Barn Raising – Feature Home Fall 2014
19 Oct 2014
He wasn’t born in a barn, but this homeowner was determined to live in one—and what a beauty it is.
By Lisa Marshall photos by www.weinrauchphotography.com Ever since he was a boy helping out on his granddad’s farm in rural Pennsylvania, Dan Hersh has found something magical about walking through a barn door: the unique grain of the wood; the sweet smell of the hay; the nostalgia and craftsmanship that resonates within the walls. So when he and his wife, Judy, sold their too-large-and-prim contemporary home in the Chautauqua neighborhood, Dan set out to fulfill a lifelong dream some might find surprising for a retired airline exec who helped found Jet Blue and several other successful airlines. He wanted to live in a barn. “It occurred to me that I could make a new house out of a barn and have the character of an old home,” but without all the maintenance hassles, Hersh says. The challenge: He and Judy, married 45 years, liked living close to downtown but most barns are out in the countryside. After toying with the idea of restoring a barn in Steamboat, Dan did what many shoppers do when they can’t find what they’re looking for close to home. He surfed the Web. There, he stumbled upon Heritage Restorations (www.-heritagebarns.com), a Waco, Texas–based company that rescues, restores and resurrects historic 18th- and 19th-century barns, reincarnating them into wholly unique show homes. “It actually seemed too good to be true,” says Dan, who jokingly refers to the company as “Barns to Go.” The idea of ordering his home online seemed a little unsettling, so he hopped on a plane one hot July day and paid a visit to the company’s sprawling Texas showroom. There he found a company and community as unique as the homes it helps build. [pp_gallery gallery_id="10183" width="180" height="180"] Founded in 1997, Heritage Restorations sits on a 500-acre property where a Christian community called Homestead Heritage resides. According to a recent article in Mother Earth News, the residents resemble Amish or Mennonites in both appearance and practice, with a deep focus on agrarian life and simple living, and a rejection of modern technology. Since its founding, Heritage Restorations—which is operated by members of the religious community—has rescued more than 200 neglected 18th- and 19th-century barns from farmlands in the Northeast. As company president Kevin Durkin puts it, “I think perhaps we all have a favorite barn in our past.”
Crane with Care
With their prime piece of real estate and the barn finally prepared, Dan and Judy sat on their Boulder hilltop in August 2009 and watched in awe as a crane—one of the few pieces of modern equipment the company uses—lifted the timbers onto their property. Then a team of workers painstakingly pieced the 1,100-square-foot barn back together, using massive mallets to tighten the beams. “It went up in a day and a half,” Judy says. “It was incredible to watch.”
Dan served as his own architect and worked with Boulder builder Mark Hartwig to build ultra-insulated walls (made out of structural insulated panels, or SIPs) around the barn frame. They also added a master suite and second bedroom in a silo-shaped stone addition. One year later, their dream home was complete.


