VIEW CURRENT INVENTORY OF BARN FRAMES BY CLICKING HERE.

THE BARN SAVER PROJECT:  "Reclaiming History For America's Future"

"As suburbanization takes over the . . . countryside, barns fall out of favor when farming declines. Often, barns are lost to bulldozers. Nothing gets saved. John High has a better idea. He saves and recycles them."
-- Ed Klimuska, Lancaster Newspapers, Associated Press

"I knew there was a lot of craftsmanship and hard work that was going to die if somebody didn't do something about it."  
-- John High, in a Lancaster Sunday News article by Marty Crisp                  

"We'll recycle the whole barn. It'll sell like hotcakes: People building barns. People building houses. People building houses to look like barns. People fixing up barns to look like houses. This barn will live for another hundred years in a hundred different places."
-- Linda Oatman High, in Barn Savers, a children's picture book

  Email us at lohigh@frontiernet.net 

 In these fast-paced days of the 21st century, quick demolition and thoughtless land filling is most often the way old buildings are removed to make way for new structures. This wasn't always the case. In days gone by, when labor costs were as low as fifty cents a day, contractors could afford to take a building apart piece by piece, nail by nail, board by board. With increasing costs and a fast-paced society - along with the development of heavy machinery -- it began making better sense to demolish rather than dismantle. Landfills are now filled with approximately 25% construction materials, accumulated from both the building of new structures and the demolition of old ones. 

     Businesses such as the The Barn Saver are striving to lessen the environmental effects of deconstruction, despite the hard economic realities of today. John High doesn't want to see dismantling become a thing of the past, hence the Barn Saver Project.   

     Proving to the public and large corporations that careful deconstruction can be a cost-effective (as well as environmentally friendly) solution is a difficult process. Challenges include the sometimes frustrating, dirty and dangerous aspects of dismantling, along with the dilemma of finding employees with adequate patience and knowledge not to act recklessly or to damage materials. Despite the setbacks, The Barn Saver Project perseveres in education and experience, proving to the construction industry professionals, large corporations, and general public that careful deconstruction and recycling is indeed a viable option. 

John High is now offering a Barn Savers slide show.

Email lohigh@frontiernet.net or call 717-445-8246 to schedule presentations.

SEE A VIDEO:
The Barn Saver, segment from GreenWorks Television Production

INTERNSHIPS ARE AVAILABLE WITH THE BARN SAVER!  You must be able to climb, lift, and work physically in various weather conditions.  Please call 717-445-8246 for more info.  

THE BARN SAVER will exhibit at the 2008 Pa. Farm Show. 

	Barns finding second lives MARC LEVY Associated Press   An AP article about John, written from the 2004 Pa. Farm Show:   HARRISBURG, Pa. - As a wrecking-ball operator for an excavating company, John High hated knocking down old barns so that the wood could be burned or carted off to a landfill. If he knew a barn was doomed, he'd try to get in there beforehand and save some of the more valuable and easier-to-remove pieces, such as doors or floor boards. And as miserable as High felt when he was laid off in 1990 just as his son was about to be born, perhaps it was a blessing in disguise: It allowed him to explore the idea of saving barns full time. Now, 13 years later, High, 41, has a long list of woodworkers, restoration companies and preservationists who buy wood from him, whether it's an entire barn or individual beams and boards salvaged from a dilapidated structure. "I've made it my mission to save as many as I can," High said Monday at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, where he has a booth. High, who runs his business, The Barn Saver, from his home in Narvon in Lancaster County, has since saved all or parts of more than 200 barns or other structures - such as sheds and outhouses - as a way to recycle them. The majority of the barns become homes, and the boards or beams find their ways into other barns, homes, furniture or crafts. Saving the barns is a kind of penance for High - "It made me sick every time" he demolished one - but even more so, he is passionate about preserving the craftsmanship that went into the original hand-hewn boards, and the quality of the wood that endures 100 years - sometimes 200 years - later. In many cases, barns are being felled to make way for development in the fast-developing Philadelphia suburbs or the Poconos. Three years ago, High disassembled a barn that was in the path of the Pine Grove Landfill expansion in Schuylkill County. Some barns on working farms are now obsolete, because they cannot accommodate the huge pieces of farm equipment or round hay bales that farmers need to shelter. The oldest barn High ever dismantled was the 265-year-old Moy Barn in Chester County, which was rescued by preservationists who wanted to rebuild it in a nearby park. High said he gets calls from around the country from people who want him to save a barn. Because he can't feasibly work beyond eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware or Maryland, he has sought to compile a database of similar companies around the country to whom he can refer the work. Companies have done this kind of work from Illinois to New Hampshire as far back as the 1970s, but when High got into the business, he said only the Amish were doing it in Pennsylvania to supply wood to other barns or furniture. Many preservationists believe the barns should be preserved at their original sites for the sake of local heritage. No one knows how many historic barns remain, but John Olson of the National Trust for Historic Preservation estimated that, nationally, thousands are lost each year to demolition or contractors like High who recycle the structures. Thousands of barns in northeastern states have been torn down and recycled, and some communities feel cheated out of a landmark. That's why the National Trust urges landowners to leave the barns where they are, even if the structures are adapted to another use, such as a restaurant or museum. "Obviously, the easiest way to save a barn is to find a use for it on the spot," Olson said. High has packed up and shipped complete barns as far as away as California and North Carolina. The process is grueling and includes drawing up a blueprint and labeling each board with an aluminum stamp. The barns are dismantled, board by board with crowbars, sledgehammers and hands, High said. High tries to save everything: He has a garage full of bricks, doorknobs, hinges, and long iron nails for sale. He even has two cupolas from a suburban Harrisburg barn he took down a few months ago. "They worked so hard" to build the barns, High said. "And we're just sending to a landfill? I don't think so."

