Jan. 22, 2012 -- I will soon be turning in my application for a winery permit under the new ordinance. I am hopeful that the experience will be a positive one and that county staffers will be realistic and helpful along the journey and not the opposite. Other wineries who have gone through the process already tell me they estimate it cost them as much as $40,000 to comply with the health, building, and other codes triggerd by the $288 permit application. I am crossing my fingers this will not be the case for us because we simply don't have it. I realize it will cost some money, but hopefully staff will be reasonable and work with us to find the most cost effective ways to implement their requests. I plan to blog about the process as it unfolds to create a record of my experience, come what may, in the hopes that my doing so will encourage transparency and to help others who want to open a winery in Clark County in the future see what all is involved. Gulp. Wish me luck! Here's a link to the application:
http://www.clark.wa.gov/development/land_use/documents/winery.pdf
An article on our barn project and the State's effort to save more old barns:
http://www.columbian.com/news/2012/jan/09/barns-registry/
Handout
The Heisen barn in 2010 before restoration. The barn is listed on the Washington Heritage Barn Register. (Ruth Zschomler)
By Ruth Zschomler
Columbian staff writer
Monday, January 9, 2012
They’ve been used and abused for more than 50 years, and remain an important reminder of Clark County’s agricultural roots. This is a story of three of the county’s historic barns.
Photo by Zachary Kaufman
Above, Chris Eckels holds his 8-month-old daughter, Mary, as he shows off the barn at Heisen House Vineyards in Battle Ground on Dec. 22. Owners Eckels and Michele Bloomquist received a grant that helped them restore the barn. At right, the Heisen barn in 2010 before restoration.
Michele Bloomquist knew the barn was special when she bought the historic Heisen Farm in 2002. Considering that its builders most likely used little more than axes to construct it in the 1890s, the craftsmanship is exquisite, Bloomquist said. She wanted to save the dilapidated barn, knowing it was one of the oldest in the county still standing, if not the oldest. But she didn’t know how.
Then she read an article about the Washington Heritage Barn Register and registered her barn. She was turned down for a grant to help restore it, but tried again
during the next round of applications, and when she was awarded a Heritage Barn Preservation Grant in 2010, began a flurry of fundraising. The $30,000 matching grant to restore the historic barn required Bloomquist to come up with an equal amount in cash and donations within two years. She was also expected to pay the restoration costs up-front before the grant would be disbursed. During the year, she held an old-fashioned barn-bash, a Sunflower Festival, a Lavender Festival and a Crush Festival, all asking for donations to help restore the barn.
Over 12 months, Bloomquist was able to match the grant through a combination of donations of cash, labor and materials. “It was definitely a community effort,” she said. Whenever a need came up, someone would show up with a solution. Such as using reclaimed lumber from the disintegrating barn at the historic Kapus Farm in Ridgefield. Often, support came from people she’d never met.
When her first contractor didn’t work out, Bloomquist thought she might lose the grant money. Not many people know how to work with historic properties and old-fashioned construction techniques.
But Bert Sarkkinen, owner of Arrow Timber Framing, does. So when he learned she needed help, he called Bloomquist.
The company specializes in construction that doesn’t use nails — mainly mortise and tenon. They jacked the barn up, removed the rotted wood, and replaced it using similar construction techniques as the original.
Sarkkinen, a member of The Timber Framers Guild, said the most difficult part of the project was figuring out how to join the timbers and address the rotting posts while the structure was still standing.
The project was finished in June. “Now the risk of the barn falling has been eliminated,” Bloomquist said. “Our next goal is to raise money to replace the roof, which has been on for over 50 years.”
While Bloomquist originally hoped to use the barn for the winery she owns, “the plan is that the barn will remain the barn” to park the tractors in. Retrofitting it would have been cost-prohibitive.
She feels fortunate to have had the opportunity to do the amount of work on the barn that she has. “I feel like it speaks to the taxpayers of Washington that this building is still standing.”
