In the past two years, the Connecticut Trust has surveyed almost 900 barns across the state. This survey has yielded a wealth of information about Connecticut’s agricultural history and buildings, but it has also highlighted the threats that face many historic barns and related structures (see “The Most Important Threatened Historic Places,” CPN, September/October 2006).

In December the Trust took a step toward helping these endangered buildings when the Board of Trustees approved a new grant program dedicated to historic barns. This program will allow the Trust to help owners evaluate buildings for structural integrity, for historic significance and for feasible uses other than agricultural. The goal is to distribute at least $25,000 in grants by June 30. The grants will be funded through the Connecticut General Assembly, the Connecticut Humanities Council and the Commission on Culture and Tourism.

The grants will be offered to non-profit and municipal barn owners, as well as to private owners—a sector for which little, if any, help is currently available. Applicants should be able to demonstrate community-level significance, support from a local historical organization or municipality or from a local agricultural group, and a public benefit from the grant.

The Trust’s barns grants can be used for assessments of historic integrity and structural conditions, nominations to the National Register, evaluation of adaptive use opportunities, following Donavan Rympkema’s Feasibility Assessment Manual for Re-using Historic Properties or any combination of these options. The maximum grant is $8,000, with a cash match required under some circumstances.

In addition to the new grants program, the Trust is continuing a number of other barn-related activities through the winter and spring of 2008. One goal is to add 800 more listings to the inventory of historic barns by the end of June. Two interns, Melissa Antonelli, of Roger Williams University, and Ryan Bova, from Central Connecticut State University, will perform much of this work, assisted by volunteer researcher Charlotte Hitchcock, of New Haven.

To add even more barns to the survey, Preservation Services officer Todd Levine plans to offer at least four barn survey training sessions for local preservationists during the winter and spring. Already scheduled are sessions in South Windsor, on January 10, and in Mansfield, on February 21. Finally, in order to share its new-found information about barns and barn preservation with the public, the Trust is working to expand www.connecticutbarns.org and exploring the possibility of publishing a book on Connecticut barns.


For more information on Barn Grants or other historic barns initiative programs, visit www.cttrust.org or www.connecticutbarns.org.