Westminster Montessori school celebrates 250-year-old barn before its demolition
The Montessori School of Westminster’s playground was a picturesque setting last week as families gathered to enjoy hot cocoa and cookies and say, “Bye, barn!” to an iconic 250-year-old structure, a mainstay of the school for generations.
The school’s annual hot cocoa social on Dec. 7 was a chance for the school community to reminisce about the barn, which will be torn down during the private school’s winter break, between Dec. 21 and Jan. 3, said head of school Lauren Welsh-Baer, 38, of Westminster.
Welsh-Baer attended the school, taught there for 16 years, and now her own children are students. The school serves students from ages 2 through 9.
“The barn was loved by all, aesthetically, it was a great asset,” Welsh-Baer said. “As you’re driving up the driveway every morning you see that kids loved playing around it. They have memories of it. It will be missed, for sure.”
Primary school students have learned about texture through the barn’s hard stone and coarse wood, and have used the structure for exploration and projects, Welsh-Baer said. The barn served as a backdrop for middle school yearbook pictures and many families return to the barn to take photographs.
“It’ll be a big transition when they return from winter break, to know that this large structure is no longer standing and no longer here,” Welsh-Baer said, “so this was kind of our way to pay homage to it.”
Fifth-grader Alexandra Getto, of Westminster, said games and ghost stories are among her favorite memories of the barn. The structure served as a base for a game called Mr. Fox, which closely resembles sharks and minnows on land.
“The barn has kind of always been here, so it’s gonna be sad to see it go,” Getto said, “but I feel like it’s also going to be easier to have it gone because a lot of kids like running in there during recess sometimes.”
The barn was deemed structurally unsound, and Welsh-Baer said demolishing the structure is the only tenable solution.
“The fear is that if it were to fall or a piece of it were to fall, we of course don’t want it to harm our students,” Welsh-Baer said. “So as sad as we are that it’s coming down, we’ve done research to see if we can restore it, we’ve met with different companies to see how best to preserve it, and it just seems like the way we’re going to preserve it is by memory.”
The barn’s end also presents an opportunity for new beginnings, Welsh-Baer said. A native tree or garden could fill the physical space the barn once occupied next to the primary school playground, for instance. The school has yet to make a decision.
The red wood panels emblematic of the barn and school could conceivably be used in benches, picture frames or holiday ornaments, but environmental educator Stefanie Misner said lead paint has been a setback to such an initiative thus far. She hopes stones from the barn’s foundation will be used to construct a patio with a fire pit for use in environmental education lessons that include roasting marshmallows or preparing food.
Misner said the barn was not formally used in her 10 years as a parent or eight years as a teacher at the school, but served as a visually striking addition to the 27-acre campus. Her classes meet next to the barn, in a former horse stable converted into an outdoor classroom, with a plastic windbreak and storage space.
“It’s what you see when you pull up the drive,” Jenica Getto said. “It’s iconic for the school.”
Seeing the barn at sunrise and sunset atop the hill on which the school sits has been a mood boost for many people across many years, Welsh-Baer said, including herself.
“It’s just beautiful,” Welsh-Baer said. “In the mornings when you come up and it’s the golden hour, and you’re driving up the hill and getting ready to start your day — the way the sunlight hits the barn just makes it a great start to any day.”