Barns, stables and related agricultural buildings have a distinctive tale to tell, wherever you can find them. They may be landmarks. Or perhaps they are hidden in plain sight; you just have to discover their charm.
A variety of these iconic structures will be on the Peapack & Gladstone, N.J., Historic Preservation Committee’s Barn Tour Nov. 15 (rain date is Nov. 16), highlighted by a visit to the U.S. Equestrian Team Foundation’s stable.
The interior of the USET Foundation stable.
At the end of the tour, historian Barry Thomson will offer a talk about the landmark building, erected by financier and horse breeder James Cox Brady at Hamilton Farm in 1917.
During its era as a team training center, the USET stable was a base for some of the country’s most famous Olympic horses and riders. The trophy room will be open to visitors so they can see horse show ribbons from around the world and photos of competitors, such as show jumping medalists Frank Chapot and William Steinkraus
The USET Foundation stable still is the venue for competitions, such as the Platinum Performance/USEF Show Jumping Talent Search.
This is the first time since 2008 that the committee has offered an opportunity to visit these types of buildings in the Somerset County borough.
Admission is free. Those who want to take the self-guided tour must register at Liberty Park on Main Street, starting at 10:30 a.m., where they will receive a map and a route guide to the various stops. It will be available in print and a digital version.
The main part of the tour, which begins at 11 a.m., goes through 2 p.m. The opportunity to see the USET Foundation stable runs 2-4 p.m., with Barry’s talk taking place at 2:30 p.m.
Historian Barry Thomson will give a talk at the USET Foundation stable.
Margery Schiesswohl, the Historic Committee’s chairman, has worked for 30 years at Gill-St. Bernard’s School in Gladstone, where she is director of alumni relations. She takes special pride in knowing the history of the school and the property around it.
“That’s what got me interested into digging into the broader history of the town and connecting some of the dots,” Margery said.
“I like to know where we came from, so I can better understand where we’re going.”
She wants people to enjoy a new insight they can take from the tour.
“I hope that people walk away with a better understanding of the fundamental foundation of our community, which was farming and agriculture. It was a community of business and growth and people.”
Tour-goers will be “hearing stories about not just the structure, but imagining the people who lived here. It wasn’t a museum. It was a community,” she pointed out.
The Tiger family was one of the pillars of that community, where John Jacob Tiger bought a farm in 1862. His son, Ellis Tiger, was a co-founder of the Peapack-Gladstone Bank.
The five-level Tiger lower barn, which once housed dairy cows, will be on the tour. Its posts and beams are American chestnut, a now-extinct variety of tree. It was constructed before Tiger purchased it, as there is evidence that it was rebuilt and expanded around 1855. The cows are believed to have grazed in fields across the street that are now part of Natirar, a county park.
The barn is owned by Stephan Yelenik, the lead person on the barn tour subcommittee. He called the tour “a real juxtaposition between working farms and the Gilded Era” from a historic standpoint.
“The overriding message we want to send is you’re going to get to see some fancy stuff and some working stuff, and some fancy stuff that was working.”
Discussing his barn, he said, “Everybody drives past it every day, coming and going from Peapack & Gladstone. I don’t think there’s anybody who doesn’t know our barn and saw the renovations through the years,” said Stephan, who has owned the property for 21 years.
The old Tiger barn on Main Street in Peapack.
He rescued what had been a structurally unsound building and spent six years restoring it. Now it’s so sound that he believes, “it will be there for another couple hundred years.”
A second Tiger barn on the tour is on Mendham Road. At one time, it was a tack shop run by Doris Tiger Studer. Later, Tom Rossiter had his classic cars “stabled” there.
Another familiar name in the area is Melick. Andrew Mellick Jr. (who spelled his name with two L’s) wrote the classic account of local rural life in the 18th Century, published in 1889, “The Story of an Old Farm.” His farmhouse, now a private residence, is not on the tour.
The old grist mill.
However, the neighboring mill barn, alongside Peapack Brook, and its corn crib will be one of the stops.
