Over its 170 years, the Rotary Barn has played many different roles for its hometown of Stowe, Vermont. It was once a church, then a gymnasium, morphed into a classroom, and most recently, an unheated storage shed. If that were your career path, you might think it time to call it quits. Thankfully, voters in Stowe saw it differently. Recognizing a wonderful piece of its history, residents voted yesterday to save the Rotary Barn from certain destruction by defeating a measure that would have lead to the barn being dismantled into timber.
Supporters of the Rotary Barn hope to raise money privately to restore the town-owned building and move it next to the Gale Recreation Center, creating a new city center. Evelyn Frey from the group Historic Stowe II elaborates, “It would look great,” Frey said. “It could look just like a ski museum — a beautiful white building.”
Here’s to another 170 years for the Rotary Barn and perhaps a little heat to go with!