Barn Tour
~Saturday, September 11, 9:30am – 4:00pm
Today’s Date: September 1, 2010
FOURTH
ANNUAL BARN TOUR
Saturday, September 11, 2010,
9:30
am to 4:00 pm
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Public
Service Announcement
COMMUNITY CALENDAR – BRIEFING
MEDIA
CONTACT: Priscilla deLeon, President
and Co-Founder, Saucon Valley Conservancy
610-216-0566,
pmdeleon@aol.com, SVConservancy@aol.com
www.sauconvalleyconservancy.org
Fourth
Annual Barn Tour Hosted by Saucon
Valley Conservancy
DON’T MISS
THIS SPECIAL EVENT - MAJOR FUNDRAISER
Fascinated by old barns?
Enjoy the unique experience of being able to tour inside some
of the wonderful old barns
along our rural roads in the Saucon Valley
area.
JOIN US!
Saturday, September
11, 2010, 9:30 am
– 4:00 pm (Rain or Shine)
Tickets $20 in advance - sold at Bechtold’s Orchard, 2209
Leithsville Rd. (Rt 412), Hellertown, PA 18055
$25 day of tour
Beethoven Waldheim Club, 1984 Waldheim Road, Hellertown,
Pennsylvania
9:30 am Registration & Book Signing
10:00 Presentations byRobert Ensminger & Gregory Huber
11:30 am Tour Begins
4:00 pm Tour concludes
SVConservancy@aol.com, www.sauconvalleyconservancy.org.
610-216-0566
(Lower Saucon
Township, Northampton County, PA
– September 3, 2010) The Saucon Valley Conservancy will host its
fourth annual barn tour on Saturday, September 11, 2010
from 9:30 am until 4:00 pm. Rain or
Shine. Tickets $20 in advance, $25 day of tour. Proceeds benefit the Heller
Barn Preservation Fund. For information: SVConservancy@aol.com, www.sauconvalleyconservancy.org.610-216-0566.
The day
begins with registration and a book signing at 9:30 am at the Beethoven Waldheim Club, 1984 Waldheim Road in Lower Saucon
Township, followed by two
lectures at 10:00 am. This is a great opportunity for the public to
tour a selection of historic barns that are an important part of the area’s
rich agricultural history and learn about history and unique barn features from
two widely recognized experts on Pennsylvania
barns. Robert Ensminger and Gregory Huber will present an
overview of the barn highlights.
The
extensive self-guided and self-paced tour of local barns featuring homesteads
spread among the rolling lands of the valley starts at 11:30 am and ends at 4:00 pm. A great diversity of barns will be
experienced and will expand upon the excitement that was created on the past
three tours that included homestead barns of many types, shapes and sizes.
This year’s
sites include a wide array of nineteenth-century Pennsylvania two-level bank barns for you to
see and appreciate. Also on tour is the Heller barn site with its original
stone walls.
Three barns
that had previously been on the barn tour are again made available for touring.
They are the Windsong Farm, Stone Hollow Farm, and K Brook Farm located in Lower Saucon
Township. These barns are featured in STABLES: Beautiful Paddocks, Horse Barns, and Tack Rooms (Rizzoli
Publications, April, 2010) by Kathryn Masson, with photography by Paul
Rocheleau.
At 11:30 am, the
self-guided tour begins using our descriptive guide book. A host at each barn
will available to show you around. The tour ends at 4:00 pm.
Proceeds will be earmarked for the
preservation and restoration of the Michael Heller Barn.
Tickets $20 in advance - sold at Bechtold’s Orchard, 2209
Leithsville Rd. (Rt 412), Hellertown, PA 18055
$25 day of tour
Children 12 and younger are free
but each child must be accompanied by an adult at all times.
PHOTO ALBUM
http://picasaweb.google.com/SVConservancy
PAST BARN TOUR GUIDE BOOKLETS:
2007 Barn Tour Guide (pdf file, 2 Megabytes)
2008 Barn Tour Guide (pdf file, 2.4 Megabytes)
2009 Barn Tour Guide (pdf file, 2 Megabytes)
BOOK
SIGNING:
Authors Kathryn Masson, Robert F.
