Raising the LeVie barn was a townwide effort 115 years ago, and relocating the building will likely take a similar effort.
Randy Nash, of Cazenovia, was inquisitively pacing through the historic barn in New Scotland, with a flashlight in hand on the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 21. As Nash waited for Town Board member Dan Mackay to arrive, he quietly sized up the 60-foot wide, 120-foot long and 60-foot tall barn Frank Osterhout built in 1898.
Rain was pouring into the barn through holes in the roof, with the ground outside being a mixture of puddles and ice. A sign on the barn warned not to park alongside it, with snow falling more rapidly off the slate roof. There is also the risk of a shingle joining the snow in its plummet.
Light pierced through some holes in the back wall, illuminating sections of the sparsely light structure serving as a storage facility for maintenance equipment and supplies of the Colonie Country Club. Some long unused maintenance equipment sat upon the second floor, which requires a ladder to reach. The original wooden ladders, stretching up to the ceiling in some spots, were sawed off until the start of the second floor, because kids were getting into the barn at one point and climbing up the rungs.
Nash has spent the majority of his life inside barns across the state, but the LeVie barn was unlike any historic barn he’s stepped inside. Mackay tapped Nash to evaluate how the structure could be relocated and roughly what it might cost.
“For years I just repaired barns, and I have taken barns apart and put them back together,” Nash said. “I have moved over 60 buildings … some of them I documented every piece in the building, even the pegs went back in the exact same hole. You wouldn’t know the building was taken apart.”
Nash said the barn overall is in “excellent shape,” with a few areas needing repairs. There are some negative aspects that would work against a smooth relocation, such as the siding being wire nailed and the flooring and roof deck being tongue and groove construction. The slate roof would also be scrapped
“It could be shortened lengthwise and it could be shortened heightwise, so it leaves you flexibility there and still maintains its aesthetic character,” Nash said.
Ironically, the barn’s unusual height and footprint is a detriment toward full-scale relocation, according to Nash. The massive size of the historic barn is often noted as a key reason for its preservation.
The barn is an outlier to the state’s agricultural history because it doesn’t follow trends of the time, according to Nash. In terms of state history, the barn has little historical significance, he said. Its tie to local history and visual appearance, along with uniqueness, play into its value, Mackay said.
Mackay said Nash roughly estimated the cost to relocate the whole barn to be upwards of $500,000. Nash said estimates from different contractors are often “hugely different.” Demolishing the barn is estimated to cost around $10,000.
“I have never seen one this big be dismantled and put back together,” Nash said. “There are some out in Ohio that have been done, and they spent a lot, a lot of money on those.”
Mackay said he was “intrigued” to hear the flexibility available when relocating the structure, with the length and height available to be altered.
“That I think is of interest in finding an appropriate reuse and relocation for it,” Mackay said. “Size is a factor in cost and cost is at this point the major obstacle.”
He said the cost to relocate the barn is within what he envisioned and hopes to seek through state funding. Reducing the size through relocation would lower the cost.
“I haven’t heard anything today that says don’t do it,” Mackay said. “There have been several inquiries about hosting the relocated barn and of those inquires no one has yet said, ‘It needs to be smaller.’”