JUNE** IS HISTORIC BARN ARCHITECTURAL MONTH
BARN ARCHITECT EXTRODINAIRE
American Folklife Institute salutes architect John K. Heyl, at age 102. Architect of Pennsylvania’s historic buildings and descriptive editor of architect Charles Dornbusch’s 1940 Langely Fellowship Study on Pennsylvania barns, by the American Institute of Architecture.
Published by the Pennsylvania German Folklore Society in 1956, this award winning book on Pennsylvania German barns, edited by John K. Heyl, with numerous classifications of native structures is a major work on rural architecture. A Lehigh County historian and 1933 Harvard A.I.A. award winning architect, Heyl’s familiarity with native Pennsylvania German structures of various periods provides us with a unique expertise.
Historic restoration architect of Lehigh County and other Commonwealth sites, Mr. Heyl was the consultant in Berks County’s historic Oley Valley structures. Among them the 18th Century Jacob Keim farmstead, which has a unique 19th Century pig barn with an early concrete slab floor.
CONGRATULATIONS to the Historic Barn & Farm Foundation of PA and the National Barn Alliance for their June Conference at Kutztown University, Preserving America's Rural Culture!
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The gable-end hex sign on this Georgian architectural 1801 Bieber Homestead, just 2.5 miles south of Kemp’s Tavern on the road leading to Bowers had been recessed in fieldstone. The farmer was very careful not to cover up the circular medallion, which is 3 ½ feet in diameter. Judging from the age of the hex sign, it is authentic and painted in original black and ocher yellow paint. The Bieber hex sign or “sunburst” has eight points with a large, circular saw tooth border imitating the sun.
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A RARE 1943 PHOTO OF OFFICERS OF THE LEHIGH COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY DEDICATING THE HISTORIC TROXELL-STECKEL HOUSE. JOHN HEYL, ITS RESTORATION ARCHITECT, IS STANDING SECOND ON THE RIGHTSIDE.
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The hex-sign medallion on the gable end wall of the Snyder barn, near Lenhartsville several miles north of the Bieber barn, on land not as fertile, leads one to conclude that our proud, agrarian people of Berks County were as proud of their barns as they were of their farmhouses. But in a culture as artistic as the native Pennsylvania Dutch, with few examples elsewhere in rural America, these barns and household decorated objects were just power for the course among the Dutch.
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Built about 1820, this Swiss bank barn located on the gristmill-farm of Clarence Yoder in Lobachsville during the 1960’s, features windows trimmed with triple wooden keystones. The practice of extending wooden architectural Georgian keystones to the farmer’s barn windows was common in the Oley Valley, where landed gentry built so many Georgian mansions in the early 1800’s.
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Recognized as the "Most Beautifully Decorated Barn in America," its location is along Old 22 in New Smithville on the Berks-Lehigh county border.
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Dr. Donald Shelley's Barn in the Oley Valley. An 18th Century Stone “English” bank barn, without forebay, had massive brick-arched doors above the stables in front where two threshing floor doors opened to pitch straw down to the barnyard.
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