Anyone have this or know of any ? Pics ?
I have seen two, both many years ago when I was a teenager. Both were amazing.
One was a normal aisle barn with an apartment on the end. The other was a full blown house attached to the barn via the gorgeous, spit-shined tack room.
Probably not really what you are looking for, but in northern New England, this was a common way to build
http://people.uwec.edu/ivogeler/w188/articles/NewEngland-connecting-barn.htm
you can see great pix of fantastic old places - google connected barns or connected farms. I have seen quite a few in the interior of ME
Friends own and built this one in Pilot Point, Texas:
http://tinyurl.com/odt6ps9
There are 20+ great photos that give you an idea of the layout and ‘horse sense’ that went into the planning of this beautiful ranch.
Gorgeous place with a large apartment (more like a house) at the end of the fabulous barn. You can watch your horses in their stalls while you work out in the home gym!
The owners have retired to California so their ranch is now for sale… but it offers great ideas for people considering ‘living with their horses.’
Part of what makes this facility work so well is the way it is situated on the property helps the barn and home take all advantage of prevailing winds for ventilation and air circulation on those hot Tejas summers.
The ranch was designed by well-known equestrian architect Stan Gralla who has a gorgeous website with money-is-no-issue dream equestrian facilities: http://www.gh2equine.com.
I consider this the Ultimate Equestrian Situation!
Forgot to add: awesome tack room isn’t shown in the pix, nor is the caretaker’s apartment on the ground floor of the barn (aka, where I stayed when I visited!) Best feature of the entire property? Huge commercial washer and dryer for horse blankets in the tack room annex. Amazing place! Sad they are selling it but they are done with horses after a ton of fun and success with APHA World Champion horses…
I just looked through the Stan Gralla website I linked in the previous message…
is there such a thing as barn porn?
Those places are OUTRAGEOUS!
If you dream about barns… check it out.
Just be aware that one of the reasons this style lost popularity in New England is that insurance companies don’t like to insure due to fire risk of losing everything when buildings are all attached. (or so I was told in a local history talk).
[QUOTE=Hippolyta;7931020]
Probably not really what you are looking for, but in northern New England, this was a common way to build
http://people.uwec.edu/ivogeler/w188/articles/NewEngland-connecting-barn.htm
you can see great pix of fantastic old places - google connected barns or connected farms. I have seen quite a few in the interior of ME[/QUOTE]
:lol:
I was just coming on to say that in my area (Amherst), basically any old farm house also happens to be attached to the barn…mine was, before one of the buildings was demolished to make room for a bigger kitchen and a driveway.
I have seen both of those houses in the link in person. :lol:
I grew up in the mountains in a farm house where you walked right along from the kitchen into the milk cow barn and on to the pig and goat barns, each smaller, on one side of the center of the house, that was for humans and on the other side was the horse stable.
The deed to that farm house was written in sheepskin with a date of 1721.
It was very common in Europe to have farm houses with some stables connected right to them.
I considered something like that here, would have been nice today, it is snowing and blowing out there right now, snow flying the 140’ between house and barn.
For several reasons, I decided not to build a barn/house combination, mostly because it narrows the use of such structures.
Whoever comes after me may not want to live in a barn, plus the insurance people were not very encouraging on how that works.
If there is ever a problem, like a fire or tornado, with two structures, you have a chance one or the other may be ok.
I will say, do build NEXT to the barn, not above, because sooner or later there may be the time you may not be able to handle stairs.
Be sure to have access to the main part of the house at ground floor.
Unless you are building a bank barn/house, with independent ground floor entries.
There is a builder that also has a cutting horse operation that built an indoor barn and then built a whole house inside on one end, two story high, with much glass walls.
The house is high end and very nice, but kind of loses some of that by being built inside of a plain barn/indoor arena.
Some of those pictures are awesome and I expect it is the dream of any horse people to live in a barn.
It’s convenient having the house and the barn attached if you are in an area with enough bad weather that you’d have to dress appropriately to go outside and walk to the barn for a simple matter. But if you are in a warm area, I’d rather have both structures separate due to the smells and dust and insects associated with a barn, especially the dust. Those beautiful windows overlook the barn/arena get filthy dirty. And the constant running in and out of the attached house brings all the barn dirt inside.
I like plans with a managers apartment and/or boarders lounge attached to the barn - it gives the owner and help someplace nice to eat lunch, do paperwork, wait for the vet, monitor a sick horse, use the bathroom, etc, without having the house be in a constant state of insanity.
My house is 50 yards from my barn, and I have a mudroom in my basement so during the winter or on a rainy day, I can leave the dirt and mud down there instead of dragging it into my kitchen. We can sit comfortably in the backyard with nonhorsey guests free from the flies and smells.
I want to do this with our next house, somehow. I have a friend that has a regular barn with the living quarters in one half and it’s a great house, they just divided it in the middle and there is a door in the utility room that goes to the barn. The utility room was the buffer and the door opened to the center aisle of the barn. I loved it there!
Screw the insurance companies, I refuse to let them tell me how to live. I get so tired of people fussing about what the insurance companies will let them do. Statefarm is not here to help me do the chores on mornings like this when it’s -30.
I’ve seen a few homes with barns attached via the garage so you’re hopefully leaving most of the barn dirt in the garage. While I haven’t been inside any of them, I would expect the garage opens to a mud room and then the rest of the house.
