Our Barns: A Stop at the Intervale Road The Farmstead at 1296 Intervale Road in New Gloucester is a direct result of those intrepid visionaries who set out from Gloucester, Massachusetts many years ago. (Photo Don Perkins)

The Farmstead at 1296 Intervale Road in New Gloucester is a direct result of those intrepid visionaries who set out from Gloucester, Massachusetts many years ago. Butter was made here and shipped by the firkin (an old English measurement of about 40 liters) to the folks back in the original town of Gloucester. The main house has quite a history and once served as a stopover for travelers. Visitors could enjoy a spring with reputed healing waters similar to those of nearby Poland Spring.

The Webber family of Gloucester, Massachusetts settled here and their descendents remained until the 1930s. Benjamin Webber built the house in the 1820s, however the barn - at least the one that's here today - came later. The main house is a lovely hand-hewn post and beam frame, but the detached barn is built of sawed timbers. Circular saw marks can be seen on the 8 x 8 beams and the marks are nice and consistent, indicating construction that is at least post-1860.

Perhaps the most prominent feature of this barn is its immense cupola, measuring 14' x 14' that signifies plenty of hay was stored here as there were cows and horses to feed. Walking inside, the hayloft is immense. The 40' x 50' barn has a 12/12, or 45-degree, roof pitch and a hayfork is still mounted on a track at the peak.

The structure is comprised of five bents and is clad, both walls and roof, with horizontal boarding some eight to 10 inches wide. Horizontal sheathing is consistent with late 19th-century construction, and rough sawn studs about 3 feet on-center fill in the gaps between the bents. The closely spaced rafters are also sawn lumber.

The barn and its adjoining ell sit nice and square today thanks to Jim and Mary Ellen Giffune who bought the 30-acre property in 1994. They have a large garden and raise bees, but do not farm anything commercially. They're more concerned with preserving history. In 1999, after remodeling the main house, the barn needed a little TLC. The Giffunes called Clayton Copp & Sons of Cumberland.

"I intended to raise and re-support the (wooden) floor," said Jim, a retired paper mill worker from Millinocket. But Giffune found more rot than he expected. An overall floor discrepancy of some 10 inches was also discovered. "What I realized was that every stall had its own floor; they had all rotted out."

Copp jacked the huge building 7 feet in the air and poured a frost wall around the perimeter. A smooth concrete slab is the barn's floor today. "I was reluctant to do that," said Giffune. "I wanted to keep the wooden floor, but just couldn't." The restoration finished with some gorgeous quarter-sawn spruce clapboards that Giffune found at a mill up north in Patten. The house received the same exterior treatment.

You may remember last week's installment, "The barn at Exit 63." This barn in Gray had the weathervane atop its cupola stolen. Well, the Giffune's barn used to sport the very same type of weathervane - a prancing stallion atop four compass points. But it, too, was taken. Only the compass points remain. The Giffunes think it may have happened in the same year as the heist at the barn at Exit 63, which occurred in 1982.

"One of the previous owners had a horse farm here," said Mary Ellen. "He said he got up in the early '80s one morning and noticed footprints in the frost on the roof." Jim recounts that the thief was ready for the steep roof and frosty conditions. "He had crampons on his feet," Jim said. "I don't know how he got up on that cupola, but he did." Perhaps the thefts were part of an organized stakeout of the areas authentic Americana.

Today, the Giffunes enjoy their big white barn and say living in a place with such history can be humbling. They know they aren't the first folks to live here and likely won't be the last.

"We have a moral obligation to preserve it," Jim said.