Historic Barn Dismantled Piece by Piece

One of the few historic landmarks in the city, a barn that once housed Clydesdale horses owned by Henry Ford’s tool and die maker, has been dismantled to make way for a new subdivision.

The barn and its sister building at Dos Vientos Ranch in the Conejo Valley’s western hills have long confounded plans for developing the sprawling property, the future site of 2,360 planned homes.

Now the big old barn has been carefully disassembled, its pieces marked so they can be packed away while its fate is being decided. Work has not yet begun on the second barn.

“What we have done is an architectural archival process,” said Eric Taylor at VTN West, Inc., a land-use consultant who is overseeing the barn’s dismantling for one of the Dos Vientos developers.

“The whole idea is to be able to put the thing back up,” he said.

Taylor said VTN West hired an architectural historian to document the barn’s construction during its disassembly and brought in a structural engineer to put the dismantling process in motion.

“Then we had a contractor come in and label each component with a metal washer,” Taylor said. “We tried to dismantle it in as large pieces as possible so that it can be shipped easily.”

VTN West also took a precise survey of the barn’s foundation, Taylor said, so the building can be rebuilt exactly the way toolmaker and equine enthusiast Malcolm Clark had it built in the 1930s.

Clark, who also designed the Snap-On line of hand tools, originally built the barns, a house and a number of stables during the Depression to house Tennessee walking horses, Percheron draft horses and Clydesdales raised at the ranch.

The barns were all that remained of Clark’s structures on the ranch after a fire destroyed his house years ago, and they were awarded landmark status in 1986 by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors.

However, that status provides little protection. A landowner can still demolish a designated landmark as long as he provides 180 days’ notice and documents the site with photographs and measures.

Slow-growth advocates and preservationists say the city should have used its leverage with developers to preserve the barns--or paid to relocate them onto city property.

The barns, they say, are fitting symbols for the paving-over of the Conejo Valley’s ranching heritage by a City Council friendlier to developers than historical landmarks.

“To see something in my backyard, the largest historic barn in Ventura County, coming down--it’s appalling,” preservationist William Maple said.

The Thousand Oaks resident has long led the drive to save the barns at Dos Vientos Ranch and other buildings of historic and architectural significance in the Conejo Valley, such as the old City Hall at 401 W. Hillcrest Drive.

Despite his reservations about seeing the grand old barn being reduced to a stack of wood, Maple said VTN West has done a good job making sure all aspects of its construction have been well documented.

“It shows some concern, but they’re doing this on their own--the City Council has little to do with it,” he said.

The council has acted as the de facto Cultural Heritage Board for Thousand Oaks since May. Before that, designation and preservation of historic sites in the area had been the responsibility of the Thousand Oaks Arts Commission.

“The Cultural Heritage Board was supposed to go out and measure it before it was gone, but I didn’t see that happening,” Maple said.

One looming issue now that the barn has been taken down is deciding where it will go.

“That’s the outstanding question. Right now I can’t talk about specifics,” Taylor said. “The city should have the right first . . . but we have various competing interests.”

“We’re moving it professionally and properly to make sure someone can put this thing back up, but someone needs to tell us where to put it,” he said.

Maple, who had hoped the barn would remain in place as a centerpiece for the new community under construction, worries that weathered lumber from the building will eventually become paneling and floors for someone’s living room.

“Barn siding is very prized back East,” he said. “It has become a commodity.”