Modern Farmhouse Is All the Rage. But Do You Have a ‘Barndominium’?

“Everyone in Fairfield County loves a barn on the property––it’s the history and romanticism,” said William Martin, a broker with Douglas Elliman in Greenwich, Connecticut, and the Weston property’s listing agent.  

Barn conversions, often referred to as barndominiums, or “barndos” for short, have exploded in recent years. As of mid-September, there were roughly 4,000 active U.S. listings that advertised being or having a barndominium, a 26% increase from the same time a year ago, according to data Realtor.com provided Mansion Global. (News Corp owns Realtor.com and Dow Jones, publisher of Mansion Global.) 

Cari Goeke, broker and owner of Southern District Sotheby’s International Realty in Brenham, Texas, has a listing 15 minutes from Round Top, where the renowned antique festival is held twice annually. The property has two cottages, a horse barn, and a barn converted into a party space, complete with a bar and a pool table. The 20-acre estate is on the market for $2.95 million. 

Goeke said she also sold a custom-built barndominium last year. Purchased for $1.1 million, the new build on 18 acres in nearby Bellville featured a chef’s kitchen, a library and a dog-grooming room.

“They may use it as a party barn or rec room for the kids or an artist’s studio,” Martin said of some homeowners who renovate old barns. At other times, a barn is the primary residence, whether it’s turn of the century or recently built.

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Barndo Beginnings

The term “barndominium”––coined by Connecticut real estate developer Karl Nilsen in the late 1980s––reflects barns converted into residences or new barns constructed to be houses. 

Such conversions have gained traction in the past five to 10 years. In 2016, celebrity home renovators Chip and Joanna Gaines of HGTV’s “Fixer Upper” show converted a barn into a house and called it a barndominium. Whether the episode sparked the trend or simply reflected it, since then, people across the U.S. have become infatuated with the notion of living in a barn.

“The barndominium trend started with the practicality of renovating an existing structure rather than taking on new construction,” said Lauren Wills Grover of Houston-based Wills Design Associates, an interior design firm that’s worked on various barndo projects. 

Part of the allure is the backstory. According to Wills Grover, barndominiums often tell the history of the locale and property, whether the structure was used for agricultural purposes or to house animals, for instance. Keeping some of the existing features, be it gambrel roofs, wood ceiling joists or original siding, honors the building’s past and reminds one of what was. 

Turning Old Barns Into Livable Space

It’s not an easy job revamping a barn for 21st-century life, and defining the interior spaces can be the most challenging aspect of converting an existing barn into a residence.

“The open-concept nature of these barns can be tricky when dividing it up for modern living that includes privacy,” Wills Grover said. Since homeowners often request to blur the lines between the indoors and outdoors, expansive windows allowing light and vistas are a welcome addition to old barns. “Bringing in natural elements is necessary when designing these spaces,” she said.

Jim Rill, principal at Rill Architects in Bethesda, Maryland, kept the footprint and rebuilt a barn just outside Nashville, Tennessee. One of four structures on a sprawling property, which includes a pond, the new and improved barn provides a music room and guest house in what was once a primitive building used to store farm equipment. 

Rill designed the barn as the owners’ retreat away from the main home but also as a place to entertain friends and family. Glass barn doors, vast windows, wood paneling and stacked stone meld with factory pendant lights and a leather nailhead sofa, as well as a drum set and a guitar collection. A kitchenette, full bath and a lofty guest room on the second floor complete the reimagined space that radiates a rustic-chic quality.

Rill, who’s worked on several antique barns, finds the projects inspiring as he often discovers remnants from decades ago, such as troughs from feeding cattle, silos and worn ladders once used to climb into hay lofts. He only knows what he’ll encounter once he digs in—though some surprises aren’t as welcome.

“The foundation is usually a bunch of stones stacked on earth,” he explained. “When you start to excavate and you find there is no footing, you have to shore up the outside.”

Some old barns were lived in before they served the farm, but to be repurposed as living spaces, there needs to be more thought given to the architecture and functionality. That’s where Rill and his team come in. “It’s exciting to work with existing structures,” he said. “It’s not so difficult; it’s more energizing to work with an old rubble wall and keep that character.”

While barn homes often maintain much of their charm, some interiors are as elaborate as the main house. When curating the inside of a barn, Wills Grover suggested luxurious details and finishes such as marble kitchens, fireplaces and custom lighting. 

“Clients use the space to entertain guests, and we have found that the sky’s the limit when it’s time to impress.” Still, she sources vintage blankets to repurpose the textiles into pillows and seat cushions, in keeping with the barn’s roots. “A balance of luxury decor with sourced antiques can add the perfect amount of sophistication and elegance to the space.”

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Booming Barn Demand

Caroline Wolff, a real estate agent with Douglas Elliman in Austin, Texas, became so taken by the idea of living in a barn she built one for herself. Seeking more space and greener pastures, she and her husband left Austin and relocated to the countryside when he began working remotely during the pandemic. 

“If we built a house we would’ve paid $200 or $250-plus per square foot––on average a barndo is $115 per square foot,” she noted of her spacious new digs. “You can get all the space you want and at a fraction of the cost.”

Wolff said she currently has two clients searching for barns in Fayette County, Texas. However, inventory in the area is low, and the demand for barn homes is high. Though a steel-framed barn is affordable to build, it’s also incredibly efficient. Likewise, it can include features like vaulted ceilings and fireplaces since the interior is a blank canvas and homeowners can shape the barn to fit their lifestyle. 

“People coming from Houston don’t need a beautifully remodeled farmhouse,” Wolff said. “They are looking for second homes or houses to Airbnb.”

Cost saving, however, is certainly not a major concern for some owners who spend $1 million or more on barndominium projects, said architect Devin Kimmel with Kimmel Studio Architects in Annapolis, Maryland. 

“The barns we are doing are very high-end––it’s not about saving money,” he said about the luxury barns his company designs across the U.S. His firm collaborated on one such project for a client with an estate in Queenstown, Maryland, an enclave along the Chesapeake Bay. 

“We were working on the design for the main house, and they wanted a guest house to feel like an agricultural building [and be] separate from the house,” he explained. His team incorporated a wall of steel-framed windows to showcase the outdoor setting from the two-bedroom, two-bath guest quarters, which include cedar siding, a metal roof, a finished concrete floor, a silo and operable barn doors. 

To construct the home, Kimmel used timber framing, a pricey building method that can cost upward of $1 million per barn. Despite the high cost, Kimmel’s clients are unquestionably drawn to his company’s designs. “People like that aesthetic,” he said of the clean-lined, new-construction barndos. “We have projects all over the place.”

This article originally appeared on Mansion Global.