Category Archives: The Barn Journal

Secretariat’s Virginia Roots: The Meadow Farm Auctioned [Updated]

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Secretariat’s Foaling Shed has been relocated from the pasture behind the main house to the middle of the old racetrack, where it is preserved as an artifact for State Fair patrons to observe, near the new equine facilities.

Recently listed on Preservation Virginia’s Most Endangered Historic List of 2012, The Meadow Farm, was auctioned on May 22nd. Birthplace of the 1973 Triple Crown-winner Secretariat, the 331 acres that remains of The Meadow is situated within Caroline County, Virginia, just east of Interstate 95. Nearly 34 years after the Chenery family sold the farm, it is now threatened by the development pressures that accompany any property near an Interstate exit. But it is perhaps more at risk from those who do not know its rich, yet humble history.

The barns are currently located within the Virginia State Fairgrounds. According to reports in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Virginia Farm Bureau Federation and Tennessee-based Universal Fairs have formed a partnership, Commonwealth Fairs and Events. The future of the barns are unknown at this time; however, one of the stated focuses by this new partnership will be to highlight Virginia agriculture.

In 2006, The Meadow was determined to be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (SHPO).  Although the main house was no longer standing at that time, it was determined that the historic significance of The Meadow as a notable twentieth-century breeding and training farm of Thoroughbred racehorses was clearly conveyed through the physical components that survived from the Chenerys’ tenure. In addition to establishing the Meadow Stable, Christopher Chenery was instrumental in the creation of the New York Racing Association (NYRA), the non-profit organization that continues to oversee the Belmont, Saratoga and Aqueduct racetracks, and shaped horse racing on the East Coast for much of the twentieth century.

Extant historic features at The Meadow include a number of training, yearling, stallion and broodmare barns, as well as the foaling shed where Secretariat was born in 1970.  Other historic structures such as machine sheds, hay barns, secondary dwellings, garages, a pump house, and a horse cemetery also remain. But perhaps more telling, and less visible to the “urban” eye, are the various historic landscape features, including the path of the old racetrack, numerous paddocks and pastures, fences lines, farm roads, and field patterns—all of which continue to reflect The Meadow’s equine and historic agricultural use for the past 250 years.

Given the farm’s high-level of historic significance, our hope is the farm’s new owners will be sensitive to historic fabric that remains of Secretariat’s Meadow farm, and perhaps even restore some of Chenery’s design.

To read the original post on May 16, 2012, please click here.  

Welcome New Board Members!

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National Barn Alliance held their Annual Meeting on Sunday, June 3. The purpose of the meeting was to review progress made toward the mission of the organization.

Charles Leik, outgoing President, spoke to the progress since the 2007 Albany, NY meeting that the NBA:

– Hosted five spring conferences for general attendance and five winter Board meetings.

– Conducted ten or eleven monthly conference calls annually.

– Participated in five National Trust for Historic Preservation conferences

– Received approximately $60,000 in grants from four sources,

– Initiated the Teamwork and Timbers program of two quarter-scale historic barn models at schools, universities and expositions in Michigan, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Quebec.

– Engaged an Administrator to manage Membership, Social Media, Publicity and Conference Planning.

– Almost doubled Membership in 2012 and Barnalliance.org is becoming the national “go to” site for barn-related information.

– The leading internet site of “Barns Available for Events”; to support this emerging business of renting barns, especially for wedding receptions.

The organization is in good financial standing.

New board members were elected. Please welcome:

Term 2011-2014

Jeff Marshall, PA

Jeffrey L. Marshall, is the President of Heritage Conservancy, a regional land trust and historic preservation organization headquartered in Doylestown, Pa with a staff of approximately twenty people.   Mr. Marshall has been involved in historic preservation and land conservation for more than 35 years. In addition to the direct preservation of thousands of acres of open space, Mr. Marshall has directed conservation subdivision projects and open space planning projects.  He has written open space plans and provides land preservation consultant services to numerous Bucks County and Northampton County municipalities.  He has been a multiple presenter at the prestigious national Land Trust Alliance Rally as well as both the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Land Trust Association annual conferences. He is a member of the Pennsylvania Land Trust Association Policy Committee.  In 2007, Mr. Marshall served on the Bucks County Open Space Task Force, a 24-person, blue ribbon committee, that resulted in a new $87.7 Million countywide open space initiative.

