete block masonry foundation. The barn has asphalt shingle roofing and white painted vertical siding walls.

Historical significance:

The barn is a contributing resource to Thimble Islands Historic District.

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. It this case, both an eave entry and a gable entry are used.
The 19th century also saw 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.

The wagon door entrances and decorative trim suggest the probable usage of the barn as a carriage house.

Until the 1830s, the horses used for riding and driving carriages were often kept in the main barn along with the other farm animals. By the 1850s, some New England farmers built separate horse stables and carriage houses. Early carriage houses were built just to shelter a carriage and perhaps a sleigh, but no horses. The pre-cursor to the twentieth-century garage, these outbuildings are distinguished by their large hinged doors, few windows, and proximity to the dooryard.
The combined horse stable and carriage house continued to be a common farm building through the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century, until automobiles became common. Elaborate carriage houses were also associated with gentlemen farms and country estates of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Another form of carriage barn, the urban livery stable, served the needs of tradespeople.

Field Notes

National Register - barn for the Isaac C. Lewis House at 255 Thimble Islands Road (also see toolshed at 2 Linden Point Road). 1875 Contributing resource in the Stony Creek/Thimble Islands Historic District. Ca. 1880. Isaac Lewis Barn. Late 19th-century frame barn converted for residential use ca. 1975. (Loether, Sec. 7 p. 15) [The Stony Creek/Thimble Islands Historic District is located in the southeastern corner of the Town of Branford. The district is roughly bounded on the northeast by Route 146; on the east and the southeast by Long Island Sound; and on the west by Long Island Sound, the eastern side of Pleasant Point, and the northern most portions of Thimble Islands Road. The district as a whole maintains its historic integrity to a substantial degree. Including major outbuildings (e.g., garages, barns, and boathouses), it embraces a total of 487 buildings.] [NR- 88002844 NRIS]

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

The 5.37 acres property, Account number – 009068 and Parcel number - K10/000/002/00005, is located towards the north of Wallace Road, which takes a right angled turn towards the south. The property has a relatively narrow frontage to the road and spread out towards the east. It is situated in a predominantly residential area near the shore line with individual plots separated by woodland. Residential plots can be seen towards the west, southeast and the south across the road while dense woodland covers the area towards the east. A stream of water flows towards the north of the property.

The barn is located in the southwest corner of the property abutting to Wallace Road. The ridge line of the main barn runs east-west while that of the cross-gable roof barn runs north-south. The property has a patch of open land towards the immediate east of the barn while the rest of the area is covered by dense woodland.

Building Typology

Materials

Structural System

Roof materials

Asphalt Shingle

Roof type

Gable

Approximate Dimensions

Circa 1875;

Date Compiled

05/12/2011

Compiled By

T. Levine and M. Patnaik, reviewed by CT Trust

Sources

Field notes provided by: Charlotte Hitchcock and John Herzan, 03/20/2011.

Assessors’ information retrieved on May 12th, 2011 from website http://data.visionappraisal.com/BranfordCT/search.asp.

GIS Map retrieved on May 12th, 2011 from website http://www.branfordgis.com/AGS_MAP/default.htm

Loether, J. Paul, Stony Creek/Thimble Islands Historic District, National Register Nomination Number- 88002844 NRIS, National Park Service, 1988.
http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/88002844.pdf
http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Photos/88002844.pdf

Photograph/Information retrieved on May 12th, 2011 from website http://www.google.com

Photograph/Information retrieved on May 12th, 2011 from website http://www.bing.com.

Photograph/Information retrieved on May 12th, 2011 from website http://www.zillow.com.

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.

Historic Barns of Connecticut

Barn Record Branford