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Dominick-Crawford Barn

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A sign on the TVHS property shows a rendering of the exhibit and education center. Photo by Raymond Janis

By Mallie Jane Kim

Setauket’s historic district shouldn’t be marked by a bright-blue-wrapped, half-finished barn for much longer, as the Three Village Historical Society plans to start working in earnest on the Dominick-Crawford Barn Education and History Center just as soon as the weather thaws and their supply orders come in. 

“You’re going to see a lot going on in the spring,” said Steve Hintze, who has been on the TVHS barn committee since its inception. “We ran into roadblocks, which seems to be par for the course, but now we’re ready and have everything set to really start moving.”

The society raised the barn exterior quickly last year, only to stall in the fall due to design changes that needed assessment by the Historic District Advisory Committee, a citizen group appointed by Brookhaven Town Board to advise the planning commissioner on changes in historical districts. 

The committee recommended adjustments to the society’s altered plans, including to the spacing of seams on the metal roof as well as to the color of the exterior, according to Hintze, who was TVHS president when the society began the barn process in 2014. Hintze added that some of the proposed changes were due to cost increases after the COVID-19 pandemic. The society moved toward less expensive but still historically-accurate materials, and away from a pricey cedar roof and particular windows that had shot up in cost. 

“We had enough money to get everything done before the pandemic,” he said. “Due to the pandemic, the cost doubled — flat out doubled.”

This start-and-stop rhythm has been nothing new to the TVHS barn project, which ran into roadblocks from the beginning. The society took down the original 1840s barn from its location in Old Field in 2014, with plans to use the wood to reconstruct a historic barn structure within a commercial shell that could host exhibits and events. According to Hintze, in the process of seeking permits with the Town of Brookhaven, the society learned their building lacked an appropriate Certificate of Occupancy, an issue he said was left over from the previous owner, and there were several past clerical errors that needed ironing out. 

“So once we started the project, we immediately started moving forward and then had to slow down,” Hintze said. “Then we move forward and then slow down. So that was the beginning of the barn taking a while to get accomplished.”

Then in 2022, someone cut and stole some key pieces of the original barn wood — including the longest piece. To solve that, the society has additional same-period wood coming from other places locally and from around New York state. 

One design sticking point is whether the society can use the high-density engineered wood LP SmartSide siding on the outside structure, which requires less labor and comes with a 50-year guarantee, or whether they need to use historically-accurate siding material like cedar or pine. Hintze said the society would like to consider long-term costs in maintaining the barn, with a material he said is indistinguishable in appearance from classic wood and far more resistant to bad weather, woodpeckers and other wood-destroying creatures. 

But some TVHS board members and members of the HDAC have been hesitant, if not against using the material. Town councilmember Jonathan Kornreich (D-Stony Brook), who is familiar with the arguments for and against LP siding on the barn, explained the hesitancy comes from those concerned about historical accuracy — much like a Model T car club using modern materials to restore historic vehicles. 

“If you get leaders in who say, ‘Hey, what if we put a Honda engine in the Model T, or fiberglass siding, or maybe air conditioning to be more comfortable,’ at some point, you’re not the Model T car club anymore,” the councilmember said.

Kornreich added that a decision about siding material is a big deal because Setauket’s historic district is one of the strictest in Suffolk County. If LP is allowed there, the door opens for it to be used in other historical applications.

But that reason is one TVHS leaders see as a possible plus, opening the door for forward-looking materials in historical contexts. “There’s something to be said about the historical society being able to set a standard, if we’re using these other materials, let’s use the very best of it,” explained society director Mari Irizarry. “Solar panels weren’t approved in the historic district for years, and now they are.”

Hintze said any debate surrounding LP siding shouldn’t slow down the barn building, and added that they are open to cedar if that will get the barn project finished. “It’s not structural — it’s the last thing that goes up,” Hintze said. “It really is something that can come down to the wire.”

In the meantime, the $300,000 JumpSMART grant the society recently received from Suffolk County will help move construction forward, and TVHS community engagement manager Kimberly Phyfe is planning to ramp up fundraising efforts in coming months. “We still have a little ways to go in terms of fundraising and grant writing,” she said, adding that she is hoping the barn will be ready to host visitors by the society’s annual Candlelight House Tour this December.

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A rendering of the Dominick- Crawford Barn. Image from TVHS

By Melissa Arnold

Since 1964, the Three Village Historical Society (TVHS) has worked hard to preserve and share the community’s past with future generations. You’ve likely seen the historical society members and volunteers at local events, like the annual Spirits Tour, Culper Spy Day, Prohibition Night, or the Candlelight House Tour during the holidays.

The society is also dedicated to protecting local historic properties of all kinds. Recently, they were awarded a $350,000 grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation to be used to rebuild, restore, and repurpose the Dominick-Crawford Barn, a historically significant building from circa 1847. The barn will have a new home in the field neighboring the historical society’s headquarters. The meadow is currently used to host a farmer’s market every Friday through September.

The pre-Civil War barn was originally located just inside the boundaries of Old Field. It was in poor condition, suffering from the lack of upkeep and long-term exposure to the elements. But TVHS member president Steve Hintze saw potential in the wooden structure.

“The Village of Old Field planned to demolish the barn, but we felt it was historically significant because it was one of the last of its time,” said Hintze, who served as historical society president in 2007.