Photo by Zachary Kaufman
Joseph and Jacqueline Freeman stand if front of the barn at Friendly Haven Rise Farm. The barn, built in 1918, is listed on the Washington Heritage Barn Register. (The Columbian Files/Zachary Kaufman)
Jacqueline and Joseph Freeman of Friendly Haven Rise Farm in Venersborg listed their barn on the registry in 2007, as well.
“It was a rather enjoyable process,” Jacqueline said. She first learned about the registry through the WSU Clark County Extension service. “Part of the application is taking photos of the barn and that made us look at the interior details more,” she said. “We even found records they kept of the cows’ milking status, written on the wall.” When the barn was built in 1918, the wood was taken from the farm’s forest. It was owned for around 90 years by the Moberg family.
The barn is built into a hillside and the foundation is dirt; over the years, it’s shifted so it’s no longer square.
“We have the intention of pouring a concrete foundation and hiring a contractor with a crane to square it back up,” Freeman said. But not until the recession runs its course, she said. “The upper part of the barn needs work, too, but the big job is getting the foundation under it first. Once the base is solid we can straighten out the frame and get everything back in square.”
They applied for a grant this year, but the budget was lower due to the economy and they didn’t get approved.
While immediate plans for the barn include keeping their cows and goats in it, their long range plans are more sentimental. When the barn was built, only wood without knots was used in the flooring, so it would stay smooth and even for dances, she said.
Someday, Jacqueline wants to bring the tradition back. “My dream is to have an open community barn dance in it,” Jacqueline said.
Every year the farm, which the Freemans bought in 2001, presents an Heirloom Apple Tasting at the Venersborg Schoolhouse. Some income from the event goes to the newly formed Venersborg Historical Preservation Society to care for the little schoolhouse, but the rest is dedicated to the barn restoration project.
Handout
Ken Giles works on his Grinnell Road Farm barn restoration project. The barn is a 1920s vintage structure originally constructed as a dairy barn. Now it’s used for hay storage and shelter for three horses. The siding was a salvage donation from the Washington state Historic Buildings Program and came from a demolished barn.
The barn at the Grinnell Road Farm, owned by Julia Anderson and her husband, Ken Giles, is on the list as well. The structure, part of a historic farm site from the 1900s, came with the property when Anderson bought it 20 years ago, along with a hand-hewn log cabin.
Last year, on their own, the couple shored up the west-facing walls of the barn with new support beams and footings. Through the heritage barn program, they were able to get donated wood salvaged from another barn that was torn down.
“We have put hours and hours of sweat equity into this,” Anderson said.
It occurred to them to apply for a grant through the barn program. They put together a proposal and recently received a matching grant of $4,980, which will help them begin work on the east wall and put in a drainage system to divert water away from the barn — it’s on a slope and over the years has been creeping sideways.
“This program of the state is remarkable and essential for creating a feel for Washington state,” Anderson said. She says it’s an important program. “We’re never going to build these buildings again. They enhance the community.”
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• Since 1935, the number of farms in America has decreased by more than 4.5 million, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In 2010, more than 9,700 farm and ranch owners in Washington said they owned a barn built before 1960.
• In 2007, the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation created the Washington Heritage Barn Register with the hopes of saving some of these historic barns that represent the agricultural heritage of Washington.
• State Architectural Historian Michael Houser encourages barn owners to list their barns on the registry. “I think it’s a great way to honor the agricultural history of the state of Washington,” he said. “It’s a way to formally get things documented before they are lost.”
• Before 2007, 40 barns were on the National Register of Historic Places. Since then, more than 480 barns joined the state registry; Clark County is home to 17 of them.
Historic barns
Clark County barns on the state Heritage Barn Register, with date they were built:
• Birrer Farm, 8612 N.E. 119th St., 1953.
• Carlson Farm, 217 N.E. Hayes Road, Woodland, 1941.
• Century View Farm/Hazen Barn, 121000 N.E. Grantham Road, Amboy, 1888.
• Friendly Haven Rise Farm, 20309 N.E. 242nd Ave., Battle Ground, 1918.
• Grinnell Road Farm/Olson Barn, 15211 N.E. Grinnell Road, Woodland, circa 1925.
