Beauty and the Barn

Q and A with John Blackburn
by Beth Herman

Celebrated equestrian architect John Blackburn of Blackburn Architects, PC, also known for his deft restorations and renovations of historical properties, was charged with resurrecting a post Civil War-era bank barn, where the lower portion of the structure is built into a hillside, and where the foundation actually predated the war. Desiring a barn conversion where the 2,590 s.f. structure would be used for entertaining, much of the site design was driven by the client's wife, whose environmental concerns and adopted green practices resulted in an effort to preserve as much of the severely deteriorating historic structure as possible. The project received an AIA Merit Award in Historic Resources and Southern Living magazine's Home Award in Historic Restoration. DCMud spoke with Blackburn about the project.

DCMud: Tell is about the genesis of this historic structure and its metamorphosis.

Blackburn: It's my understanding that the bank barn foundation dates back to before the Civil War. It's on the banks of the Potomac in Loudoun County, Virginia, probably less than a mile from the Battle of Ball's Bluff (aka the Battle of Leesburg, October 21, 1861). I would imagine the barn was burned down at one point and rebuilt in the 1870s. The saw marks on the timber tell us the barn itself is post Civil War.

The open concept design includes an ample kitchen and a sleeping loft, so somebody can stay there overnight. An old corn crib on the south side of the bank barn has been converted to a sundeck on top, with view of the extensive horse farm to the west, and underneath it's a place for workers and caterers to pull in and conveniently unload trays and equipment out of view of any guests.

DCMud: What was the program for the bank barn?

Blackburn: In addition to extended family gatherings, it was to be used for meetings, receptions, office retreats, etc. The basement stores some of the family's classic cars, go-carts and other recreational equipment.

DCMud: What strategy did you use in adapting an historic structure like this for modern purposes?

Blackburn: My goal in doing any project like this is that when you walk away from it, you close it up and it appears like it originally was: a barn. Whenever I renovate an original structure I like to respect its original use and perpetuate that to any degree possible, though here the northeast facade was replaced with floor-to-ceiling glass that provides panoramic vistas of the property and Potomac.

DCMud: What about the exterior?

Blackburn: It's been completely reclad, as it had to be, in SIPs (structurally insulated panels) and new board-and-batten skin. How you clad and insulate these old buildings is important. We did this barn in original plywood--the one that goes against the original siding we paint black, so when you see through the cracks in the original barn board you don't see anything: It's all black. To support that, we bolted into a 12x12 timber that ran around the perimeter a stainless steel shelf angle which carries the weight of the panel. The panel sits on that and is screwed into the timber frame of the barn, and you add normal building paper and barn boards on the outside of that panel just like what was found the original barn. So on the inside you see the original boards and on the outside are new boards, but you can't tell the difference.

DCMud: The interior seems to maintain the barn's rusticity while courting air and light.

Blackburn: Interior materials and finishes are exactly from the original except where pieces were added to strengthen the structure or replace rotted board. Flooring is oak, as is the timber. We rebuilt the existing double sliding doors. After they are opened, behind them you have a double French glazed glass door  entrance which lets in a lot of natural light and ventilation, but when you walk away, you close the barn doors so as not to see them, and the look of the original barn is maintained.

DCMud: During many barn conversions, we see items like patios and decks.

Blackburn: Many times when people want to renovate something like this they'll put a deck on it and that's a sure sign that it's no longer a barn but a residence. I didn't want to do that. Subsequently on the east side, where additional double barn doors were falling off, I did the same as on the front side: We rebuilt the barn doors and put French glazed glass doors behind it. When you open these 6-foot wide doors, instead of a deck sticking outside of the barn that doesn't fit, your interior space now becomes your deck. A railing behind the barn doors but in front of the French doors prevents any egress. As mentioned earlier the corn crib on the south side was turned into a deck, but it is out of view.

DCMud: There were other barns on the property, so did you preserve them too?

Blackburn: We used barn siding on the interior of the bank barn, for example the sliding door in the kitchen and paneling in the bathroom. We had an existing barn on the north end that was falling apart, and we used the wood for this one. I've also learned from designing over 160 horse barns (some from historic beginnings) that these structures tend to be organic: Over the years, farmers would add a window here, a lean-to there, etc., so that it grows as you'd find with an industrial building. We did punch in a couple of windows so that light was channeled into a bathroom or kitchen.

