The bank barn at Virginia’s Belle Grove Plantation is now the Beverley B. Shoemaker Welcome Center.
Joe Tennis
The bank barn at Virginia’s Belle Grove Plantation is now the Beverley B. Shoemaker Welcome Center.
Nine years of dreaming and planning led to the restoration of a century-old barn at the historic Belle Grove Plantation near Middletown in Frederick County, Virginia, just off the historic Valley Pike (US-11).
But, this is more than a barn.
It’s now the Beverley B. Shoemaker Welcome Center—with a museum, gift shop and 150-person event space suited for dinners, gatherings and educational programs, says Kristen Laise, the executive director of the Belle Grove Plantation.
The timber-framed barn belonged to the Brumback family, which owned Belle Grove in the early 20th Century. This family, Laise says, is what helped save Belle Grove as a historic shrine, touched by the Battle of Cedar Creek during the Civil War in 1864. “And I really credit them as the first step in the preservation of our property,” says Laise.
The 1918 barn’s $1.2 million re-furbishing spanned less than a year; a dedication was held in April 2019.
“It is a bank barn,” Laise says. “So, on the lower-level, it was built into the bank. And the upper level is accessible by a staircase and lift.”
The story above appears in our November/December 2019 issue. For more subscribe today or log in to the digital edition with your active digital subscription. Thank you for your support!