In 2003 he was the recipient of the inaugural “Bucks County Preservation Legacy Award” created in his honor for more than 20 years of leadership and dedication for the preservation of historic places and open spaces by the Bucks County Commissioners.  He is also the recipient of gubernatorial, Pennsylvania Senate and House of Representatives commendations for career achievements in conservation and preservation.

Term 2012-2015

Janie-Rice Brother, KY

Janie-Rice Brother is Senior Architectural Historian with the Kentucky Archaeological Survey, a joint venture of the Kentucky Heritage Council and the University Of Kentucky Department Of Anthropology. Brother, a native of Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, grew up on a beef cattle and tobacco farm which has been in her family since the 1820s. Her love of rural resources stems from her farming background, which she first explored in her master’s thesis.  Since that time, Brother has documented barns in the middle Atlantic, including over 400 farms in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Since returning to Kentucky, Brother has continued to study and document the barns of the Commonwealth, both as representative types and as part of the historic farmstead. Her most recent project, funded by a Preserve America grant, involves the creation of the Heritage Farm website, which will provide a national and even international forum through which Kentucky’s historic agricultural resources can be understood and appreciated—far beyond the confines of the Commonwealth’s borders.

Susan Quinnell, ND

I spent the last 11 years professionally and advocationally involved with the study and preservation of historic buildings. I arranged many workshops for students, the public and professionals, wrote grants, surveys, National Register of Historic Places nominations and for the past seven years have dealt with historic preservation issues in a boom energy-driven economy with rapid change affecting treasured undeveloped and ranch landscapes. I work with project proponents, other governmental agencies, cultural resource contractors and the public as we try to merge new development with the precious resources we have from the past, both natural and cultural. Regarding barns specifically, I am one of the 49 people out of 50 currently alive that have little farming background, but am increasingly concerned that agricultural resources are disappearing far faster than we can even record them, much less fully understand their functions and full histories.

Bob Sherman, IL 

Robert W. Sherman has been interested in Ethnic, Rural and Vernacular architecture since the early 1960’s when he was a Research Associate and Field Representative for the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. He collected artifacts for the Society’s museums, in addition to cataloging and moving 3 barns full of rural and agricultural artifacts and moving them to Stonefield Museum. in the summer of 1967, prior to going to the Cooperstown Graduate Program, he spent the summer finding, measuring and photographing Wisconsin’s Ethnic and Rural structures for the future outdoor museum to be called “Old World Wisconsin”.

Bob continues to search out interesting barns and farmsteads when ever he travels, and he is a member of many of the Barn Preservation Societies and Networks and a member of the National Barn Alliance from its early days. He gives barn lectures on various barn related topics and leads barn tours in the Midwest. He is currently working on two publications. “The Great Barns of Illinois, from Log to Stone” and  “The Housebarns of America” He also keeps current a annotated bibliography of books about barns for the National Barn Alliance’s web page. He is currently a member of the Sangamon County Preservation Commission and a board member of the Illinois Barn Alliance.

Don Truax, IL

Don Truax is a committed preservationist with over 30 years. He is principal of Donald Truax Associates in the greater Chicago area, which provides community-based historic preservation services. Truax has served on numerous boards and commission of historic preservation in Illinois.  Don has in MSE in Computer Technology from University of Michigan and a BS Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University.

Pam Whitney Gray, OH

Pamela Whitney Gray spent most of her career in commercial art and the printing industry. In later years she enjoyed her position as an assistant librarian in a small library in Colorado. After twenty years in the Rocky Mountains Pam returned to Mount Vernon, Ohio to spend time with her parents in their golden years. Pam and her father, Chuck Whitney (1918- 2009), spent many days traveling Ohio and the surrounding states doing barn inspections and helping barn owners to understand and save their barns. These were wonderful learning experiences and she soon realized she had the same passion as he did for barns and their history. She is continuing her Dad’s work, helping to save old barns and to spread the story they tell of our agricultural heritage. Pam’s first book, Americanization of the Family Barn, released in December of 2009, discusses the cultural influences from the Old Country and environmental influences the settlers faced after they arrived in the New World. It gives a brief overall view of the evolution of barns. A second book is at the printers.
Please join us in moving the mission forward to preserve America’s rural heritage.

