An iconic yet long-neglected fixture in the heart of Christmas Hill Park has been living on borrowed time for months now, but judgment day for the old “Red Barn” as Gilroyans know it could be influenced by what they have to say about it.
City Council unanimously approved in November a demolition window for the weathered time capsule, stomping on a can that’s been kicked around the community for the better part of 23 years since the structure was sealed shut in the mid-1990s due to disrepair. The only beings traversing through the edifice nowadays are hordes of bats, birds and feral cats.
However, during the Dec. 2 Council meeting – following an impassioned plea from President Connie Rogers of the Gilroy Historical Society – Council decided to give residents the opportunity to share their two cents during an upcoming Feb. 3 public hearing about what they think should be done.
“The community is attached to the barn emotionally and sentimentally as a symbol of our agricultural roots,” Rogers said. “Keeping the barn may not be the most practical decision, but it would be popular.”
As it currently stands, if a private investor doesn’t choose to pay up to relocate the Red Barn, Gilroy Operations Manager David Stubchaer says demolition will take place between February and Aug. 15, so as to not interfere with the nesting seasons of the bats and birds that call the now-padlocked barn home.
The City’s Historic Heritage Committee first recommended demolition in November 2006 due to the “very poor” physical shape of the barn, determining it was unsafe to occupy and unhealthy for humans.
“I’d like to see them disassemble (the Red Barn), save the lumber for either City projects or for people wanting to purchase it because those are the requests I’ve had,” Mayor Don Gage previously told the Dispatch. “It’s unsafe and it has to come down; it wouldn’t be worth the money to keep it going. I think the right decision was made.”
But, as Rogers pointed out when she addressed Council Dec. 2, the Historic Heritage Committee wasn’t privy to a key chunk of information that could have impacted its recommendation.
A 2004 report prepared by Albert Salvador, building division manager with San Mateo-based CSG Consultants, Inc., recommended fastening all existing corrugated sheet metal roofing, replacing any missing sheet panels and covering all vents with wire mesh to prevent animals from entering the barn. Salvador also suggested installing vertical supports in locations where he noted dry rot, according to the report.
According to Rogers, Salvador’s report was never presented to the Historic Heritage Committee prior to their recommendation for demolition.
“It was a very common sense approach to what needed to be done,” Gilroy Historic Society member Carol DeSantis opined.
“With modest repairs like that, the barn could be useful for storage and the consultant said it had aesthetic value,” Rogers added.
Rogers posits the late Gilroy cattle baron Henry Miller owned the barn, based on her examination of an 1876 map available at the Gilroy Museum listing Miller as a property owner. Between 1863 and 1916, Miller was one of the largest property owners in the United States with a total of 1.5 million acres, she said.
“I would like (the City) to say they’ll keep the barn until we’re ready to build the replacement building,” Rogers said. “I don’t agree with the decision that was made 10 years ago and I think they should have done modest repairs then; it looks horrible with the roof half torn off.”
Regardless, Stubchaer points out the City later determined that even making repairs to use the barn for storage, opposed to retrofitting it for public use, was not cost effective and that the barn should be cleared and demolished.
Mayor Pro Tempore Perry Woodward acknowledged Rogers’ concerns Dec. 2 and requested a public hearing on the matter during Council’s Feb. 3 meeting.
“I think (the City) should have at least looked at other options instead of deciding to tear it down,” observed Gary Walton, downtown advocate and local developer. “Maybe a committee of the community and the Gilroy Historical Society could look at what other communities have done with similar structures. It doesn’t hurt to talk about things and you never know what ideas might come up.”
Walton speculates the building could someday become a community theater or the site of guided historical tours. Rogers maintains Gilroyans could benefit from another events center in addition to the Gilroy Interim Center for the Arts and Christmas Hill Park’s outdoor amphitheater. The Red Barn could be renovated and rented out for large events, she suggests.
Her thoughts were echoed by another commenter on the Dispatch’s Facebook page. User Enrique Diaz said he would like to see the building restored and rented out for special occasions and used for wine tastings during the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
“It comes down to my biggest complaint with the City: they do very little outreach and make their decisions in a silo amongst themselves rather than reaching out to the community for solutions or ideas,” Walton added. “I think there’s a lot of expertise in this community that goes untapped and that’s why people get upset – because they’re not part of the decisions.”
As proposed in May of 2006, according to plans sent over by Bill Headley, Gilroy parks and landscape supervisor, a brand new Ranch Site Community Center could be erected in place of the old Red Barn. Plans depict a two-story, 13,450-square-foot building with meeting rooms, a reception area, multipurpose room, patio areas, an office and a commercial kitchen. Original estimates put the cost between $3.5 million and $4.2 million.
Total demolition costs for the barn, a nearby modular trailer and a ranch house adjacent barn are estimated to be $104,563, according to Stubchaer. This includes asbestos removal and disposal and a $1,000 photographic documentation of the barn prior to demolition. In the event the Red Barn is torn down, the Historic Heritage Committee would be allowed to select material for future use and potential reuse.
But Rogers hopes it doesn’t come to that.
“People who’ve lived in Gilroy for any length of time are used to it and they like it,” she said. “I think Henry Miller is a person worth remembering and a lot of us still value agriculture as a business and around Gilroy, that’s what gives us our open space and fields. Gilroy was built on agriculture in many ways … (demolition) should not be a decision by default.”