• Heisen Farm, 27904 N.E. 174th Ave., Battle Ground, circa 1898.
• MacPherson Barn, 1013 N.W. 389th St., Woodland, circa 1946.
• Nickels’ Farm, 2929 N.W. 199th St., Ridgefield, 1939.
• Old Schwartz Farm, 6505 N.E. 209th St., Battle Ground, circa 1917.
• Paradise Acres, 19712 N.E. 83rd St., 1938.
• Plas Newydd LLC/Columbia Lancaster Farm, 33415 N.W. Lancaster Road, Ridgefield, circa 1915, circa 1880.
• Roth Dairy, 21310 N.W. Roth Road, Ridgefield, 1917.
• Pomeroy Farm, 20902 N.E. Lucia Falls Road, Yacolt, circa 1930.
• Gallagher Farm/Angus Taylor Barn, 33718 N.E. 60th Ave., La Center, 1924.
• Sims Farm/McCormick Barn, 29117 N.E. 10th Ave., Ridgefield, circa 1915.
• Folkerts Farm, 12902 N.E. 87th Ave., 1910.
• Kempe Prune Dryer, 16516 W 41st Ave., Ridgefield, circa 1907.
Could your barn qualify?
To find out if your barn might be eligible for the Washington Heritage Barn Register, ask questions such as these as a starting point:
• Was the barn built before 1960?
• Is it exceptionally large (over 40 feet wide and over 60 feet long, not counting wings or sheds)?
• Is it an unusual shape?
• Did an important event (such as a farm protest meeting) take place there?
— Washington State Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation
ON THE WEB
By Ossie Bladine
In 2002, Michele Bloomquist drove by a lot in rural North Clark County, Wash.; it was comprised of a “For Sale” sign and a clump of trees, overtaken by blackberry bushes and falling apart.
Today, that five-acre lot is home to Heisen House Vineyards, which celebrates its one-year anniversary on Memorial Day Weekend with friends, wine lovers and owners Bloomquist and Chris Eckels.
Bloomquist decided to buy the land after learning it was a state and national historic site, originally settled by Alexander Heisen in the second half of the 19th century. Heisen’s son built the house on the property in 1898. The barn, built by Alexander himself with only an ax, is dated between 1866 and 1888.
“I knew I wanted to do something to open it up and share it with people,” Bloomquist said.
She first thought of turning it into a lavender farm, but then a friend suggested they use the abundant amount of apples on the land to make hard apple cider. The next year, they bought grapes and added wine to the hobbyist’s production. Eventually, a vineyard it would become.
“It sort of just unfolded,” Bloomquist said. “I thought it was a great way to share the property with people, and the revenue from the wine can go back into saving the site.”
Bloomquist and Eckels, who met at a wine and food pairing class and are expecting a baby girl in early May, are producing 300 cases at the moment, four reds and a sparkling white. The vineyard is two years away from on-site production, with Gamay Noir, Orange Muscat, Tempranillo and Gerwürztraminer grapes, and will yield four barrels when ready. The grapes, like the ones bought from outside growers, are grown using certified sustainable practices.
“This is my contribution to the experiment of what grapes will ripen in Clark County,” Bloomquist said. “The Tempranillo is sort of a wild card … the Gamay Noir I have really high hopes for. There aren’t many reds that will ripen up here in Clark County.”
Bloomquist jokes that they run the “MacGyver” winery. They are building their business with no debt, growing as they can grow. Everything is done by hand, from labeling to hauling the grapes around in buckets. It’s a style that very much fits the land.
An old milking parlor built in the ’50s was turned into a winery and tasting room. The long-term plan is to move the working winery into the barn, built entirely of hand-hewn lumber and believed to be the oldest, or at least one of the oldest standing barns in Clark County. They are in the finishing stages of repairing the barn, made possible by a $30,000 grant through the state’s heritage barn program, which they matched through donations and volunteer time.
“I didn’t realize how bad it was until we fixed it, and then I realized how close it was to falling down,” Bloomquist said.
