Parks and Recreation employee Hans Williams with members of the Scala family in front of the red storage barn at the former Elms Inn property on Main Street. The Scalas have owned the Elms property since 1951. The site is being renovated for a 16-unit residential village, which will preserve some of the old restaurant and inn. Mr. Williams is taking the wood from the barn and reassembling it to make a barn on his property in Newtown. —Steve Coulter photo
Wooden plank by wooden plank, the storage barn at the Elms property on Main Street will be dismantled sometime in the next month before being reassembled in Newtown.
Looking to give the building a second life, Stephen Scala, whose family has owned the Elms since 1951, found an interested builder in Parks and Recreation employee Hans Williams.
Mr. Williams will take the barn’s pieces — each numbered and labeled for reassembly — to make a storage building on his property in Newtown.
“We’re very happy that the barn will have a new life and that it won’t be sold by the pieces or put in a dumpster,” Mr. Scala said. “As long as we’ve owned the property, the barn has always been a storage unit for paint cans and construction equipment, and even cars — whatever we needed to put in there; it’s nice that it will serve that purpose again…
“We had plans over the years to turn it into another residence, but it never happened,” he added. “My uncle Bobby and his wife Susan once used the upstairs room as a studio, but other than that it’s been used for storage.”
The barn was built on the property in the late 1800s, but didn’t fit into the owners’ renovation plans for a 16-unit residential village, which was approved in November and has started being constructed this summer.
Despite its inevitable demise on Main Street, the barn has continued to serve a purpose, collecting and storing items that will need to be cleared out soon.
“Like any place, stuff accumulates,” Mr. Scala said. “It’s been 62 years and counting — a lot has been collected.”
Once everything is taken out, the building will begin to be dismantled — piece by piece, before making the trek up to Mr. Williams’ home in Newtown.
“My house is 250 years old so it matches the history of the barn,” he said. “It will be the first barn on the property.”
Restoration process
Mr. Williams’ plan for the scraps is relatively simple — use them to construct a storage barn similar to the one at the Elms property.
Although he has a plan in mind, he doesn’t have much experience with this type of project.
“It’s my first real dismantle and reassemble,” he said. “Each piece will be numbered as it’s disassembled and those numbers will help instruct me when I put it back together.”
Gary Singer, president of the Ridgefield Historical Society, is an expert in the process.
His house at 35 Main Street, originally built as the town’s trading post in 1710, was renovated to include part of a home from Andover, Mass., that was built in 1740.
“It’s the oldest surviving commercial building in Ridgefield,” he said. “The reassembled pieces from Andover make up the rear part of my house; we had that done about 15 to 20 years ago.
“It’s open today for public education, for people to come look at and see how it’s done,” he added. “The deconstructing and the labeling — putting the numbers on the wood — is still done the same way; nothing really has changed.”
Pick up and move
Mr. Singer said that the most common restoration process used today is picking up structures and moving them, completely intact, to their final destination — usually somewhere else in town.
His house, the former trading post, was moved from its location in the village — the current home of Ridgefield Conservatory of Dance — in 1947 and repurposed to its current residential location on southern Main Street.
“There’s been a couple of buildings that have been disassembled and reassembled, but I’m not sure if there’s been any in Ridgefield like that in the last 10 years,” he said. “Over the last 10 to 15 years, the trend has been pick up and move.”
Mr. Singer said the only example of a building being completely torn down only to be constructed again using the same pieces is the Scott House on Sunset Lane — the current headquarters of the historical society.
The building was built on the corner of Main Street and Catoonah Street and stood there from 1714 to 1922 before being picked up and moved up the road on Catoonah as part of the Addessi family lot. The Addessi family donated the building, which had been slated for demolition, to the historical society in 1999.
The disassembled pieces were stored for two years before construction was started in 2002.
“There are not any others that have been totally disassembled and reassembled — none in their entirety,” Mr. Singer said. “Some buildings have been disassembled and pieces have been used in a new structure…
“When you put it all together, you realize that none of the pieces are interchangeable — they all matter and they all must be put back in the same place.”
The waiting game
For now, Mr. Williams can only wait until the deconstruction of the barn is completed in Ridgefield before he gets his hands on the materials.
“I’m waiting for Steve to clean it out and start ripping it apart,” he said. “It will be more of a rush to get it off his property than it will be to get it on to mine.”
“He’s waiting for me to get it done,” admitted Mr. Scala. “It will happen soon.”
The pair were brought together through a mutual friend, Al Dodson, who helped paint the property’s 47-foot tower in 1964.
“I found a plaque on top of the tower that Al had done,” Mr. Scala said. “We’re going to restore it and have it placed on the new one.”
Life continues
The barn isn’t the only building on the Elms property fighting for a second life during the construction process.
The Scala family received approval from the town’s planners in May to build a 40.5-foot replica tower that will replace the current 47-foot structure, which will be demolished during construction.
Mr. Scala said the recreated tower, which will be located in the center of the property, will be constructed from new material, but will look “just like it did before.”
Most of the Main Street streetscape will be preserved. too.
In addition, part of the 1700s inn will be restored and used in the new facility.
“We’re just happy to see these structures have a continued life,” Mr. Scala said. “We’re obviously excited about what we’re doing here; we could have easily gone affordable, but we felt a responsibility to keep Main Street looking like Main Street.”