Ensminger, Gregory D. Huber and Jeffrey L. Marshall will sign copies of their
books before and after the lectures.
Kathryn Masson and Lee Weidner will also be available to sign books
during the tour at the Heller Homestead from 12pm – 4pm.
The following books are available for sale the day of the tour:
STABLES: Beautiful Paddocks,
Horse Barns, & Tack Rooms by Kathryn Masson, with photography by Paul Rocheleau. From the
private to the historic to the state-of-the-art, Stables is a lavish
tour of some of the most notable stables in the country. A celebration of
horses and their "lodgings," this exquisite book covers horse country
across the United States—from the East Coast to the Bluegrass, the prairie and
mountain ranches, and to the Pacific Coast—and traces the origins of
twenty-five stunning stables, from their vernacular beginnings in the early
nineteenth century to the contemporary designs of today. Included are a farm in
the countryside near Saratoga Springs, New York, which bears an
1830s-constructed main barn that originally housed draft horses and now
accommodates retired race horses turned polo ponies, and a world-renowned
Arabian horse-breeding farm in Santa Ynez Valley, California, that resembles a
spa and country club with Mediterranean-style architecture and landscaping and
has in the stable courtyard a stone fountain reminiscent of the ubiquitous
waterworks in Moorish palaces. Uniquely spectacular, each selection is a
reflection of its regional heritage. Featuring all-new color photography, Stables
showcases the best of America’s
diverse equine homes—a must-have for any horse or architecture enthusiast.
Kathryn Masson is the author of Hunt Country Style and Historic
Houses of Virginia. Paul Rocheleau is the photographer of Hunt Country
Style and Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing the American Landscape.
He also wrote The One-Room Schoolhouse. Perky Beisel is a
life-long rider and an authority on the development of the American stable.
(Rizzoli Publications, April 2010)
The book includes beautiful
photographs of three Saucon
Valley barns on the 2010
Barn Tour: Stone Hollow Barn, K Brook Farm
and Windsong Farm.
The Pennsylvania Barn, Its Origin, Evolution, and
Distribution in North America was written by Robert F. Ensminger. Originally published by Johns Hopkins
University Press in 1992, it was revised and enlarged in 2003. It details the 500 year history of the
forebay bank barn from its inception in eastern Switzerland
to its appearance in colonial southeastern Pennsylvania
and its subsequent evolution and diffusion across North
America. A key contribution
is the first comprehensive classification of the various forms of the Pennsylvania barn into a
logical system of classes, types and subtypes.
The form and function of the barn and resultant architectural and
spatial manifestations are illustrated by numerous photographs, diagrams and
maps. A look into the future of the Pennsylvania barn
concludes the study.
The
New World Dutch Barn: The Evolution, Forms and
Structure of a Disappearing Icon by John Fitchen and Gregory D. Huber. The Second edition is
an in-depth expansion of the first classic and seminal book by John Fitchen
published in 1968. The new edition includes significant insights into
Dutch-American barns such as to the nature of their true essence, various
forms, provenance, European prototypes and use of framing technology, simplification
processes, joinery, factors influencing dating and evolution, regionalisms,
rebuilding and later reconstructions and their character and future.
Stone Houses: Traditional Homes of Pennsylvania's
Bucks County
and Brandywine Valley by
Margaret Bye Richie, Geoffrey Gross, and Gregory Huber. The book is the first of its kind in several
decades to illustrate the houses of the two areas with outstanding photographs
by a remarkable architectural photographer. See the extraordinary array of
early building styles that date back to the time of William Penn. Numerous
others include mills, churches and houses that date from the first several
decades of the eighteenth century. It is the greatest collection of the
earliest structures in all of Pennsylvania.