Secretariat’s Virginia Roots: The Meadow Farm to be Auctioned on May 22nd

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Guest Post by Danae Peckler, Architectural Historian and Board Member of the National Barn Alliance

Recently listed on Preservation Virginia’s Most Endangered Historic List of 2012, The Meadow Farm, will be  auctioned off on May 22nd at 2:00pm EST. Birthplace of the 1973 Triple Crown-winner Secretariat, the 331 acres that remains of The Meadow is situated within Caroline County, Virginia, just east of Interstate 95. Nearly 34 years after the Chenery family sold the farm, it is now threatened by the development pressures that accompany any property near an Interstate exit. But it is perhaps more at risk from those who do not know its rich, yet humble history.

In 2006, The Meadow was determined to be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (SHPO).  Although the main house was no longer standing at that time, it was determined that the historic significance of The Meadow as a notable twentieth-century breeding and training farm of Thoroughbred racehorses was clearly conveyed through the physical components that survived from the Chenerys’ tenure.

Extant historic features at The Meadow include a number of training, yearling, stallion and broodmare barns, as well as the foaling shed where Secretariat was born in 1970.  Other historic structures such as machine sheds, hay barns, secondary dwellings, garages, a pump house, and a horse cemetery also remain. But perhaps more telling, and less visible to the “urban” eye, are the various historic landscape features, including the path of the old racetrack, numerous paddocks and pastures, fences lines, farm roads, and field patterns—all of which continue to reflect The Meadow’s equine and historic agricultural use for the past 250 years.

Secretariat’s Foaling Shed has been relocated from the pasture behind the main house to the middle of the old racetrack, where it is preserved as an artifact for State Fair patrons to observe, near the new equine facilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The historic buildings, structures, and landscape features at The Meadow comprise the birthplace of a great champion, but these elements also reflect the dedication and hard work of a prudent horseman.  The story of Christopher T. Chenery and his Meadow farm was recently published in Secretariat’s Meadow, a book by Chenery’s granddaughter, Kate Tweedy, and Leeanne Ladin.  The book tells the tale of how a man from little wealth came to own one of the most celebrated racehorses in history, and how his family’s ties to a farm in Caroline County carried him back to ‘Ole Virginny.’ In addition to establishing the Meadow Stable, Christopher Chenery was instrumental in the creation of the New York Racing Association (NYRA), the non-profit organization that continues to oversee the Belmont, Saratoga and Aqueduct racetracks, and shaped horse racing on the East Coast for much of the twentieth century.

Building on her father’s dedication, Penny Chenery Tweedy enabled the success of Secretariat, but also the 1972 Derby winner, Riva Ridge.  Penny’s own contribution to sport of Thoroughbred horseracing in the late-twentieth century cannot be understated.  All told, the Chenery family’s hard work has immortalized a little piece of land in Caroline County, and endeared it to the hearts of countless Americans.  The physical landscape at The Meadow continues to tell their story, and the story of so many people (and horses!) that helped bring the farm’s history to life, to those of us who look to listen.

But don’t be fooled, The Meadow is not the horse farm we see in today’s movies.  This farm was not lavishly built by an oil tycoon and it did not become the corporate headquarters of international investors in the racing industry.  Its historic barns and farm buildings are not grandiose in size or architectural detail.  The historic fence lines and gateways on the property are not enlarged signposts—there was certainly no need for billboard-like advertising in Chenery’s era—everybody knew where the farm was located and who was working there.  And if you didn’t, you just had to ask someone local.

This training barn is one of the few original features remaining on the south side of the farm, and is located in the center of the old racetrack. This barn and the foaling shed are now largely surrounded by pavement and enclosed behind a tall metal fence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today, The Meadow continues to be a rare find among celebrated mid-twentieth century horse farms.  Despite improvements made by subsequent owners and new construction associated with the State Fair of Virginia (SFVA), the authenticity of this culturally significant historic landscape remains visible, with much of it lying just beneath the surface.  Aerial photographs taken in the mid-twentieth century reveal that the air-strip, observation tower, and current mansion were added in the mid-1980s, while the SFVA has added parking lots, event buildings, and new roadways since their occupation in 2009.

