Peek inside the reconstructed Star Barn, opening next week

The completed Star Barn reconstruction project will be unveiled during The Star Barn Village Grand Opening July 3 and 4.

The barn, built in 1877, was a landmark for decades along Route 283 near Middletown. It was known for its star louvers on each side of the barn.

Farming and dairy operations ceased at the complex in 1986, and it was moved to its current location in West Donegal Township as part of Stone Gables Estate, an existing events venue near Elizabethtown in Lancaster County.

David and Tierney Abel, through their business, DAS Companies, Inc., purchased The Star Barn Complex in October 2014 and completed the project this month.

The project is unusual in that it meets the needs of a modern venue while maintaining the character and most of the materials from the old barn.

According to David Abel, the new barn is a building within a building. It is taller and slightly wider. The back of the wooden roof you see inside is not the roof that is visible outside. There is insulation between the two roof layers.

The same is true for the walls. The barn’s original windows on the second floor were crude openings with a single sliding door.

Each window opening now has three sliding panels. The original sliding panel is visible inside the barn’s interior. An exterior panel duplicates the original and is visible when closed from the exterior. Between the two wood panels is a sliding glass panel that creates a weather seal and allows the barn to appear open when the other two panels are open.

There are several feet of unseen space between the first and second floors to accommodate utilities. The underside of the original floor of the second floor can still be seen as the ceiling of the first floor. The new second floor, which covers the utility space, is crafted out of 250-year-old oak and blends into the rest of the cathedral space of the barn.

Wiring, plumbing and a modern sprinkler system for fire suppression are hidden or worked into the shadows of the interior. A $350,000 audio system is hidden. A projection system reveals itself when needed from doors that open in the floor.

A geo-thermal heating system, which transfers heat through pipes buried in the ground, ensures a climate controlled interior without any evidence visible on the exterior that the barn has an HVAC system.

Services that would alter the interior of the structure like an elevator and commercial kitchen are incorporated into an attached building that marries the Gothic Revival-style architecture of the main barn.

The end result is that the Star Barn looks mostly unchanged inside and out, but hidden inside is the comfort and safety of a modern building.

The building has been designed with weddings in mind, with bride and groom areas on either side of the great barn room. The ornate Milk House attached to the right side of the barn provides a large preparation space for brides.

As a space that can accommodate up to 600 guests, the Star Barn is offered as an unusual meeting and breakout space, with state-of-the-art audio visual system with full service food and catering options, according to promotional material.

“For us it’s all about preserving that which these master craftsmen made in the 1800s, and preserve it for generations to come,” David Abel said. The goal is to put the completed property in a family trust so that it’s preserved for generations.

On the top floor is a wooden cart used by Abel’s great-grandfather in Columbia around 1890, which he says was used in the Abel family’s first business of cleaning out ashes and privies.

Now that The Star Barn Village is completed, the couple’s attention is turning toward moving a six-barn complex along the Fruitville Pike, called the Belmont Farm, which will take place over a two-year period starting in March.

Eventually, the plan is for five different farmsteads on the Stone Gables Estates site with 28 different buildings on the 275 acres “that would have been used in a typical Pennsylvania German farmstead, so people from all over can see and touch our history,” Abel said.

More information about the Grand Opening and other events can be found at