Lofty Goals : Preservation: Owners and architectural historians hope to save decades-old barns they see as a solid link to the area’s agricultural roots.

The last of the three barns on Tom Varden’s Somis walnut and lima bean farm still stands today--a graceful icon from an era when much of Ventura County was sparsely populated farmland.

Varden’s barn appears from California 118 like the centerpiece of an Andrew Wyeth landscape--gauzy, haunting and lost in time.

“This old barn means a lot to me,” said the semi-retired Varden, 67. “But time is definitely taking its toll. I don’t know how long it’ll hold out.”

Across the county, barns--constructed with wood and nails mixed with the blood and sweat of their builders--clash mightily with the prefabricated wallboard and stucco of the housing tracts that steadily encroach around them.

But step into the cool confines of a barn--stop to smell the mixed fragrance of worn leather, hay and wood timbers--and it becomes clear to a visitor why Varden will not likely trade in the old structure for the unfeeling efficiency of a modern metal barn.

Built on what was a 560-acre spread at the turn of the century, the barn--used to dehydrate walnuts--features a set of elk antlers affixed like a crest above its main doors. Varden placed the antlers, a family heirloom, there in tribute to his grandfather, who purchased the farm in 1904.

“You could say that both the implement shed and hay barn have gone to barn heaven,” Varden mused one recent day while petting his beloved dog Riggie, a shepherd mix. “Time never stops.”

A few miles away, workers in what is known as the Hobson barn print, fold and stack thousands of cardboard strawberry crates.

Longtime strawberry farmer Bob Jones--the barn’s current owner--says the building continues to play an important role in his Oxnard operation.

Measuring about 300 feet long, 40 feet wide and five stories high, the barn, built in 1917, is easily the largest in the county and features hand-hewn hardwood beams, some of which measure a staggering 50 feet in length.

“If you look, you can see that there aren’t any patches in those beams. They’re solid. No one cuts lumber like that anymore,” said Jones, 75, as he leaned against a stack of freshly printed strawberry crates. “There’s not too many like it left in the state. Frankly, my biggest fears today are fire and wind.”

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Mary Humstone spends a lot of time worrying about barns.

Humstone, an assistant director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, administers the national Barn Again! program--an 8-year-old effort to encourage farmers to rehabilitate their aging barns and other farm buildings instead of razing them.

When the program was developed in 1987, Humstone said, the nation’s farmers were in the middle of a severe economic crisis and farms were being foreclosed in record numbers. The preservation of historic buildings was often the last thing on farmers’ minds, she said.

While there are currently no county barns in the National Trust program, local agricultural officials said dozens of the structures still stand today, in varying degrees of repair.

A typical farm of the 1920s or 1930s featured a multitude of buildings, including granaries, large hay and livestock barns, machine sheds, hog pens and chicken coops.

But today’s farmer, who is often producing just a single crop or product, prefers buildings that match his or her efficient, business-like style.

“The trend has been that the newer the buildings and the newer the equipment, the better,” Humstone said. “And I think some farmers were viewed under the perception that if they maintained an older barn they were hopelessly stuck in the past.”

Humstone’s program, however, has revealed that the rehabilitation of the old structures is actually saving farmers money through tax credits granted for renovating historic buildings and through small state and federal historical preservation grants.

To qualify for the program, the farm building must be at least 50 years old, Humstone said, adding that she hopes more California farmers will participate.

Humstone said her program has found that rehabilitating a barn often costs only about half as much as building a new one. “Despite what some may think, this is a very practical program,” she said.

Echoing Humstone was Bob Pfeiler, chairman of the Farm Implement Committee of the Ventura County Museum of History and Art--a group that collects, maintains and displays farming equipment used between 1870 and 1940.

“It’s a shame barns in this county are almost a thing of the past,” said Pfeiler, 86, a fourth-generation Ventura County farmer. “There are just a handful left. And many of those haven’t seen a coat of paint for a 100 years.”

Pfeiler said the downfall for the farm buildings came in the mid-1930s, when motorized machinery began taking the place of horses. Also mitigating the importance of the barn in the West has been its relatively mild weather, which eliminated the necessity to store large amounts of hay and grains over long, cold winters.

“You can see that it’s a combination of things,” Pfeiler said. “It seems that the first thing new farmers want to do is get rid of all this old stuff. They don’t always seem to appreciate the historical significance of these things.”

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Arguably the most opulent barn in the county, the Murdock barn may also be its newest.

Billionaire businessman David H. Murdock’s Georgian red brick barn is the centerpiece of the corporate chieftain’s 2,000-acre Ventura Farms near Lake Sherwood.

Built in 1983 and designed as both an office and conference center, the 150-by-100-foot rectangular barn houses the Arabian stallions and other prized horses that Murdock and his wife, Maria, own and train, according to administrative director Pat Distad.

The barn, which was featured for many years on the nighttime TV soap “Dynasty,” as well as on “Murder, She Wrote” and “Columbo,” features 60 custom stalls for the horses, a full veterinary laboratory, a heated equine swimming pool, an automatic walking machine and an open-air grass arena in the middle of the barn.

Inside the structure, near the air-conditioned offices and conference center, the walls are covered with paintings and photographs of the Murdocks’ favorite horses and the trophies and ribbons that have been won by the horses.

“It’s a wonderful place in which to work,” said Distad, who politely refused to disclose the cost of the structure. “It’s a comfortable environment that has been specifically designed around the care of our stallions, brood mares and performance horses.”

But for many, the maintenance and preservation of a barn--some of them 100 years old or more--are a pure and simple labor of love.

Allan and Lin Ayers say the restoration of his great-grandfather’s wooden barn on the grounds of the Faulkner Farm near Santa Paula came none too soon in 1977.

“Another year or two and it would have been gone,” said Allan Ayers. “You could move the cupola just by touching it. Things were pretty shaky.”

In addition to repairing the barn’s foundation, the Ayers had to carefully mend weakened beams and make other structural repairs.

Nowadays, the 50-foot square red barn is considered a vital part of the 27-acre farm, where holiday specialty products such as pumpkins and Christmas trees are grown along with several acres of lemons. Each year, more than 10,000 schoolchildren take field trips to the grounds--exploring the barn, picking pumpkins and petting farm animals.

“The barn is our centerpiece,” said Lin Ayers. “People like to pose for photos in front of it. Although we have to constantly work on it, we have come to take a great deal of pride in the barn. We think it’s important to preserve a part of our county’s history.”

Also regularly rented out by movie and television production companies, the barn serves as one of the main attractions during the fall harvest festival and Christmas forest events held there annually.

Farther west, the vast Maulhardt family barn ripples with the sounds of grandchildren playing tag and half-court basketball and from the laughter of party-goers who annually enjoy the barn dances held there.

Built in 1908, the two-story barn, which measures 94 feet by 67 feet, was designed by L.G. Maulhardt to have a 100-ton hay capacity and 32 stalls for horses and mules.

Although used now primarily for storage, Richard Maulhardt Sr. says, the big white barn, although a bit weathered after nearly 90 years under the hot sun of the Oxnard Plain, is important in the history of the Oxnard pioneer farming family.

“It holds a lot of our family’s history,” Maulhardt said. “That’s first-grade pine and redwood you see. We don’t really use it as a working farm building anymore, but I don’t think I could ever see myself wanting to get rid of it.”