John was featured in American Profile magazine!  Check it out:  http://www.americanprofile.com/issues/20030824/20030824_3285.asp  

John was featured on Greenworks TV!  The photos above are from the segment.

READ ABOUT THE "BARN SAVERS" BOOK RECEPTION:

"The barn is old. The boards are beaten. A hundred years of wind and rain have taken their toll. Though long gone, you still can smell the hay and horses. It's a beautiful place, this barn, in its rugged way."

-- from Barn Savers © Boyds Mills Press 1999

On Saturday, October 23, 1999, more than 200 librarians, teachers, and well-wishers joined Boyds Mills Press at a Barn Party to celebrate the publication of Barn Savers. The gala event, honoring author Linda Oatman High and illustrator Ted Lewin, took place at Eberly Barn located in the beautiful countryside of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (shown here). Guests were treated to a sampler of Pennsylvania Dutch treats served by Old Order Mennonite ladies of the community, who were raising money for a family adopting two children.

 

Eberly Barn (left), and (right) an early 1900s "hit-and-miss" engine
(also known as a one-lunger). The barrels on either side are ice-cream makers.
  

 

Guests signed in on a commemorative piece of barn wood (left).
Linda Oatman High and Ted Lewin (seated, right) sign their book (pictured below) for guests.

 

Click here for complete coverage of this event by Marty Crisp of the Lancaster Sunday News.

For a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the book, click here.
(NOTE: A free Adobe Acrobat Reader "plug-in" is required to view and/or print this PDF file.)

Awards, Etc.

	Winner of the 2001 and 2003 Waste Watchers Award:  Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Professional Recyclers of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Waste Watchers Association
	2001 Pennsylvania Worker of the Year Announced    JOHN HIGH HAS ONCE AGAIN BEEN NAMED PENNSYLVANIA WORKER OF THE YEAR (2003) BY DICKIES WORKWEAR!! FORT WORTH, Texas, Aug. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- To honor hardworking people everywhere on Labor Day, Dickies Workwear is proud to announce its 2001 state and national winners in the 10th Annual American Worker of the Year Awards. John High, 38, of Narvon, is the 2001 Pennsylvania Worker of the Year. Mr. High was nominated by his wife, Linda who wrote: "John left his job at an excavating company and began The Barn Saver, saving buildings he had once destroyed ... [he] keeps barns alive, salvaging 90-100% of each and every one." (Read More)
	Businesses for the Bay is a voluntary team of forward-looking businesses, industries, government facilities and other organizations within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. We are committed to implementing pollution prevention in our daily operations and reducing our releases of chemical contaminants and other wastes to the Chesapeake Bay.

The Barn Saver is a member of the Timber Framer's Guild