Helen and Tom Bartuska
Basalt Books/WSU Press: 2024
They are few and far between. Washington’s remaining round barns are architectural gems, enchanting and complex structures that balance beauty with function. This volume, loaded with decades’ worth of research but perfect for the coffee table with its stunning photography, celebrates these barns in all their circular glory.
Round barns account for not quite half of 1 percent of a total of some 3,000 barns in Washington state. Wife and husband Helen and Tom Bartuska have been visiting, researching, and photographing them since the 1960s, not long after Tom began teaching architecture at Washington State University. He’s now a professor emeritus at WSU’s School of Design and Construction, and she’s a retired Montessori teacher.
They focus on round barns that are more than 50 years old and stand at least two stories tall. Their beautiful new book compiles the stories and statistics of 21 structures.
Most were built in the early 1900s. Seven no longer exist. The oldest dates to 1872. The newest, 1971. One of the most formidable is the award-winning 1917 Leonard Barn, located three miles from Pullman. The picturesque polygon, one of the authors’ own personal favorites, marks the first known use of early laminated trusses from the nearby Potlatch Lumber Company. The 12-sided structure was restored in the early 2000s.
Round barns dot the entire state—from Cathlamet, Castle Rock, and Chehalis on the west side to Winthrop, Yakima, and Grandview in central Washington, and Medical Lake and more in eastern Washington. The dual Seitz/Frazier polygon barns in Walla Walla date to 1903 and are still used for storage. Centerville’s Crocker Ranch polygon barn, built in 1915, is the state’s only 14-sided barn. The 1954 Yochum Ranch round barn was built with a low profile to withstand the strong winds of Asotin County.
The book ventures beyond Washington state’s borders, spotlighting a handful of repurposed round barns in Oregon, Montana, Vermont, Illinois, Wisconsin, and South Dakota, as well as a 2016 straw-bale, barn-shaped round house in Deary, Idaho. Several repurposed non-round barns in Washington are also featured, such as WSU’s own Lewis Alumni Centre and the Dahmen Barn in Uniontown near Pullman.