Minturn residents rally to save a piece of town history
Town Council approves the largest still-standing log structure in Minturn for historical landmark status
Zoe Goldstein/Vail Daily
A local trio in Minturn is working to preserve a piece of the town’s heritage, Meyer’s Barn. The structure, a 17-by-27-foot horse barn made of logs is believed to have been hand built around the 1880s. It currently sits on the private property at 25 Harrison Avenue in Minturn, but the process of protecting the barn would involve moving it to a more public location, and renovating it to be used for public good.
On July 15, 2019, the old, red Mountain Pedaler building on Main Street was demolished by developers unaware of the building’s importance to the town’s history. This rallied Minturn residents to preserve other features that represent the town’s heritage, and catalyzed the creation of Minturn’s new Historical Preservation Commission to protect the town’s historical relics.
One of the first acts of the Historical Preservation Commission, which officially met for the first time on Jan. 6, 2022, was to approve providing Meyer’s Barn with historical landmark status, which then required approval by Town Council.
The destruction of the Mountain Pedaler building at 161 Main Street inspired Kelly Toon, an architect and 20-year resident of Minturn who now sits on the Historical Preservation Commission, to begin thinking of ways to preserve Meyer’s Barn.
“You can look at the Meyer’s Barn and see the hand cuts on the corners, and the hand-hewn logs, and you can just imagine what that was like, to build that thing, and what life was like back then. I think that’s really important, to keep that sense of history and connection to the history of the place.” – Ken Halliday, one of the three local men working to preserve Meyer’s Barn
“I’ve been spending the last three years trying to save the barn, and when I heard (the current owner of Meyer’s Barn) wanted to get rid of it, I started brainstorming what we could do with it, and just always thought of Steamboat’s barn that’s on all their classic postcards, and thought that Minturn could have the same little landmark building,” Toon said. At the end of 2022, he brought his musings to Ken Halliday, the chairman of the Historical Preservation Commission, and Woody Woodruff, the former chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission. Since then, the three have planned for the future of Meyer’s Barn, and brought the proposal for preserving it as a historical site to the Town Council on Wednesday, Aug. 2.
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Meyer’s Barn gained its name from the land it sits on, which was formerly owned by the Meyer family, who settled there in 1890 and were instrumental to the development of Minturn in its early days. Ralph Meyer, who owned the land, owned and ran the Lionshead Garage in Minturn from 1937 through 1972, and his wife, Irene, ran Grammy’s Attic.
The barn is the largest remaining log barn structure in Minturn, and is considered a local landmark. It was hand-built from logs made from local pine trees, and formerly used to house horses.
“You can look at the Meyer’s Barn and see the hand cuts on the corners, and the hand-hewn logs, and you can just imagine what that was like, to build that thing, and what life was like back then,” Halliday said. “I think that’s really important, to keep that sense of history and connection to the history of the place.”
The Minturn Town Council was presented with the second reading of the ordinance to approve the historic landmark designation for Meyer’s Barn on Wednesday, Aug. 2. With Lynn Feiger leaving due to a conflict of interest — she is married to Woody Woodruff, one of the three working on the Meyer’s Barn project — and Kate Schifani absent for the meeting, the remaining five members of the Minturn Town Council unanimously approved the ordinance.
Now that the barn has been approved as a historical landmark, next steps include creating plans for a new location for the building. Little Beach Park, where the amphitheater is located, is a frontrunner because of the potential for public use.
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“The idea is to put it in a (new) place, not only to protect it, but to make it useful,” Woodruff said.
One of the uses the three are considering is to make the barn into a concession stand, but they are prioritizing thinking through every possible option before they make their decision. “That’s always the trick, taking an old structure and finding creative ways to bring it back to life without destroying its authenticity and historical significance,” Halliday said.
In addition to location, the trio is considering strategies for moving the barn. The first option is to disassemble and reassemble it, but some concerns have been raised about the potential that the aged wood may not come back together they way that it should. The second option that they are considering is using a trailer to move the barn in one piece.
Funding for the project is not slated to come from the town of Minturn. Rather, the barn’s movement and refurbishment will be funded through grants and donations, organized through the Minturn Community Fund. Fundraising will begin later in the process, once the overall cost has been determined.
At this time, the trio expects the moving and refurbishment of the cabin to take place in the spring or summer of 2024. Between now and then, there will be several public hearings as the project advances through future phases, including obtaining approval from the Planning and Zoning Commission, Historical Preservation Commission, and Minturn Town Council to move and update the cabin. In going through this process properly, the three hope to blaze the way for similar projects to be completed with other pieces of Minturn’s history.
“You just can’t replicate the past,” Toon said. But you can preserve it.
