Muhlhauser Barn opening to public
Ribbon-cutting ceremony for the 127-year-old rebuilt structure scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m.
RELATED: Photos | Look at the History of the Muhlhauser Barn
Thursday, March 27, 2008
After six years of planning, debate and preparation, the rebuilt Muhlhauser Barn is scheduled to open to the public Sunday, March 30. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for 1 p.m. at the barn, which sits overlooking a pond in Beckett Park on Beckett Road. An open house celebration is planned to follow the ceremony.
Township construction projects manager Mike Huxsoll, who oversaw the 127-year-old timber frame barn's conversion into an event space, called the project's completion "awesome."
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Get latest headlines via RSS feeds"I think just about anybody would be more than humbled to work on this project," he said.
The township acquired the barn from the Muhlhauser family in 2002. The barn was dismantled and moved from its original location on Seward Road to Beckett Park, where it sat under tarps for four years as township officials debated what form the reconstructed barn should take.
Debates over the barn's suitability for a senior center and concerns that it would duplicate services from a proposed community center kept the reconstruction project on hold until 2007, when construction began. By that point, Dave Gaker, the engineer who had coordinated the disassembly and move of the barn, had died. His family helped contractors complete reconstruction of the barn's massive timbers, wooden-pegged joints and slate roof.
"We were concerned with the amount of metal going into it, but it turned out really nice," said Gaker's widow, Karen Gaker. She said she and her daughter recently toured the finished building. "I got to stand in the main room, and it's an exciting space."
Huxsoll added the project was one completed with passion.
"There wasn't anyone just doing it to get paid," he said. "It was, 'let's do this to get the barn up for the community.
"People build buildings every day; to see an old timber barn, that is never seen anymore."
West Chester Twp. parks and recreation events coordinator Pam Naber said Saturday's event will include information on the barn's history, as well as presentations by vendors and caterers available to serve parties and events schedule for the barn.
For more information on the event or reserving the Muhlhauser Barn, call (513) 759-7304 or go to westchesteroh.org.
Contact this reporter at (513) 755-5127 or mcunningham@coxohio.com.
