West View Farm

As we prepare to make lists of Waterford's most intriguing barns and outbuildings this week, I'm also looking for farm structures that have already been documented. West View Farm includes a round barn that was the last design of Northeast Kingdom architect Lambert Packard, and was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. For more information, look here: http://www.crjc.org/heritage/V19-49.htm

Here is a short excerpt from the nomination report:

The most notable feature of West View Farm is its round barn. It is the last known work of the distinguished Vermont architect, Lambert Packard (1832-1908). Packard created much of Victorian St. Johnsbury, located about one mile from the farm. In addition to stately homes, his commissions included the following structures in St. Johnsbury: the Fairbanks Museum; the North Congregational Church; the former Fairbanks scale factory; the Atheneum; and the Post Office block. The homes and public buildings he designed can be found across a wide area of Vermont and New Hampshire.

Round barns are rare in Vermont, as they are elsewhere. Twenty three round (as distinct from polygonal) barns were built in Vermont - all in the northern one-third of the State. Their era ended with the start of World War One. A survey done in 1971 determined that twelve of these true round barns remained; five had not survived the preceding five years. At present there are five in Vermont.

The West View Farm round barn was built in 1903 by Fred Quimby, an East Barnet carpenter who was noted for the precision of his work in general and his silos in particular. These skills help to explain why he was able to build the first Vermont round barn in 1899. He built one other round barn which has been moved to and rebuilt at the Shelburne Museum. The West View barn is the last and largest of the three.