Barns of Bucks County by Jeffrey L. Marshall and Willis M. Rivinus – is a
pictorial guide to a rapidly disappearing American icon. The book’s 300
photographs highlight the variety of Bucks
County’s barns from the
early 18th century through the early 20th century. Highly
illustrated text explains the variety of barn types found throughout the county
and the adjoining counties of southeastern Pennsylvania. The book also depicts common
barn construction features and different types of timber framing techniques
that were used to create these castles in the fields. The book closes with
commentary on the future of barns and includes a glossary and a quick
identification guide.
Bucks County Farmhouses by Jeffrey L. Marshall. Bucks County, Pennsylvania evokes images of Bucks County
farmhouses, colonial stone houses, and quaint villages and towns which gives
the county its national reputation. The new book, Bucks County Farmhouses
celebrates the classic Bucks
County farmhouse. Bucks
County Farmhouses is designed to help the old house detective
understand the variations of the iconic Bucks County
stone farmhouse. With hundreds of photographs, it highlights typical Colonial,
Georgian and Federal architecture found throughout southeastern Pennsylvania. The focus
of this book is on rural houses rather than elegant country manor homes, or the
architecture of early towns and villages.
Saucon Secrets, the History of Hellertown & Lower Saucon Revealed by Lee A. Weidner. This is a 288 page hardcover book –
the product of six years of investigation and interviewing on the author’s part
that includes more than 200 Saucon
Valley stories that blend
history with humor and anecdotes. The
book features cover art by Lower
Saucon Township
painter Frances Roseman and a color
inside plate by Hellertown artist Rick Eisenhart. The book, designed by Keri Maxfield, is also
extensively illustrated with rare historic photographs from Weidner’s
collection. Lee A. Weidner lives in
Hellertown and is a lifetime member of the Hellertown Historical Society, Lower
Saucon Township Historical Society and the Saucon Valley Conservancy. Weidner is also the author of Images of America: Hellertown and
co-author of Images: Lower Saucon
Township.
SPEAKER
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Robert F. Ensminger,
610-625-4671, is
the foremost authority on the Pennsylvania Swiss-German fore-bay barn. His book
first published in 1992 – the second edition came out in 2003 – is a widely
regarded classic – The Pennsylvania Barn – Its Origins Evolution and
Distribution in North America. Bob has been
studying the Pennsylvania barn since the mid 1970’s and has examined thousands
of the barn type not only in his native state of Pennsylvania but in more than
fifteen other states. Bob is a retired professor from Kutztown University
where he taught for more than 15 years. He taught high school for many years
before he taught at the college level. He lived in Lenhartsville in northern Berks County
where he ran an antiques business out of his old farm. He is now fully retired
and lives in Bethlehem
with his wife Margie both of whom are avid travelers.
Gregory D. Huber, 610-967-5808,
is
the president and principal owner of Past
Perspectives, a historic and cultural resources company based in
Macungie, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Since 1971, Greg has
specialized in studying pre-1830 architecture of Holland Dutch and Pennsylvania
Swiss-Germans, having examined more than 4,000 barns and 2,500 houses. He is
author of nearly 100 articles on barn and house architecture and is the
co-author of two books – the second edition of The New World Dutch Barn (2001)
and Stone Houses – Traditional Homes of Pennsylvania’s
Bucks County
and Brandywine Valley (2005). He won the Alice Kenney
Award in 1997 for furthering education of Dutch-American culture and the
Pioneer America Society’s Allen Noble Book Award in 2003 for best edited book
on material culture in North America. His
Dutch Barn Research Journal, published from 1991 to 1994, was one of the very
first publications devoted exclusively to barn research.
The Saucon Valley Conservancy, an all volunteer non- profit
organization, encourages historic preservation in our area and teaches people
of all ages about our rich heritage. For
a glimpse back in time, please stop by and visit the Michael Heller Homestead, an
eighteenth century farmstead, listed on the National Register of Historic
Places, located at 1890 – 92 Friedensville Road (Water Street) in Lower Saucon
Township, Northampton County.
Tours of the historic Heller Homestead are available
by appointment.
Proceeds
benefit the Heller Barn Preservation Fund
HELP US
SAVE ANOTHER TREASURE.
Call for more information
610-216-0566
http://sauconvalleyconservancy.org