New York Dutch Barn

Dutch Barns are simply the finest barns ever built. Their history stretches back to the Medieval, pre-industrial age before barns were built for specialized uses, like dairying. This means that they had many diverse uses like: storing hay and grain in sheaves, housing livestock like cattle, oxen, horses, chickens, sheep and goats. Wagons and carriage were also stored in the barn along with harness and all the farming and horse-drawn tools, like plows and harrows.

The early New York Dutch farmers also threshed grain in them, a process in which the kernels of grain were separated from the stalks and chaff by flailing and winnowing. So, these were working buildings that farm families’ lives depended on.

The Dutch Barns of New York also have a long architectural history dating back to 11th century Holland. They are a unique architectural form known as the “basilica plan”, as the basilicas and cathedrals of medieval Europe were actually designed after the layout of these early barns. In the floor plan of a basilica or church, the central area is known as the “nave.” This word is derived from the Latin word “navis” for ship, as in our modern word, “navy.” The reason for this is that when you stand in the middle of a Dutch Barn floor and look overhead, it resembles the inside of a wooden sailing ship’s hull, with its frames and planks.

The sides of a Dutch Barn are also called the “aisles” as in the side aisles of a church or cathedral. The most prominent feature of a true Dutch Barn is the “through tenons” of the massive overhead anchor beams, which extend through the vertical arcade posts.

This barn form came to the New World when New York was first settled by the Dutch in 1624 at the founding of New Amsterdam (later renamed New York City) and Fort Orange (later renamed Albany). These early Dutch settlers brought the Dutch Barn form of architecture with them to the New World where they combined the skilled craftsmanship of the Old World with the virgin forest of the New World to create the finest barns ever built.

But the age of Dutch Barn building in America did not last long or extend beyond the Hudson and Mohawk River Valleys of New York and Northern New Jersey, making these very rare barns today. Not long after the end of the Revolutionary War new, industrialized farming methods made this Medieval barn form obsolete as English settlers from the New England states began arriving in New York, bringing with them a new form of English barn building that superseded the old, medieval Dutch form. Today there are very few of these grand barns left standing, and their massive timbers and cathedral-like space will never be seen again.

This barn we have for sale is a classic New World Dutch barn from the Mohawk River Valley of New York, an excellent example of New World Dutch Barn construction with its massive timbers.