Another Barn Succumbs To The Weight Of Winter

By Shannon Hicks

A small two-story barn in Newtown collapsed last week under the weight of snow that had been accumulating on its roof this winter, a season that has already given us a record-breaking amount of snow in January and the loss of at least three other antique barns.

A red barn at 54 Peck’s Lane succumbed to the snow on its roof last Thursday afternoon. One witness, Chris Belair, caught the collapse in a cellphone video.

“Chris was snowblowing my driveway, helping me out after that last storm,” said Steve Belair, who live on Peck’s Lane. His son was helping clear the latest foot of snow to hit Newtown, which had arrived during the early morning hours of January 27. “He kept hearing noises, snapping sounds as the boards were breaking.”

Chris was quick on the draw, pulling out his cellphone and using the video feature on it to capture the collapse of the barn that was more than a century old. Property owner Robert Hall told The Bee he thought the structure dated from the turn of the 20th Century.

Mr Hall said Tuesday morning that he bought the property at 54 Peck’s Lane about ten years ago. He knew the barn needed work even then, but it was not a priority.

It was also not a surprise, he said, to learn the building had failed. Passersby for years have been able to admire the relatively small building, which had character in its slight tilt and fading barn red paint. It has also been interesting the watch as much of the building’s siding popped its nails and curled. On the south side of the building in particular, the boards had pulled away from the side of the barn and were curling away from the building.

“I’ve never seen barn siding curl like that,” said Mr Hall. “I could never figure out why they curled so badly.”

Margot Hall, Mr Hall’s wife, described the building as “funky.”

The Halls knew their barn was going to need attention soon, even though it still had a good roof.

“I was going to brace it up and use it for storage,” he said. “I knew it was going to need to be braced up, even when it was first bought.”

Mr Hall said his original intention when buying the property was to build a small shop-type building on it. He was as going to use the barn for storage, “stuff that we wouldn’t need,” he said.

“When I looked at it this fall, while it was still leaning back [away from the road], it looked like it was just leaning in one direction,” he said. Despite its proximity to the road, none of the debris from the collapse landed in the roadway.

It was not a great surprise, Mr Hall said this week, to find out his barn had finally fallen, however.

“A few months ago, it was just twisting,” he said. “To me, that meant it wasn’t just falling over cleanly, it was falling with a twist. It was going down.”

He had been in the process of getting a demolition permit, said Mr Hall, “but getting a permit is a lot of work and I just hadn’t finished.”

Fortunately there was nothing of any value inside the building last week, “really just junk, some rags and broken furniture.” There was nothing of any value or interest in the barn when Mr Hall bought it, in fact. Nothing, that is, except for a small collection of plates “and some posters advertising the old Newtown Inn.” The back of the plates, Mr Hall said, bear a shield and the words A Zeckendorf Hotel on them.

The history of the property, said Mr Hall, is that it was owned by “the guy who ran the [old Newtown Inn, back in the 1950s], who owned the property that I own, where the barn was.”

There also used to be a two-family house on the property, said Mr Hall. It is unclear what happened to that dwelling.

This makes at least four barns in town that have collapsed within the past month. Jean and Charlie Fadus were home when their 200-year-old barn on West Street, formerly part of the Boyson dairy farm, collapsed on January 19. That same morning, Karen and Michael Sepp lost their 18th Century barn, a/k/a “the Sedor barn,” at 3 Hedge Meadow Lane on the corner of Currituck Road around 8:30 am. And another barn on Currituck, near its intersection with Butterfield Road, also collapsed within that same time frame.

While it is a loss when any barn is lost, the good news that has come from all of these collapsed buildings is no one has been hurt by any of the falls.