Frankly for those in a northern climate with snow, I wouldn’t mind a tunnel to get to the barn from the house. 
[QUOTE=cowboymom;7931163]
IStatefarm is not here to help me do the chores on mornings like this when it’s -30.[/QUOTE]
LOL
[QUOTE=cowboymom;7931163]
I want to do this with our next house, somehow. I have a friend that has a regular barn with the living quarters in one half and it’s a great house, they just divided it in the middle and there is a door in the utility room that goes to the barn. The utility room was the buffer and the door opened to the center aisle of the barn. I loved it there!
Screw the insurance companies, I refuse to let them tell me how to live. I get so tired of people fussing about what the insurance companies will let them do. Statefarm is not here to help me do the chores on mornings like this when it’s -30.[/QUOTE]
Some times, insurance or real estate or government agencies have stupid rules they go by.
I think that, when it comes to a separate dwelling for humans and livestock, there is more than that to it.
Once we know all the reasons why that kind of building is right, we want to be right there and it may not be best, several reasons already given, then yes, it is up to each one that builds to decide where to compromise.
Our fire department is who mostly helped make my mind, as they said, they needed a good 100’ minimum between structures to be able to fight those fires properly, that many fires start in barns, many in houses, they really thought two separate buildings for both activities would also bring the risks to both in half by having separate buildings.
In our area, we don’t have but rarely days where walking 140’ to the barn is unpleasant.
Then, I am jealous of those that have a barn apartment to live in, risks and trade-offs or not.
I was wondering if some kind of sun room type walk-way between barns, with firewalls, would not be a good compromise?
Here is an article about this:
http://www.stablewise.com/gralla/living.html
Here is a picture of a basic house/barn and floor plan, like they are building on 10 acre equestrian developments, with a main covered arena and trails for residents and events in East TX:
I’ve always wanted a breeze way sort of option between the two, a big “dog room” and laundry, extra freezers and gear room, tack room, just to provide the buffer and be an awesome useful space. Just like that concept you have there, Bluey, only huge! I’d probably put a sheltered courtyard instead of a car port in there too but DH would want the carport…
Maybe a firewall would be handy too? :yes: I’ve heard you mention that aspect before, Bluey, and it’s a good point.
Don’t mean to sound so bitter about insurance, but well, I’m bitter about insurance! :lol:
I boarded and worked at three farms with living quarters attached to the barn. One was like others have described, apartment attached to the end of a large indoor arena. Another was a very large double aisle barn and the house was situated in the middle and created the second story. The third one was a smaller apartment nestled in middle of the long side of a 20 stall barn. Two out of the three were steel structures with stalls and housing built inside the steel framing, the other was a more traditional all wood barn. Sorry, I don’t have pics of these.
I’d love to have a post and beam house built but DH isn’t really into having a house that looks like a barn so I know he’ll never go for the house/barn combo. However, I’ve fallen in love with several of the designs from these guys:
http://www.sandcreekpostandbeam.com/galleries/traditional-barns
http://www.barnpros.com/barn-plans-products.aspx?itemid=1438&pagetitle=Barn+Homes
A T shaped option appeals to me. House would be the top of the T, so a normal ranch style house, and then a brushed concrete breezeway into the bottom of the T (one that is wide and tall enough to pull a truck into for unloading feed, groceries, etc) then the 4 stall barn, tack room and feed room, with a nice aisle down the middle (two stalls on each side, Tack and Feed are also 12 X12 so they are basically the third stall on each side).
A friend’s place is like this and I really like how it works and flows. There’s a screened small porch between breezeway and mud room to capture flies before they zoom in the house in the summer 
Hay and shavings are in separate sheds away from the house, though there’s enough room for about 20 bales of hay in the regular barn.
They are very common in Europe. Google “Square farms”.
In fact, when we were considering living in Belgium near my DH’s parents they found one newly renovated for sale to try and entice me over. Sooo beautiful.
The house was in the back left corner, attached to the small right corner barn by a wall. That barn was connected to the BIG barn by a covered gateway that you drove through from the main road into the courtyard. Then the biggest barn was on the top left corner attached to garage, which was attached to the home.
The big and biggest were connected on the top two floors with a tunnel pretty much on the first floor to walk straight through to the stable yard on the other side. It was amazing.
The pastures were behind the house and to the right of the barns. Like an L shape.
The courtyard was cobble stone. The barns were two and three stories. So much storage.
[QUOTE=nhhaflngr;7931085]
Just be aware that one of the reasons this style lost popularity in New England is that insurance companies don’t like to insure due to fire risk of losing everything when buildings are all attached. (or so I was told in a local history talk).[/QUOTE]
So, Saturday morning a very good friend lost her barn and everything in it to a fire, caused by the water tank heater. If her house was attached, they would’ve lost that too.
Probably not the best idea.
[QUOTE=Bluey;7931104]
There is a builder that also has a cutting horse operation that built an indoor barn and then built a whole house inside on one end, two story high, with much glass walls.
The house is high end and very nice, but kind of loses some of that by being built inside of a plain barn/indoor arena.
Some of those pictures are awesome and I expect it is the dream of any horse people to live in a barn.[/QUOTE]
Well, kinda gives new meaning to when someone scolds you and ends with “Do you live in a barn??” You might answer, “Why yes, yes I do!”
