Cow Palace #14892

The Story

This fancy white Victorian barn with elaborate features sits nicely in the snow on a bright sunny day. It gleams in white against a deep blue midday sky, even more so with the gray metal roof covered with a few inches of last night’s snow.

The prominent cupolas are a very nice feature built mostly for ventilation and so are the large louvered windows along the side. If you have the means, why not make your building fancy to make a statement? Even today, it’s routine to do such things in architecture to display status and the occasional successful farmer of long ago would be no exception.

There are five sliding doors on the long side above the ground, something I’ve never seen before. I’d imagine that helps with summer ventilation too, but perhaps the doors help to push hay straight out to animals feeding outside below. Barns are very susceptible to fire from large amounts of stored hay that can spontaneously catch fire in summer if the heat builds up inside too much in summer. It seems this farmer was taking no chances and rightfully so.

While I was there, a few cows were milling around the barnyard and not showing me much interest. Most of the time, a barn is just a barn until you find a Victorian Gothic cow palace out in the country somewhere! Pretty fashionable and fancy for the average cow, I would say…who could probably care less!

Location: rural Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.