DCMud: How would you summarize the work you did on this barn?

Blackburn: It responds to its historic context, and yet it responds to the site. Two of the major elements that respond to the site are the north window, which completely exposes it to the view, and the corn crib sun deck to the south which faces out over the farm but is completely hidden. These elements were melded into the context in a very successful way.

DCMud: Speaking of architecture that works, what would you count among the District's most influential designs for you?

Blackburn: There are two, though different as night and day, that I think are the best buildings in D.C. For an interior space I really like the Rotunda of the Library of Congress--the big, open reading room--which is the grandest, most beautiful, functional space. It's ornate, historic and fascinating. From the exterior, my choice has to be the Finnish Embassy. Because of its design and embellishment like the vines growing over it, it's my favorite building in D.C.

photos courtesy of Kenneth Wyner

From Native Dancer to Native Son: Restoring Sagamore Farm

By Beth Herman If you listen quietly and long enough to sounds in the mist at Glyndon, Maryland's Sagamore Farm, Native Dancer's hoof beats will join up with your heartbeat. Shining star of the (now) 530-acre horse breeding farm established in 1925 by Bromo-Seltzer inventor Isaac Emerson, the fabled "Galloping Gray Ghost" stands tall among the greatest racehorses of the 20th century, winning 21 out of 22 races, as well as a place in successive Sagamore owner Alfred P. Vanderbilt II’s own heart. The stoic, "unsentimental” scion of industry was reportedly never quite the same after his beloved horse’s death in 1967. Before its sale to entrepreneur James Ward in 1986, Sagamore Farm, which had been a 21st birthday gift to Vanderbilt from his mother (Emerson’s daughter) in 1933, would produce winners such as Discovery, Bed o’Roses and Native Dancer, and employ many dozens of grooms, trainers, blacksmiths, hot-walkers, domestic personnel and the like. When Maryland’s horse racing industry succumbed to revised federal tax laws and recession, Ward’s decision to convert the property to home sites was rejected by the community, so he commissioned renowned equestrian architects Blackburn Architects, P.C. to turn a portion of the farm into a private home/equestrian center for his wife. Several old barns were leased to thoroughbred breeding and training entities. But in 2007, smitten by the same dreams that were said to have seduced Alfred P. Vanderbilt II, Maryland native son and founder/CEO of Under Armour apparel Kevin Plank bought the farm, so to speak, with a goal to help revitalize the state’s racing industry. Plank’s mandate in also retaining John Blackburn, and project manager Daniel Blair, was to transform what had become a largely decaying historical landmark into a peerless 21st century breeding and training operation—without sacrificing its provenance. Loading in “Kevin had an outline and series of points—a program of what he wanted to do—how he wanted to get there,” Blackburn said, noting the former University of Maryland football team captain clearly wanted to return Sagamore Farm to its original glory. “His goals were to restore the farm, to build on that history and to develop his own thoroughbred breeding operation that would, at some point, produce a Triple Crown winner.” Embarking on a 10-to 15-year master plan, an existing 20-stall broodmare barn and 16-stall foaling barn comprised an early phase of the renovation with methods and materials emblematic of Blackburn Architects’ “health and safety of the horses first” philosophy. Known for their prodigious use of natural light and ventilation— the latter a component in a passive energy system, as well incorporating aerodynamic principles and recycled materials into more than 150 horse farms over 25 years, Blackburn and Blair applied these tenets to produce Sagamore Farm barns that entirely supported the needs of their diverse equine residents, but without altering the exterior aesthetic of the existing buildings. Removing typically large haylofts from each structure, opening up large but enclosed stalls and adding skylights and Dutch doors along the exterior to court natural ventilation, both the broodmare and foaling barns instantly went from “dark to bright, like night and day” Blackburn said, especially important for the broodmares. “You want as much light as possible, as early in the season as possible for them,” Blackburn explained, “so the horse cycles naturally, without the use of artificial light.” Citing temperatures that parallel each other both inside and outside the barn as key to the horses’ health, Blackburn also took measures to ensure smooth transitions. And using the sun’s heat from the rooftop and skylight, and the horse’s own heat and humidity (horses give off a great deal of moisture), the architect worked to bring air in low and exhaust it out high. This creates ventilation in the barn so it’s constantly venting whether it’s winter or summer,” Blackburn said. Additionally, a fan is typically placed high on a wall, directed into only one area of a stall, enabling the horse to move in and out of the breeze as needed. “Going back to the health and safety of the horse, when driving the design of a barn, you have to duplicate nature—where they can control their environment,” Blackburn explained. “As soon as you put horses in barns they lose that control, so the barn now needs to provide them those choices.” A sustainable tack Where humans and sustainability measures are concerned, rubber paver flooring, recycled steel in stall systems, recycled wood finishes— from the original barn— in flooring, cabinets and desks, and preservation of an existing exterior concrete block frame and roof framing, as well as insulated barn offices to reduce energy waste, were part of the design. With the inception of Sagamore Farm’s most recent phase, and particularly renovation of a 24-stall yearling barn which began on February 1, smaller 12x12 stalls will accommodate the younger horses, with sustainable materials from the two previous barns applied here, along with elements that include a signature Blackburn barns passive energy system also seen in the previous two barns. Speaking to various additional projects on the property, Blackburn said Sagamore Farm’s three quarters-of-a-mile training track was completely redone with footing developed by Plank himself and Under Armour, something separate from the architects’ work. According to Blackburn, the most interesting structure on the venue is the 90-stall oval-shaped training barn with an interior quarter-mile track. “It’s a very unique barn, with maybe only one other similar to it in the entire state,” Blackburn said. Acknowledging that Plank probably won’t need 90 stalls, the team is exploring how best to redesign the behemoth building. Another existing structure that fronts the track, and has been gutted, is a former dormitory where employees were housed and fed, along with an old blacksmith shop currently used for storage. A stallion barn, home to Native Dancer, also stands tall but devoid of life and purpose, with possibilities that include transforming it into a museum to honor Sagamore Farm’s most eminent equines. “Their use is a moving target,” Blackburn said of these and a host of other idle, existing buildings, including guest and reception spaces that dot the property. “As they develop the farm and breeding stock and get into more operational aspects, their needs may change.” While Sagamore Farm has yet to produce a Derby, Preakness or Belmont Stakes winner (Native Dancer’s great-great-great grandson Monzon ran most recently at Belmont), on November 5, 2010, its Shared Account, a 46-1 shot, won the $2 million Breeders Cup Filly and Mare Turf, defeating the celebrated Midday. Plank is admittedly taking his time building breeding stock, and a racing reputation, having crossed his first professional finish line as the creator of Under Armour apparel before he turned 30. And even with a quarter-century of specialty barns in his personal paddock, Blackburn, like Plank, is just getting started. 

