For years, motorists traveling east on Route 283 from Harrisburg to Lancaster have glimpsed a large, white clapboard barn sporting a star-shaped louver.

Known as the Star Barn, the historic structure just 40 feet from the highway became the focus of a preservation effort when it fell into disrepair in the early 1990s.

This morning, the group that purchased the circa-1872 barn in December to preserve it announced  plans to move it to a spot along Interstate 81 near the Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course.

In its new location in Lebanon County, the barn will become the centerpiece of Agrarian Country, a planned educational center devoted to agriculture.

"It feels great because we've been so anxious to settle where the site will be located. ...  It just feels like the wagon train has left the site and is heading out the trail," said Robert S. Barr, president of Agrarian Country.

Dismantling the Dauphin County barn could begin in early 2009 with reassembly in October of that year, although Barr said the schedule is highly dependent on the speed of fundraising.

Barr said Agrarian Country is now launching a $10 million fundraising campaign for the educational complex, with about $4 million needed for the barn. If fundraising takes longer, the barn would be reassembled at its new spot in October 2010.

Barr said his group now has 300 acres under contract between the Grantville and Indiantown exits, north of I-81. He said the group has a chance to add another 400 acres to that parcel.

Barr said that in addition to its size, the new location has the advantage of being in an agricultural area near the tourist centers of Lancaster, Gettysburg and Hershey.

"It is perfect for tourism," he said.

The site in East Hanover Township is one mile from  Penn National Race Course and about 15 miles north of where the barn now sits.

As part of the agriculturally themed Agrarian Country, the Star Barn will be used for concerts, dinners, shows and a community theater. The barn itself will be situated on a hill about 1,000 feet from the highway.

Barr predicted that when motorists drive along Route 81, they will likely exclaim, "Wow, what is that big barn over there?"

Barr said he had considered  Lancaster County as a possible destination for the barn but didn't find  a suitable site here.

The four acres at the barn's current location on Nissley Drive in Londonderry Township were not large enough to accommodate the planned agricultural center and that tract will be sold once the barn is moved, Barr said.

The circa-1872 Star Barn was built for John Motter, a shipper and trader who sold horses and mules to the Union Army during the Civil War.

The barn was last used as a part of a working farm in 1986. In 1992, it was deemed "at risk" and Preservation Pennsylvania bought it in 1998.

The Millport Conservancy joined the effort to stabilize the structure in 2000, then ceded full ownership back to the preservation group in 2003, which sold it to Agrarian Country last year.

The Gothic revival-style barn of German/Swiss construction and its surrounding complex of outbuildings — a chicken coop, carriage house and pig barn — are all sheathed in white clapboard.

The barn, famous for its star-shaped louvers and trefoil-carved gingerbread trim, has been reproduced in countless paintings.

The Barn Saver, a Narvon-based barn-restoration firm owned by John High, will dismantle all four structures, with each piece carefully labeled.

The Massachusetts-based Timber Framers Guild will put the barn back together in Lebanon County by means of construction methods typical of 1872, including the use of oxen, mules, draft horses and early period tools.


Staff writer Chad Umble can be reached at cumble@LNPnews.com or 481-6031.