Dear fellow barn savers:
Thank you for taking the
time to learn how to document our state’s unsung hero: the historic barn. Along
with this letter you will find a couple of things that will help you in your
search. The first is a copy of the ‘windshield survey’ form. You can either
make copies of this sheet for your convenience, you can download more on our
website at www.connecticutbarns.org or you can simply keep
it for reference. The second thing is a letter to give to barn owners. The
following are some tips to keep in mind while making a difference:
Bring a friend. There is
safety in numbers, particularly when driving around looking for barns. While
your friend drives, you can have your full attention on the hunt, rather than
balancing your attention between driving and searching. And when you are in the
midst of taking a photograph, your friend can keep an eye out for traffic.
Stay on public property.
Unless you know the owner of the barn, please stay on public property. From
public property, we are allowed by law to take any photograph we wish; from
private property, taking a photograph without permission is breaking the law.
Be safe. Remember this
is the first level of survey for this project. PLEASE, if you know the owner of
the barn and can get inside, do NOT climb rafters to get a better interior
shot. Be extremely careful around rotting floors. I have seen colleagues go
right through seemingly sound wood floors. I can’t express enough the
importance of being safe by not putting yourselves in compromising positions.
Take smart photographs.
Remember, the best photograph reveals the most information. A ¾ view, a front
and a side view should be all you need. If you see an interesting detail, use
your zoom. Try to take photographs at 300 DPI.
Document the photos
correctly. The proper order for information on each picture is: town, street
name, street number, your initials, what number picture. For instance, if I
took 2 photographs of 940 Whitney Avenue in Hamden, I would document it thus:
Hamden, Whitney Avenue 940 TL 1 AND Hamden, Whitney Ave. 940 TL 2.
The Connecticut Trust
for Historic Preservation’s barns project doesn’t end with the end of this
phase – it is the launch of a state wide effort to continue documentation of
existing barns. The web site will be monitored in-house by the CTHP and all new
material thoroughly vetted. The best measure of success will be how much
attention we can bring to this project and how much local buy-in we can get for
local documentation. Further, we hope to see more local ordinances build
protections for barns as “historic outbuildings” when properties are
subdivided. These public training sessions on how to document a barn will be
the final public outreach. In the long term, we will maintain the web site,
vetting and adding new information as it comes in. Overall, the CTHP’s
www.connecticutbarns.org will have become the only comprehensive resource for
information on our state’s old barns. Whether this prompts more advocacy to
protect old barns or merely results in a documentation of what “was there once”
is difficult to determine at this point. Potentially an extinct building type,
the barn in Connecticut will at least have a place where it can be celebrated.
Todd Levine
Architectural historian