A PHMC Grant to study Log Barns in Penns Valley
Rhoneymeade is pleased to announce that the organization will receive a Keystone Historic Preservation Grant in the amount of $5,000.00 from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
The project is called: Log Barns in the Penns Valley and Brush Valley Rural Historic District.
This project will study over two years-Sept 2025 to Sept 2027- a notable concentration of surviving log barns in the Penns Valley and Brush Valley Rural Historic District. Defined by the Centre County Historic Registration Project in the late 1970s, this district comprises five townships that occupy two high ‘interior’ valleys of the ridge and valley region that form the upper reaches of the Penns Creek watershed.
Most of these barns still serve working farms, but their continued survival is threatened by modern changes in agricultural practices and shifts in land use. The ultimate goal of this project is to preserve these early barns.
The project team has summarized the following objectives:
○ to identify and document all surviving log barns in the District,
○ to enter survey information into the PA-Share database,
○ to share information with the public and foster a sense of cultural identity or create community,
○ to help create plans for preservation.
Christopher D. Macneal is the consultant on this project. Chris, a registered architect and historian, is a sole practitioner consulting on vernacular architecture conservation projects, including barn surveys and documentation for ClearWater Conservancy and private clients.
As chair of the Historic Barn and Farm Foundation and author of The Shape of Time in Buffalo Valley: Farmsteads and Barns of Union County, Pennsylvania, Chris is particularly suited to lead this project for Rhoneymeade.
This project has a budget of $10,000. The commission has awarded $5,000, requiring a 50-50 match of $5,000 in private funds by Rhoneymeade. So far, Chris Macneal has pledged his previously awarded Peterson Fellowship grant to study log barns, in the amount of $4,000, with the blessings of the Philadelphia Athenaeum (grantor). Also received was a $500 match fund from the Jacqueline J. Melander Fund of the Centre County Historical Society. Jackie was instrumental in spearheading the Penns and Brush Valley Rural Historic District project in the early aughts on behalf of the CCHS.
This leaves only $500 for Rhoneymeade to raise in private match funds to complete the $5,000 match. If you or someone you know would like to help us reach this amount, please contact rhoneymeade@gmail.com.
We would like to thank the following people whose letters of support helped Rhoneymeade receive this PHMC grant:
● The office of Congressman Glenn Thompson
● Catherine and John Smith
● Mary Sorensen/Centre County Historical Society
*This project is supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s Keystone Historic Preservation Grant Program, a program funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.