You can’t go wrong showing a picture of a barn on a Sonoma County real estate listing. People love the look of an aging barn more than almost any other real estate image. We are mainly urban dwellers these days, but we still like the echoes of how our grandparents and earlier generations lived. Sadly, that affection isn’t necessarily coupled with action and we aren’t doing a very good job of preserving northern California’s barn heritage.
Barns of Sonoma does a great job of showcasing many of Sonoma County’s classic barns. In addition to extensive photography of local barns, photographer Jim Bracco has links to many barn preservation sites from around the country as well as general links to related sites. If you are a barn enthusiast with some energy to spare, maybe you can join his efforts to get a critical mass of people who care about saving this part of our agricultural heritage.
My personal preference would be to start staging old fashioned barn raising parties with the goal of staging one day events for bracing and weatherproofing still useful barns to keep them from further deterioration. If you have carpentry or organizational skills that could help assemble resources for barn restoration, I’m sure Jim would love to hear from you. The barns of Sonoma County need your help.