Bloomquist admits the land is not an ideal vineyard location. But the sustainable and the historical niches add a unique character to the Southwest Washington wine scene, now home to 11 wineries. Another unique flavor: a turkey named Thanksgiving that struts its stuff during tasting hours.
“You can always see people out here talking,” Eckels said, “and you can hear one of them go a little bit louder than their normal conversation, ‘is that a turkey?’”
Heisen House Vineyards was well received locally in its first year. This summer, it will feature live music every Friday evening, four festivals — Barn Bash, Lavender Fest, Sunflower Fest and Crush Fest — and a monthly Second Saturday wine loop with Rusty Grape Vineyard and Olequa Cellars, which are sponsors of an inaugural North County Wine Run half marathon on Oct. 1.
Yet, drawing wine enthusiasts from south of the Columbia River is still a challenge.
“That river creates a boundary in peoples’ minds,” Eckels said, “even though we’re only a 30-minute drive from Portland.”
“Wine in Clark County is sort of in that mythical golden age right now, where at every one of these wineries, chances are it’ll be the winemaker pouring the wine behind the bar,” Bloomquist added. “It’s a very small window of time when a new region is in that stage of development, so it’s really exciting to be part of that.”
Ossie Bladine is the editor of the Vancouver Voice as well as a freelance writer. He lives in Vancouver, Wash.
WINERY INFO
Heisen House Vineyards
Address: 28005 N.E. 172nd Ave., Battle Ground, WA
Hours: Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 6 p.m. (Memorial Day–October); and Fridays (with live music), 7 to 10 p.m. (June–September)
Phone: 360-713-2359
Web: www.heisenhousevineyards.com
Owners: Michele Bloomquist and Chris Eckels
Established: May 2010
Reds: Merlot, Sangiovese, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon
Whites: Gewürztraminer, Viognier
Acreage: 5 total, 1 planted
March 12, 2011 -- Chris spent this week racking the reds and rose wines we made in 2010. The whites were racked a few weeks back and are now on bentonite, so those will be a few more weeks settling back down before they get racked again. Despite the white knuckle growing season and in many cases less than ideal sugar and acid levels, the wines are smelling and tasting fabulous which is a big relief. The rose wines are nearly ready for bottling, and the whites shouldn't be far behind. The reds still have a year to go yet, but are already looking very promising. For a small winery like ours, it can be pretty nerve wracking to have 10k worth in grape juice sitting in your cellar, and to just hope and pray that the wines will not just turn out, but turn out well, and that they will continue to meet your own quality standards and also be marketable so you can get your money that's locked up in those tanks back in time to buy the next year's grapes and start the wild ride all over again. So far, so good. Thank Goodness!
photo: 1.5 gallons of cab sauv rose that didn't fit in the tank. Lovely color -- and it smells just as good.
Dear winery,
We need to talk. I know you are still young and that I committed to nurturing and caring for you. But truly, the neverending expenses need to stop. This year, let's make a pact. You make at least as much money back as you take out. Break even is all I ask. And while it's nice to have all the fancy new gadgets like all the other wineries have, we need to cut your budget a bit there too. Thanks so much!
