They are as essential to our idea of how New England looks as maple trees, stone walls, and lobster traps. You may get the barn-bug, as historian Thomas Durant Visser did. The 200-page book is somewhat academic in approach, but is nevertheless packed with tasty, digestible, satisfying information about barns, silos, sugar houses, granaries, potato houses, ice houses, and outhouses. The barn-buildings Visser cites are generally not open to the public, but can be viewed from public roads. Barns are comforting, familiar, and yet also mysterious.
Construction is rugged and bold.
Windows are large to encourage ventilation and to let in lots of light. Practical features prevail, such as double pine sheathing to keep out snow and rain, and siting on hillsides to allow walk-in access at all levels. What follows is no exhaustive list, but a sampling of varied barns. They range in character from barn-museums to barn theaters to those offering rest for the romantic. The simple but majestic Round Barn at Hancock Shaker Village in the Berkshire hills outside of Pittsfield is the signature structure of this community of 20 restored buildings.