Photos courtesy Cesar Lujan

They Love Horses, Don't They?

by Beth Herman

In the shadow of the Appalachians, a young John Blackburn spent years observing his twin sister ride the family’s horses. “I played in the barn, I raced them across the field, but I had no real interest in them,” Blackburn of Blackburn Architects, P.C. confessed.

More than 40 years later, at the forefront of an architectural niche that courts the nation’s estimated two million horse owners and with 150 horse farm projects in his saddlebag, Blackburn is credited with raising the bar on barns to levels once inconceivable - elements such as skylights, recycled rubber, LED lights, solar panels, engineered bamboo and aerodynamic principles all hallmarks of his current and projected equestrian designs. What’s more, according to the firm’s projects manager, Daniel Blair, much of their equestrian construction would very likely qualify for LEED certification except that the USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council) doesn’t yet have a standard for agricultural buildings as they typically don’t rely on infrastructure.

The Trot

“In 1983 I was working at KCF Architects and a friend of mine and I started talking about a partnership,” Blackburn recalled of his shotgun wedding to equestrian architecture, adding that his friend went ahead and got a one-room office in Georgetown to work solo for a while. With Blackburn still not transitioned out of KCF, fate intervened and the two formally joined up when a call came pointing them toward a prospective client in Middleburg, Va. The client, as it turned out, had purchased one of Jack Kent Cooke’s early estates and wanted to start a thoroughbred breeding farm: two barns; staff housing; service buildings, but with the stipulation that construction would reflect the landscape, or have “the Middleburg look,” Blackburn explained. “We had nothing to show in our portfolio except garage additions and porches, so my partner, who was from Middleburg, took some slides of structures there that may have been 200 years old and we projected them onto the wall, talking about generic shapes, forms and materials that would fit in contextually. Somehow we got the job.”

