h Brander Does Property Evaluat

The Town of Chase hired Brander Construction Technologies to do an Historic Structures Report for the Stone Barn. Once completed, this report will become the "barn bible" and tell about its known history, its present condition, and its condition once the restorations and renovations have been completed. The report will also give a cost analysis for these repairs and modifications.

On October 3, 2007, Don Kraft and James Hayward from Brander Construction Technology in Green Bay, along with Chris Jaworski, evaluated the stone barn property using the above photo. Other Stone Barn Renovation Committee members later joined the team to get an update on what Brander was doing.

Using the above photo (circa 1903 - 1920), Don was able to scale the photo and determine the sizes of the other structures which helped determine where they once stood. For example, he calculated that one of the structures was 46 feet from the stone barn. When they measured out the distance, there saw evidence of the foundation for that building which was was once "exactly" where Don said it would be.

During the gathering, a neighbor, Roy Wilcox, was invited to join the group to explain the modifications that he made to the barn while he rented it between 1980 and 2000. It was at this time that Roy showed the group what was lying under the surface of the dirt floor inside the barn. After pushing away some of the dirt with his foot, a portion of a concrete ring was displayed. It was already dark by this time, so Brander came back a couple of days later and uncovered the rest of the ring.

But what in the world was the ring used for? One idea was that it was the base for an old inside stave silo. Another guess was that it was the base for an old cistern (used to collect rain water). Maybe it was part of a "pit" silo at one time. Brander and the Stone Barn and Park committees pondered this question for quite a while.

A few weeks later, Brander learned that Paul Frysh (the last remaining Frysh brother to Casey and Stanley Frysh, who owned the stone barn for 50 years) had stated that his brothers used the ring as a temporary silage bin. They would put up snow fence inside the inner ring, then line it with tar paper. They would then store silage in it. Sometimes they would use cedar posts to add another 4 feet on top of the existing bin, turning it into an 8 foot silage bin.

But the mystery still remains, did the Frysh brother's build this ring, or did they adapt a use for it because it was already there? The town plans to hire an archeologist to examine the ring and the material both inside and outside of the ring.

Brander's team continued to come to the barn site for several months to evaluate and document its present condition and take wood and mortar samples.

They also evaluated the roof system to evaluate its original architectural design, and to look for problem areas, such as leaks and structural failures.