Crystal Lake Park District moves forward with barn demolition despite historic commission opposition

Demolition is set for a more than 100-year-old barn at Hill Farm Park in Crystal Lake, despite preservation efforts from the park district and historical commission.

The Barlina barn at 705 Barlina Road was set to be demolished by the Crystal Lake Park District earlier this fall in order to renovate Hill Farm Park. Demolition was the only financially rational thing to do after efforts to repurpose the building or even the wood were unsuccessful, said Amy Olson, Crystal Lake Park District manager of park planning and development.

Demolition work will be put out for bid and is expected to take place in the spring, Olson said. Once demolished, the land will be a grassy lot.

Crystal Lake Historic Preservation Commission members spoke to the park district board at a meeting Nov. 16 hoping to find a way to keep the barn.

Commission member Brittany Niequist said the barn is “one of the last of its kind.”

“I love that barn,” she said. “McHenry County is an agricultural county in history. That barn is one of the last remaining barns within the city limits.”

Park District board member Cathy Cagle said at the meeting that there’s no cost-effective way to use the barn.

“As a taxing body, we’re so responsible in how we spend money that it didn’t make sense to spend a lot of money on something that we can’t use,” Cagle said.

After visiting the Barlina barn in December with the Crystal Lake Historic Preservation Commission, the park district considered repurposing the barn. Some ideas included selling the barn wood for reuse, renting it as storage for local breweries of whiskey or bourbon barrels, renting the barn for agribusinesses and creating more garden plots in the barn.

“While this is a creative use of the space, the location and its proximity to a preschool and residential neighborhood may present some challenges,” park district Executive Director Jason Herbster said in a report to the board.

The exact age of the barn is unknown, but it is estimated to have been built between the 1890s and the 1910s, commission member Robert Kosin said.

“The significance of the barn is not so much the people that were associated with it, but rather the architectural construction of it, the material and its remnant of an industry that was very prominent throughout this part of McHenry County,” he said.

A unique architectural feature of the barn is its gambrel roof, which is shaped like a bird’s wing that “cascades outward” for more storage, Kosin said.

The barn and surrounding farmland were bought by Ivan Hill in 1960. He named the farm “Barlina” after his three children: Barry, Lisa and Nina, according to the Crystal Lake Historical Society. The Barlina farm was donated to the park district in 1972.

Kosin hopes the barn can be remembered through 3D renderings and detailed scale drawings.

Olson plans to keep some pieces of wood in hopes to display it as a historic piece if the park district gets a new facility, she said.