We’re Cantering Now


At the same time, the client had retained Cambridge, Mass.-based landscape architect Morgan Wheelock, someone Blackburn said had previously designed horse farms and had many theories about buildings that responded to the natural environment of the horse. Among these were issues of natural light, which affects the cycle of the broodmare, so the way light fills the barn - how bright it gets - is of primary concern, as are critical ventilation factors due to horses’ sensitive respiratory systems and their predisposition to hay and dust allergies.

From Wheelock, with whom he still collaborates, Blackburn learned about passive barn systems such as siting them perpendicular to the prevailing summer breeze, principles of lift, vertical ventilation and the like. Most barns, he and Blair explained, are sited parallel to the summer wind in order to open the front and back doors and catch the prevailing breeze, which allows air to traverse the barn lengthwise, a practice whose poor results are even exacerbated by the use of fans. “When this happens, the barn is sick,” Blair explained, because any illness a horse may have can be passed horizontally to his barn mates. Horses give off a tremendous amount of humidity, according to Blackburn, and in a confined space like a stall this breeds bacteria, almost like a Petri dish. When a structure is built to employ vertical lift, which includes the use of skylights, roof/eaves ventilation and heat from the sun on the roof to encourage lift (heat rises), the breeze then travels up and out through the opening and pathogens and allergens don’t have a chance to spread to other occupants.

Where lighting is concerned, Blackburn is adamant about not using artificial components because his signature barns, aptly named Blackburn Barns by a community of grateful clients, are built to maximize daylight. Except for a tack room and feed room in which the architects use compact fluorescents, and with the occasional exception of nocturnal arena use which some farms request, Blackburn said lighting is superfluous: not a good use of energy. At the same time, for arenas and for emergency lighting, the firm is investigating the use of LED lighting which Blair said does not attract bugs.

Learning to Post

When yet another recession hit and many architects were laying off staff, Blackburn and Blair put their heads together and like the horses for whom they build, decided the “fight” response was better than “flight.” Because the firm catered to the "upper 5 percent of people who could afford custom barns," according to Blackburn, it was time to create a more egalitarian process. The concept of adaptable, sustainable barn designs - a line of four pre-designed barns called Blackburn Greenbarns “for eco- and cost-conscious horse owners,” per the press material - was born during this period, with only the plans made available for purchase. “We said we would sell the plans and you can build it,” Blackburn recalled, “or we will take it and adapt it at some additional cost and help you build it. But, we then found that people couldn’t get over the next hurdle: How do you get to the point of getting the shovel in the ground?”

“We’d engineered it,” Blair said of the firm’s next step in enhancing and marketing the product, and making it more accessible, “but then the idea was to simplify and give people what they want, but also give them flexibility to make it their own.” With that, the idea of the four distinct green barns further evolved: two all-weather and two for Southern latitudes, each at a different price point ranging from $90,000 to upwards of $258,000, all with custom modification possibilities, but which were offered with the option of the additional services of two Blackburn-affiliated contractors: one based on the West Coast and one in Kentucky for the proverbial east and west of the Mississippi split.

Full Gallop

The barns, named The Hickory, The Sycamore, The Cypress and The Birch, each with characteristics such as low-voc paints, recycled rubber pavers, or maybe three walls or light colored roofing with reflective finish, are endemic in their features and use of FSC-certified regional wood to either Southern or more Northern climes. Technology that includes greywater and rainwater harvesting, solar power and even the use of engineered bamboo, which Blair said “looks fantastic and is among the most sustainable materials,” is available.

Aside from sustainability issues, Blackburn said the health and safety of the horse are always paramount. In every project there are three things: the site; the owner; the horse, he explained. Though the first two may change, “...the care and concern for the horse never does, and that’s the thread that goes through all of this. We’ve been riding that horse for 25 years.”