The Settlers Mountain Barn Home - A Stunning Restoration
This Gambrel roofed barn structure was originally built in Upstate New York in 1870. The barn style house was restored and is now located in Buchanan, Michigan. Heritage Restoration had many excellent suggestions with regards to layouts, procedures and processes to get the barn style house completed. The owners developed the concept of constructing a Silo as a stairway space, thus not using any of the valuable interior space for stairs, which gave this barn style house a whole different feel when it was completed.
The Settlers Mountain Barn Home - A Stunning Restoration
Geo-Thermal heating and cooling systems for the barn style house were designed, engineered and installed in concert with the other eco building approaches used to assure that the least amount of energy was used in the modern barn construction and later operating of the barn style house. The availability of the open acreage adjacent to the modern barn allowed them to develop a horizontal geothermal field for the eco building system. One of the distinctive features in the modern barn is the fireplace constructed in the great room facing the window wall of the South Face of the barn style house. They had to plan for the fireplace right from the beginning stages of the modern barn construction, first by placing a deep foundation slab well below the elevation of the final floor slab.
The Settlers Mountain Barn Home - A Stunning Restoration
That was followed by pouring the concrete slab and in the preparation of the construction of the fireplace, with a concrete block foundation being constructed. There are several details on both the interior and exterior of the modern barn that helped finish and tie together the design. All of the interior floors, other than the concrete great floor space, are Maple. The concrete floor in the modern barn was saw-cut on an angled pattern, cleaned, finished and then waxed.
The Settlers Mountain Barn Home - A Stunning Restoration
All of the interior horizontal surfaces and stairs/railings are Maple. Most of the interior and exterior light fixtures in the modern barn are of an industrial, pendant design, using a clear, incandescent bulb. The interior balcony and the opening between the first Bay, third-floor bedroom area and the main room of the house are screened with a heavy duty wire mesh. All of the bathroom fixtures are Kohler, including the sinks, faucets and fixtures.
The Settlers Mountain Barn Home - A Stunning Restoration
The barn style house has a Cupola and weathervane that were constructed at mid-point on the roof line. All of the interior painted surfaces were painted a simple decorator white. All of the cabinets in the great room are painted the same Celedon green color. Other features include two antique, originally gas, coach lamps from the Knight Building in Chicago, was restored and then placed on the South face of the modern barn, on each side of the main window.
The Settlers Mountain Barn Home - A Stunning Restoration
The modern barn used custom gutters and downspouts that were fabricated and placed to drain all roof surfaces to the adjacent pond. Custom, stainless steel snow/ice breaks were installed on the roof surface. The modern barn has a screened summer house that was designed and built as an outbuilding to the East and South of the barn. There is also a swimming pool, deck and pool house that was built to the East of the barn. Heritage Restorations specializes in the salvage and restoration of 18th and 19th Century farm, mill, cabin buildings and housing structures.