Betting the Farm on Steel Construction

Losing a century-old barn in a devastating tornado is likely to be bad news for any family-owned farm. But a silver lining shone through the dark storm clouds spawning that March, 2020 twister. After losing her Nashville barn, Whooping Crane Farm owner Ellen Jacobson decided to build a brand-new barn, eventually choosing to construct a metal structure and selecting Ecosteel as the company to help her rebuild the edifice.

With her demolished old barn a distant memory, Jacobson now has a stunning new barn that can be used to store her farm equipment. In addition, it can be utilized in her new spring-and-summer pick-your-own blueberry business, and offseason as a special-events venue for wedding receptions and parties accommodating up to 100 guests.

The barn’s beauty and functionality is fully matched by the durability for which steel structures are famous, an important quality in a region of straight-line winds.

Family history

Nestled in an area along Tennessee’s Cumberland River called Bells Bend, Whooping Crane Farm has been owned by members of Jacobson’s family for almost a century. “My great grandfather bought three farms, one for each of his sons to operate, and this particular farm was the one my own grandfather worked,” Jacobson says. “They grew corn, wheat, any number of row crops, and he had a dairy.”

A dermatologist by profession, Jacobson bought out her mother’s share of the 140-acre farm in year 2000, and her uncle’s share 12 years later. She lives on the farm in a log cabin she had built for her use about eight years ago. The original farmhouse has since been utilized as both a short-term Airbnb rental and a long-term rental, she says.

At 1 a.m. on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020, the farm’s 105-year-old, three-story, 6,000-square-foot barn was demolished by a tornado inflicting more than $100 million worth of damage to the region. Because Jacobson had been working with her farm community to establish Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) in her neighborhood, her barn had been used by every local farmer to store their hay. Now, the old barn was gone.

Not that Jacobson hadn’t expected it to collapse earlier. “We have a lot of straight-line winds in this area,” she says. “After a straight-line wind event would take place, I’d come home from work and be amazed this barn built in 1915 was still up. I knew I needed something resilient, something insulated and something that would last another 100 years. We mostly considered wood structures, but we also looked at metal structures.”

Jacobson and general contractor Loran Shallenberger prepared plans for a new barn that would include space for an office, events and farm equipment storage. But the supply-chain impact of the pandemic was being felt, and given the escalating cost of lumber, it became evident an Ecosteel building would cost less than wood. Helping further sway the decision toward Ecosteel was Jacobson’s desire to install solar panels on the roof of the barn. A metal structure would easily support such an installation.It took several months to create the basic design, Jacobson recalls. “There’s not a lot out there on rebuilding barns,” she adds. “Most of what you see [regarding designs] are ‘barn-dominiums,’ where people convert an old barn into living arrangements. Loran researched the different options, but Ecosteel had the prefabricated insulated panels, and we learned it snaps together like a Lego set . . . Once we had a design, they engineered the framing, the panels, the slab and the roof. The building was completed this year. They just finished the apron that goes over the entry, for protection from rain.”

Recent work addressed the barn’s interior. “I spent a fair amount of time on Ecosteel’s website, looking at what they could offer in terms of structures and finishes,” Jacobson says. “They were really on top of guiding me in finishing options and making sure it fit for everything I wanted to do. Once that was in place, it was really easy because it’s a modular system. It was possible to snap in the other elements I wanted, like a bathroom, kitchen, staircase and the support structure for the office area.”

Neighbors wowed

The final touches involved designing the landscape around the barn. “I had a landscape architect and a lighting engineer for the lighting,” Jacobson says. “Jake Keown, my main contractor, worked with Loran to make sure grading and all elements came together to make it look seamless. He was there every day, dissecting the plans for the building, the landscaping, the lighting, the fountain and stone work, making it all come together.”

Jacobson’s landscape architect worked to tie in the original barn’s silo to the new barn to ensure a cohesive structure. Once irrigation had been installed, installation of the electrical conduit, landscaping, lighting, fountain and stone work proceeded apace.

What, now, is the result? “It’s lit up like a Christmas tree. It looks like it’s always been there, the way my contractor graded the property. It’s very organic the way it fits the landscape,” Jacobson reports, adding, “My neighbors are saying, ‘Wow, it is fabulous.’”

With her barn completed, she has big plans for Whooping Crane Farm’s future. Approximately 2,200 blueberry plants were planted at the farm this autumn, and she will open a pick-your-own berries business out of the barn’s event space in the spring and summer of 2025. The rest of the year? “Weddings, corporate events and celebratory dinners, because we have the full catering kitchen,” she says. “I’ve been approached to have the barn used for art exhibits and painting classes. I’d like to hold jam-making classes. There’s a lot of opportunity for different events.”

To spotlight the farm’s history, Jacobson arranged for her grandfather’s old farm records and her grandmother’s egg sales to be reproduced as large art pieces on heavy-duty posterboard. These objets d’art are displayed in one particular area of the barn’s interior. “It’s a nice homage to the history of the property,” she says. “My uncle and I also salvaged a lot of the old barn wood, and much of it used in paneling inside the barn.”

In addition, Jacobson ensured the property could exist off the grid. The energy from the solar panels can be stored in three large Tesla batteries in the barn and used when needed. Geothermal wells have been dug to provide geothermal heating and cooling.

Asked if anything surprised her about the use of steel as a building material, Jacobson didn’t hesitate. “Because of the finish, the barn’s color changes with the sunlight,” she says. “It changes from a green to a gray, and from a distance looks black. The variations in green are displayed with different angles of sunlight. It’s beautiful all day long.”

Once the new barn was completed, one quality of the structure did not surprise her at all. “My original plan was that I wanted something that would last 100 years,” she says.