Sunrise, Sunset... Serenity

“It was a lifetime dream,” Nancy Shaffran says about her and her partner, Rachel Malinowitzer, buying the Nockamixon Township property called Rising Sun Farm. For Shaffran, a retired veterinarian who specialized in pain management, the property gave her a place to share with assorted farm animals. For Malinowitzer, a psychotherapist who spent the first forty years of her life in New York City, the farm was a therapeutic place to work remotely and tend vegetable and flower gardens.

 

For fifteen years, the couple searched for the perfect farm property in the River Towns. When Malinowitzer discovered the farm and brought Shaffran up the driveway, Shaffran told her, “I think we found the place.” They purchased it in June 2019 and moved there two months later.

 

The property came with a barn, which, like the majority of Pennsylvania barns, was a two-level structure with a forebay on the barnyard elevation protecting the stable entry doors and a ramp on the back of the barn leading up to the second level. The upper level was used for processing and storing hay while the lower level was designed for animal stables. Dating from the mid-nineteenth century, the barn was modified into what is referred to as an extended forebay barn with the construction of a front straw shed, which provides additional storage space in the upper level.

 

The barn’s height took their breath away. It also needed work. The upper level, Shaffran says, was filled with “things.” After hours spent cleaning out bat guano, they transformed the upper level into a magical space they now use for parties or for meditation groups that benefit from the spectacular sunset view from the open barn doors.

 

The barn’s large hewn beams, long diagonal braces, ladders, pulleys, and hooks all became visible after the cleaning. So did the carpenter’s marks (sometimes called marriage marks), the Roman numerals in timber joinery that are chiseled by a carpenter to aid the assembly of a mortise-and-tenon timber frame structure.

 

Malinowitzer got to know every nook and cranny of the barn as part of the cleanup, which included digging out all of the rusted pieces of metal embedded in the dirt floor on the lower level. Much of the process was getting to know the barn and deciding what to save. Or not save. It became a great treasure hunt, and the couple separated items they could repurpose from those that were destined for the dump or for one of many yard sales.

 

Malinowitzer exerted much effort trying to seal up the holes in the barn and keeping unwanted animals out. She admits, however, it’s the animals “who will win” that battle. Some animals, like their dog and two cats, they do want to keep inside. Otherwise, the farm’s resident goats are in a pasture by the stables, two donkeys are in the lower pasture, and chickens are in the chicken coop. The couple uses one stall as a small gym and others store firewood. Shaffran loves the downstairs, with all of its old squeaky, creaky sounds.

 

Despite all the work, the couple says the property is like living on a movie set, but in real life. Over the last six years, they say, their purchase has brought them much joy and fulfillment. Part of the experience of owning an old barn is discovering its many features and trying to determine what they were used for or imagining their use. The property has provided constant learning opportunities along with its challenges. The couple has adopted the mantra of “dwell in possibility” from Emily Dickinson, which has served them well in the process.

 

Jeffrey L. Marshall, a former president of the Heritage Conservancy, is the author of six books on local history and historic architecture, including Barnstorming in Eastern Pennsylvania and Beyond (Pennsylvania German Cultural Center, 2021).

 

Do you own a barn—or know someone who does—that deserves to be featured in River Towns?  Send us a note: editor@rivertownsmagazine.com.