Your loving winemaker,
Michele
Jan. 13, 2010 -- Something that has taken me completely off guard since opening the winery had been the overwhelming number of donation requests I receive for wine. There have been weekends where I get no less than three people come by a day, asking me to donate wine for this or that cause, action, or fundraiser. The problem is they are all incredibly good causes, and all this runs right along with my own do-gooder nature, but I am afraid I could literally give away all of the wine I make if I said yes to everyone. So I am trying to decide what is the best way to handle this? Some wineries set policies like they themselves pick one or two causes, have a yearly fundraiser, and call it good. Others will only donate to wine club member's causes. Still others use the stock line of, "Thanks, we'll discuss this at our next company meeting," as a way to buy some time and avoid saying no right then and there. Considering the number of requests, I am going to have to come up with some policy and stick with it, even if it makes me feel like a meanie. This morning alone I have received two e-mails soliciting donations. I don't fault anyone for this, these folks are trying to do good things, and they have probably found that people like to bid on wine at auctions and fundraisers. Wineries appear from the outside to be very "affluent" ventures, which of course is often not the case but basically required to attract visitors to one's site. Who wants to taste wine at Chateau de Poverty? Add to that wineries seem to be one of only a handful of businesses, besides Hickory Farms, who actually give their product away for free as samples in hopes that someone will buy. But here's a dirty little secret -- even for me the wine isn't free. The grapes aren't free. The equipment isn't free. The bottles aren't free. The labels aren't free. The corks aren't free. And it costs a surprising amount to operate, market, and attract people to a winery as well. Most wineries are operating at a loss, not a profit, because they love making wine and nobody clued them in that they wouldn't get rich doing it beforehand, and once they sunk their life savings into opening a winery, well they have no choice but to keep doing it and hope it will someday make sense. Somebody has to pay for all of that dreaming, and in my case that somebody is unfortunately me. So if I turn down your cause or charity, I apologize in advance. Please don't think me some heartless miser keeping all the gold for myself. The reality is -- I have to at least break even, and my lack of a trust fund, investors, or a benevolent rich relative requires that I not not give away more wine than I sell to do it. If you want a better chance of getting a donation from me or any winery, can I humbly suggest you patronize and support the business as well in exchange? That would be ever so kind.
Dec. 12, 2010 -- One of the most interesting and vexing things about winemaking is that if you ask 5 vintners the same question, you'll most likely get 5 different answers.
Such is the case now as I face a funky stink in 2 of the wines I made this year. The stink is a common and fixable occurance, thank goodness, so that isn't the problem. Figuring out what path to take to get rid of it is.
On the up side, any of the recommended 5 paths will likely all get me where I want to go -- to remove the offending odor and save the wine (not the mention the investment in cash, time, and energy into those wines so far.) The downside is it kind of feels like I am rolling the dice by picking any said path. Gosh this would be a lot easier if 1 + 1 = 2.
Of course there's always hindsight -- I am now accutely aware of what I could have done to prevent the stink from ever emerging, and while that information will be most helpful next crush, it won't help now so I will file that away as another winemaking lesson learned the hard way (which seems to be the way most wine making lessons are learned.)
What remains is the "what now?" dilemma. There are an array of choices. One option is to go right for the A-bomb and be done with it. The other options include various ways of baby stepping toward the end result, trying less invasive and drastic measures in order of invasiveness until the problem either goes away or I end up at the A-bomb approach anyway.
Do nothing and the wine will be a goner for sure, so that's not really an option. Doing all of this may also result in a wine that ends up being not so great or even unsellable, but at least in that case there's the old, "I did all I could do" salve to fall back on. Well you know, except for the things I now know I should have done in the first place. Kick self, kick self.
In case you are wondering "what is the stink and what's causing it?" I would go into the specifics of what the problem is and what the possible fixes are, except I am leery of putting that out into cyberspace where someone could run across my half baked and hurridly recorded thoughts and actually mistake them for real advice, possibly taking action based upon said "advice" and then either ruining their wine or worse making their wine toxic by misuse of the approaches.
[Side word of advice: Do not take wine making advice from blogs. Take your problem wine around to other winemakers in person, get them to smell and taste it, and if you need help get someone to help you do something you are not sure how to do yourself. Remember, people are going to (hopefully) drink this stuff. And some wine making chemicals, while perfectly legal, can also be potentially lethal when added in the incorrect amounts.]
So I'll just leave it at the observation of the overall phenomenem which is there are as many ways to skin a wine-making cat as there are winemakers. Just accept it as one of those facinating and frustrating things about making wine. Get as many optinions as you can, then take a deep breath and do what rings true to you.
Oh, and figuring out who makes the best wine among the people you are asking and then following THEIR advice may be a good way to go, too...
Cheers!
"Don’t let what you can’t do stop you from what you can do." ~ John Wooden
Nov. 17, 2010 -- It's been awhile since I wrote an update on the barn project, but not because nothing is happening. Or actually, despite my best efforts it was looking like nothing was going to happen and then in typical Heisen House style, it's all falling into place.
