New, old combine to save county's treasured barns
Jim Slabonik's Boyertown-based Hometown Carpentry applies today's technology to fresh and salvaged materials to preserve prized Pennsylvania German structures.

By Robin Huiras
Reading Eagle
With unblemished wooden siding, new windows and a modern roof, a large Pennsylvania German barn along Route 662 in Amity Township looks like a new addition to the landscape.

But look closer.

Beneath the facade, 200-year-old posts and beams and aged bricks provide support.

The barn has been standing between Pine Forge and Morlatton roads since the late 1700s.

It had fallen into disrepair but recently was refurbished by Jim Slabonik and his Boyertown-based company, Hometown Carpentry.

Throughout Berks County and southeastern Pennsylvania , as well as parts of northern New Jersey , Slabonik has been saving the historical, rural treasures for 12 years.

“It's a lost art, pretty much,” Slabonik said during a break from a job along Friedensburg Road in Oley Township .

For barn-lovers, such Mary and Michael Woodall, owners of the Amity Township barn, it's an invaluable craft.

“The barns in Pennsylvania are very peculiar for this part of the country, and I think they're certainly worth preserving,” said Mary Woodall, who moved to Pennsylvania from South Carolina about 12 years ago.

When the Woodalls bought their home, they knew something would have to be done to the weathered, gray structure.

“The barn was really an eyesore to me,” Mary Woodall said.

They never dreamed the end product would look as they pictured the barn had looked in the late 1700s.

The methods Slabonik uses aren't exactly like those practiced by carpenters of old, but he studies their work to mimic their craft.

For instance, he'll use a barn post from another so the project barn doesn't look repaired, Slabonik said.

Salvaged material is essential to the success of his business, and Slabonik encourages developers who are clearing farmsteads to have old barns dismantled by firms like his rather than bulldozing them.

Giant planks that were cut from large, old-growth trees are hard to come by. All the old-growth forests have been razed, he said.

And modern barn-builders no longer bind together the frames using wooden pegs, Slabonik said.

Just as it's a struggle sometimes to find the right materials, working on the centuries-old buildings can be a challenge.

“You have to conform to what's here and still make it look good,” Slabonik said. “You have to be flexible with what you can do.”

Over time the barns settle and develop characteristics such as uneven foundations and warped roofs that are hard to work around, he said.

But Slabonik said he usually can find a solution to such problems.

In the case of the Oley Township barn, which is owned by Robert Lawalski, it was finding a roofing material to conform to an uneven frame warped by years of weather damage.

Whatever the fix, the owners generally are pleased with the results, Slabonik said, adding that he does as much restoration as the barn owner wants.

The Woodalls couldn't be happier with Slabonik's renovation, which cost about $25,000 and took about three weeks to complete, Mary Woodall said.

“He put it back the way it would have been and should have been with a little bit of modern technology that they have today,” she said.

Printed in The Reading Eagle 8/6/03