Debbie Ledley’s family bought a farm near the Delaware County Airport in 1968, when she was just 4 years old. The farm included a big, old barn.
Her father boarded horses and was a grain farmer, Ledley said.
“So, there were gravity (grain) wagons in there. And then we would climb up the hay mow and swing from one side to the other right over the gravity wagon,” Ledley recalled.
Now, with Ledley’s parents in their 80s and no one to take over the farm, it was time for it to go, she said. A company purchased the land to build warehouses.
Ledley's voice cracked as she explained, “Mom and dad sold the farm, and it was just going to be destroyed.”
But Ledley’s husband, Chris Ledley, who also grew up on a farm, had the idea to deconstruct and move the barn to make it into their home. They’re in the process of rebuilding it outside of Ostrander, about halfway between Marysville and Delaware. Recent date nights have involved pressure-washing old beams, Debbie said.
Dan Troth of GreenTech Construction, who is the contractor leading the reconstruction of the Ledley’s barn, estimates that it dates to around 1870 or 1880. Standing in the barn near what would someday be the Ledley’s kitchen, he pointed to the historic frame – the large posts and tie beams are all hand-hewn, while the smaller scantling was sawed.
To be sure of the barn’s age, though, Troth said the Ledleys would have to have a core sample of the wood dated – through a process called dendrochronology, which can pinpoint within about three months of when a tree was felled.
A passion for barns
Troth is a longtime member of the Timber Framers Guild. He took down his first barn in 1976 and at the time was only trying to get the slate from the roof to sell, he said. Now, he has a deep appreciation for barns that stems in part from his childhood visits to the country while growing up in Ashland.
Troth said his father was an attorney who had many clients that were farmers, and on Sundays they would visit the farms.
“Whenever they had a barn, we would play in the barn. Because back in those days, we had – we called them square bales, they were actually rectangular – but you could build forts with those hay bales,” Troth said. “And I just loved it.”
In addition to being a contractor who works on timber structures, Troth is the vice-president of Friends of Ohio Barns, a nonprofit that encourages preservation of the state’s historic barns.
The group works with other organizations, like the National Barn Alliance, to connect Ohio barn owners with repair specialists. It also hosts an annual barn conference; the 2023 conference was held in April in Morrow County and included a tour of six barns. Friends of Ohio Barns also gives three annual “Barn of the Year” awards for agricultural use, adaptive reuse and stewardship.
The organization is based in Burbank but has members all over the state. Troth lives in southern Delaware County in an 1828 barn that he and his wife, Robin, converted into a house.
Saving Ohio’s barns
Troth rebuilds barns as they were, sometimes with structural improvements or with additions like the garage and sunroom on the Ledley’s house. But he doesn’t dismantle barns for parts, which he said is common.
“For the people who are selling it, it's like elephant tusks – they know they have value. But our group, Friends of Ohio Barns, we're trying to save the elephants,” Troth said.
He said most barns that are repurposed have to be moved. In their new locations, they become community centers, event venues, brewpubs, and restaurants.
Ohio’s historic barns were built with the trees on farmers' properties and the most common types of wood used were white oak, tulip poplar and American beech, Troth said.
Farmers felled trees in the winter when the leaves were gone, and the underbrush was subdued. If snow was on the ground, they hooked the cut trees to an ox or horse and easily dragged them to the barn site, Troth said.
In the spring, they’d hew – or, in later years, saw – the trunks into posts. Then, in the summer, families, friends and neighbors came together to put up the barn. Troth said barn raisings were community events.
“And that sense of community has been lost to a great degree,” Troth said. But, he believes turning the barns into public places brings back that sense of community.
The barn became an official symbol of Ohio in 2019, thanks to the efforts of a few Westerville City Schools' students and a little support from the Friends of Ohio Barns.
Remembering roots
For the Ledleys, their new house will always be connected to old memories.
“So, you know, every time you walk in through the door, you just remember the blizzard of '78, what dad was doing, you know, in the barn, pulling in tractors out to plow out, the neighbors who were burning their furniture to stay warm,” Debbie Ledley said.
Troth says knowing your roots is important and in Ohio, those roots are in farming. Farmland, however, is slowly starting to disappear as big companies buy it to build or expand factories and warehouses.
“And they're, you know, moving us into the future with technology,” Troth said. “But I just think, how can we pay tribute to the farmers whose land we've bought? And I'm thinking, boy, it's a great place for a barn where the community can gather.”