Many times since buying this home I have had moments of incredible serindipity. Someone with just the skills or knowledge needed often walks through the door exactly when they are needed most. Someone knows someone who has the historic detail needed. Those who have known or loved the family or home for years generously step in to help.
After a summer of fundraising and approaching many groups who may have been able to help, we're ready to begin the work needed to right the historic Heisen Barn and get her back on her feet. I'm excited about the involvement of a local timber framing company, who have agreed to take on the technical aspects of the project (shaping the logs, jacking and bracing the building, installing the timbers) and to work with us and a core group of volunteers to do the rest (remove siding, dig holes, and other less "skilled" labor.)
Anyone who knows me well would know what an unlikey person I am to take on a task like this. I have the proverbial two left thumbs and can't tell one carepntry tool from the next. But despite that, it's happening. The most unlikely person to ever head a historic barn renovation project is somehow doing it, despite incredible odds and roadblocks. I'm not letting what I can't do stop me from doing what I can.
And so we begin. It's beyond exciting! Magic is afoot! And it will be glorious!
Nov. 12, 2010 -- Once again crush has come and gone without a detailed documentation of what all happened. I had the best of intentions of recording something, even a few sentences, every day but it just didn't happen. Here's what did happen: Waiting on grapes to ripen, Crush festival where we crushed and pressed the first wine of the season, bottled wines to get barrels and tanks open for crush, Labor Day wine tour, weird weather made some varieties unavailable, quick scramble to find other varieties to replace them, be on call to drive four hours each way to fetch grapes on multiple occasions, after driving 8+ hours come home to crush and press the grapes, clean up all of the gear, sometimes turn around a day or two later and do it all over again, make sure to have all of the chemicals, yeasts, and additives needed for each batch, pay all the bills, represent Heisen House at a Sip and Stroll wine event downtown Vancouver, order more fermenting tanks and vessels for wine storage, a visit from my good friend Liz, daily punch downs of the reds, daily testing of sugar levels etc., makeshift tents of tarps and heaters to keep temps at the correct temperature for primary ferment, a last minute wedding booking, scramble to get all of the wine stuff off the covered area to clear that for the wedding, confirm barn restoration plans, pay all the bills, plan for the Thanksgiving day tour and order items for the gift shop to be ready for the holidays, update the group tour website, get, crush, and press more grapes, last minute scramble to deal with rain on the day of the wedding, successful wedding, make arrangements for ads for Thanksgiving weekend, pay all the bills, negotiate with the county re: the final winery ordinance, attend winery ordinance meeting, be interviewed in several papers, have the most successful sales day ever after a tour bus with 36 people stops by that I had forgot was coming, crush and press more grapes, make a trip to Iowa for Chris's grandmother' funeral, make arrangements for someone to care for Mia, feed the pets and chickens, and come punch down the wines while we are gone for three days, teach a class for WSU extension telling people how to start a winery and vineyard, pay all the bills, press off the final batch, open the tasting room every weekend in the midst of it all, keep up with all of my freelance writing (which is what actually pays the bills around here), wonder how in the heck we ever got all that done, feel less guilty for not recording what was happening every day.
Sept. 24, 2010 -- After a bit of the usual harvest back and forth (watching the sugar and acid levels, rain throwing things off, taking more readings, checking the weather, crossing fingers and toes, and so on) it seems Mother Nature and the sauv blanc vines are in agreement that the grapes will be ready in time for our Crush Fest tomorrow. What luck! They will soon be loaded onto a flatbed trailer and be heading back to Heisson.
I hadn't planned on having "real" grapes for the wine making demonstrations, but figured I'd be using unripe ones to show the process for demonstration purposes only. Pretty cool that we'll be making a wine that will actually be released next spring! Of course I have never crushed for a live audience before, should be interesting. I hope I can remember to narrate what is happening as it is happening and also keep track of what I am doing at the same time.
Big day. Big summer. Big first season. And now big finale. Wow!