Satellite imagery illustrates the farm’s transition to host the SFVA. Pictured at the left is an aerial view of the farm in 2002, and at right, an image taken in 2010 (Google Earth).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Given the farm’s high-level of historic significance, it is hoped that the farm’s new owners will be sensitive to historic fabric that remains of Secretariat’s Meadow farm, and perhaps even restore some of Chenery’s design.  No one needs to gussy up the real deal; The Meadow’s visitors would be better served by even a slice of an authentic experience of Virginia’s most well-known horse farm.

If you are interested in learning more about the farm’s auction next week, please visit the website of Motley’s Auction House and click on the 331-acre Virginia State Fairgrounds Complex in Doswell, Virginia (http://www.motleys.com/index.php).  The auction will be held “on site” and “on line,” but online bidders must be registered by May 18th at 3:00 pm EST.

Book Review: Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement

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Book review by Charles Leik, Chair of the National Barn Alliance.

It was at the National Barn Alliance’s (NBA) 2009 Shaker Hill, Kentucky conference that I first learned about the phenomenon of Quilt Barns. Several Kentucky ladies gave an enthusiastic presentation and the next day as I drove serpentine secondary roads northward to the Ohio River I saw perhaps a dozen of the “Real Deal” –8’ x 8’ squares of a favorite quilting pattern on weathered barns.

I already had an acquaintance with quilting as I recalled mother and her friends working at the quilting frame set up in our parlor in the early 1950s. The ladies seated around the frame chatted while with practiced skill made small, uniform stitches to sew the pattern to the batting.

In addition to this tenuous connection to quilts I have been long engaged in preservation of our heritage barns and anything that draws attention to these endangered structures and causes them to be maintained is a positive for me.

With this background I was pleased to learn that the Ohio University Press, Athens released in early 2012 a volume devoted to the history of the quilt barn movement.

The book printed on high quality paper with dozens of captioned photographs is everything that a lover of traditional folk culture could desire. Author Suzi Parron and barn quilt pioneer Donna Sue Groves take the reader to the origins of the Quilt Trails in Appalachia and then to other states, particularly those of the Heartland. There are individual chapters on Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan as well as chapters devoted to local events in which the author participated.

The reader meets the dozens of local heroines (and heroes) who organized the Trails in their communities. I was pleased that a photo of the quilt art on the owner’s barn accompanied the discussion of a pattern and its personal importance to the family.

Cindi Van Hurk, Michigan is representative of the many quilt trail pioneers in stating, “The Alcona County Quilt Trail Project has a very positive impact on our economy, while also fueling community pride within all areas of our county.”

This reviewer was happy to read the author’s conclusion that, “An unexpected benefit of the project has been the preservation of barns and other farm buildings.”

Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement is highly recommended for a quick education of this art genre and for aficionados of American vernacular architecture. Barn Quilts is a 240-page paperback at $29.95 by Swallow Press/Ohio State University. Order from University of Chicago Distribution Center, 11030 South Langley Ave., Chicago, IL 60628 or call 773.702.7000.

Hidden in Plain Site: Side-Gabled Log Barn

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This is a guest post by Jeroen van den Hurk, Ph.D. He is an Architectural Historian based in North Carolina.

You never know what the lush climate of North Carolina hides until the dead of winter. While out of a drive on Sunday afternoon, I came across this abandoned side-gabled log barn in Halifax County, NC. This is an unusual building for eastern North Carolina. It was a one-story, double-pen or dogtrot structure used to store hay. It appeared to be an earthfast building with the log sill laid directly on the ground.  The logs were halved and saddle notched at the corners, and there was evidence of pegs near the center of the walls to keep the logs together.  The plate was hewn, and there was evidence of both cut nails and wire nails, suggesting that the barn was at least 100-years old.  The rafters may have been replaced at some point and the roof was clad in a standing-metal seam roof. One of the gable ends still had the original weatherboard siding, whereas the other gable end was covered with standing-seam metal.

Time, storms, and neglect had taken it’s toll, but it was still standing.

 

More photos of this barn: