Ames Tribune - August 23, 2003
Barn given new life with restoration grant
By Lisa Lynch
Ames Tribune
FERNALD - Electric lighting was introduced to cities across the United States. James A. Garfield was in office. George Eastman patented roll film for cameras. And a square barn was built in Story County.
The year was 1880.
That barn, now widely known as the Fernald Barn, is being restored to its original condition with funding help from the Iowa Barn Foundation.
The barn is located immediately southeast of the town of Fernald, just north of Nevada. One of the reasons it is significant to the area is because when it was built, the farm's landowners gave some of their land to the town of Fernald.
The barn has qualified for a matching grant from the Iowa Barn Foundation, which means the foundation is matching what the owner spends to restore the barn.
In 1853, William Handsaker came to the United States from England. Settling in Iowa, he purchased farmland from the government for $4 an acre. The homestead was built in 1875, and five years later the barn was constructed by J.W. Handsaker, great-grandfather of Gary Handsaker.
Gary and his mother, Gloria, now own and maintain the farm.
Unique for a lot of reasons
The Fernald barn is a unique structure due to both its square, Spartan shape and the fact that it is the second oldest standing barn in Iowa. Both the barn and the house have been very well maintained over the years. With little modification to the barn, its original structural integrity remains intact.
"It's just been well maintained over the years," said Gary. "This is really the first time since its construction that the barn has undergone any work like this."
Gary had been thinking of restoring the barn for the last few years, but it wasn't until the Iowa Barn Foundation approached him that anything got going on the project.
"The foundation stopped in there last fall after spotting the barn," he said. "They went pretty wild over it, especially since I had records of it since the barn was built and the fact that it had been family-owned ever since its construction."
Roxanne Mehlisch, a Story County representative for the Iowa Barn Foundation, said the square shape of the barn is very unusual for Central Iowa.
"If you travel the countryside you'll see that most barns are similar to each other," she said. "This one really is not typical of our area. This barn is really pretty unique.
"It's not a big barn. Some barns are huge, and you're just awed by them. This one is more humble, different. It's one of my favorite barns."
Mehlisch said the Spartan design is more common out east, with the square barn style mainly used by the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Mehlisch thinks the fact that the barn is still standing has to do more with the family than with the foundation it rests upon.
"For this barn to have survived for so long in our agricultural climate, it's pretty amazing," she said. "You can tell the family is proud of the barn, that they took good care of it."
According to Mehlisch, the barn used to be the most important building on the farm and was usually nicer than the house.
"Their farming was what fed the family for the whole year - they had to make sure their barn was the best possible building they could provide. The farmers back then really felt a connection with the land, and if someone feels a connection with the land, then they take care of the property and its buildings."
Anatomy of a barn
Another unique characteristic of the barn is its limestone foundation, which is more commonly found in northeastern Iowa.
"All the limestone that you see here had to be hauled over from the South Skunk River near Ames," said Gary.
As part of the restoration process, holes that had collapsed in the limestone foundation will be repaired, but for the most part the foundation has remained intact.
The barn's windows and doors will be replaced in addition to removing the shingle siding, restoring it to its original pine siding.
The barn, now white, will also be repainted to its original red color with white trim. Work on the barn began in early July. Gary said the process should take about three months to finish.
The barn is being restored by Barn Builders. The Pella-based business has a crew of four builders, an electrician and a plumber. It has been building and restoring barns since 1998.
Bruce Willemsen, who's working on the restoration, said he's noticed the barn was not robbed of much of its original material.
One of the first jobs was to straighten the central structural timbers, which were causing the middle to sag. The central posts were dug out and raised six inches using concrete footings.
While working with the 10-inch logs, the crew counted the rings and dated them back to 1770. But they're still sturdy.
Even though Willemsen agrees with Gary that the barn is in impressive condition, the restoration project was just in time.
"I didn't understand how the barn was still standing - the northwest corner had broken off and the four main corners had rotted out," Willemsen said.
The whole barn was made with post-and-beam construction, using either wooden pegs for the larger planks or hand-made, square-headed iron nails for the smaller pieces. The original wooden pegs will be reused in the restoration.
"This barn is being historically rebuilt," said Willemsen. "Working on these barns we have to figure out how and why they were put together this way and then put them back together as good or better as the original structure."
Willemsen said the oak wood for the barn was most likely brought down from Minnesota.
"One of the floorboards is 19 inches wide; can't even get that anymore," he said. "Some of the boards here are over 20 feet long and aren't even spliced, all one piece."
It would have been a project to build the barn.
"I wouldn't be surprised if it took close to two years to build," Willemsen said. "Back then there weren't any modern conveniences - it all had to be done manually. All the wood for the barn had to be cut by hand. There must have been some handy carpenters who built this."
The barn also featured shiplap siding, which according to Willemsen is the kind of siding more commonly seen on Victorian houses of the era.
Willemsen explained that at the time barns were a sign of wealth - a status symbol.
"The bigger and fancier the barn, the wealthier you were," he said.
Barn tours
Each spring in June, the Iowa Barn Foundation puts on a self-guided barn tour, featuring barns within a different county each spring.
This past spring, Story County was chosen for the tour. The Fernald Barn was one of the stops and was picked as the site of the tour's catered picnic.
This fall will mark the third annual All-State Barn Tour. This tour will be held the third weekend in September and feature all the barns restored with matching grants from the Iowa Barn Foundation.
The state-wide barn tour is the first of its kind in the United States. According to Mehlisch, the barn tours are quickly becoming a popular tourism destination for Iowa.
"We've had enough good media that people are interested in saving these barns," she said. "A lot of people come from out of state to go on these tours. Just recently we've had many calls concerning tour buses for this, but people can also be a part of the tour by driving at their own pace in cars as well."
The Iowa Barn Foundation hopes to see the Fernald Barn listed on the National Historic Registry, but for now it's getting plenty of attention as a local landmark.