The barn also serves as an example of two different eras of construction. According to Hintze, You can still see the markings of traditional hand saws, but the work of circular saws is also evident — a method that was still very new at the time. The finished structure was a blending of the old and the new.

It’s been a long road to earn the funding to support the project. Early on, Hintze reached out to Assemblyman Steve Englebright, who guided the society toward a $300,000 grant from the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York. This additional grant from the Gardiner Foundation will allow construction to move forward with a barn raising this fall.

Of course, such an old structure would need to be entirely rebuilt to meet the requirements of modern safety codes. The historical society chose to use the old timber for the exterior while shoring up the interior with stronger materials. In this way, the barn is getting the best of both worlds.

“It gives us greater structural stability while honoring the original look,” explained Steve Healy, current president of the historical society.

Acquiring the barn also has practical advantages for the society, where space has always been at a premium.

“We always seem to be short on space, and it was one of those things where we were looking for something new and the barn really fit the bill. We’re very happy about it,” said Healy.

In the recent past, the historical society could only allow groups of 25 people at a time into its exhibit space inside its headquarters at 93 Main Street in Setauket. This limit forced them to turn away larger groups, most notably schools that hoped to visit on a field trip.

Once completed, the new two-story, 35-by-50-foot space will be able to accomodate more than 200 people, Hintze said.

It will include teaching facilities, interchangeable exhibit space and archives. The center will allow the Society to supplement the archival space currently being used at the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library in Setauket and provide accessible, climate-controlled storage for the society’s many historical artifacts.

“We are always being offered historical documents and artifacts from the community, so this will give us an opportunity to brush the dust off our archives and share them,” Healy explained.

And as the area recovers from the pandemic, the historical society is looking forward to hosting future large events, including auctions, summer camps, and even hoedowns at the barn.

“We’re excited to bring the community together for historical and educational opportunities of all kinds,” said Hintze. “When you start a project from just the seed of an idea and eventually see it come to fruition, it’s a great feeling.”

For more information about the Three Village Historical Society, visit www.tvhs.org.

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Dominick-Crawford Barn is now a historic landmark. Photo by Giselle Barkley

It’s history in the making.

Brookhaven’s Three Village Historical Society is continuing its quest to preserve the town’s history and educate the community after the Town of Brookhaven’s meeting on Thursday Sept. 17, at 5 p.m.

That Thursday, the town established the Three Village Society’s Ebenezer Bayles/Stephen Swezey house in Setauket and the dismantled Dominick-Crawford Barn, which will be located nearby, as historic landmarks in Setauket. The goal isn’t only to establish these buildings as historic landmarks but also classify them as a museum where residents can visit and learn about the history behind the house and the barn.

But it may take some time before the society fulfills its goal. The society had the nearly 155- to 168-year-old Dominick-Crawford Barn dismantled as part of its Crawford Barn Renovation Project.

According to John Cunniffe of Stony Brook, the architect of this project, the Village of Old Field originally wanted to take the barn down and use the land. Cunniffe said the village received the deed for the property several years ago but it didn’t do anything with the property until it decided the barn was “in their way.”

“The barn was left in a neglected state for quite some time,” Cunniffe said. “So the Historical Society found some funding to pay a contractor to carefully dismantle [the barn]. So it was that or watch the barn be demolished.”

Cunniffe also said establishing the barn as a historic landmark was not only important because of the barn’s long history but also because there is a town code requirement to classify the barn as a museum as it will rest on a residential property.

According to Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) the Society for Preservation of Long Island Antiquities used to own the property where the barn and the house will be located. They used to have an auction out of the barn that was there at the time. When SPLIA moved its headquarters from the Ebenezer Bayles/Stephen Swezey house location in Setauket to Cold Spring Harbor, it took the barn that was there at the time.

The Dominick-Crawford Barn, which was located on the east side of the junction of Old Field Road and Quaker Path in the Village of Old Field before it was dismantled, will be located to the left of the Ebenezer Bayles/Stephen Swezey House parking lot.

Thus far Englebright has helped provide $625,000 in grants to help fund the project. He also said the organization has held fundraisers with the hope of collecting additional funds to pay for the project.

While the Crawford barn was built around 1847 to 1860, the house was built in 1800. Former President of the Three Village Historical Society Steven Hintze said the house is of great importance to the community’s history.

“It was built before [the] Civil War. And many of [those houses] haven’t lasted. They haven’t made it to this point due to neglect,” Hintze said. “We were able to see [the Ebenezer Bayles/Stephen Swezey house] was starting to fall to disrepair so we started to move.”

After SPLIA moved, the Three Village Historical Society left its old headquarters for its new one in the house. The Three Village Society was originally operating out of an upstairs room in a house before purchasing the Ebenezer Bayles/Stephen Swezey house on May 14, 1998.

Cunniffe was unsure how long it may take before the organization can reassemble the barn, as the town’s decision to make it a historic landmark is one of many steps in the approval process to put the barn back together near the Three Village Society’s headquarters. Regardless, the Three Village Society wants to continue giving back with the hope that the project will allow residents to learn more about the history of the house and the barn. It’s a desire that Englebright supports.

“They are doing a great job and as long as I can possibly support them, I’m going to continue to do so,” Englebright said. “They are making it possible for us to have an even stronger sense of place, and that’s at the core of what it means to be a part of a community.”

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