RESTORE THE RED BARN
The historic Red Barn at Mianus River Park is an iconic structure and an incredible opportunity to build community around the conservation of the Mianus River watershed through events and environmental education.
There’s no more recognizable building in the entire Mianus River watershed than the Red Barn at Mianus River Park.
The Mianus Chapter has an opportunity to secure a low-cost, 25-year renewable lease of this building with the city of Stamford. Covered by a new roof less than a decade ago, this structure has stood vacant since shortly after the property was acquired, but has a range of immediate community uses - from storage space to functioning social and educational rooms. By locking in a lease with the city now, the Mianus Chapter can launch the new ‘Mianus River Environmental Education Center’ and leverage this home base to grow and expand our impact on the health of the entire watershed.
To lease the building, we must first demonstrate a commitment of approximately $50,000 a year invested in the restoration of the Red Barn, and are turning to the entire Mianus River community to help us secure the funds needed to begin the process of lovingly restoring the Red Barn and bringing it back to life as an educational and events center to connect future generations to this river and its care and recovery.
The ‘Fireplace Room’ can be used almost immediately as a social space for the chapter and to host activities such as casual gatherings, small talks, fly tying and more. It has a separate entrance to the park.
The upstairs ‘Classroom’ space simply requires a sweep out, a window cleaning and a fresh coat of paint to make it usable as a meeting space, learning center for small school groups and more.
RESTORTAION STEPS & LONG TERM CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLANS
The initial restoration effort will center on making the Red Barn a usable space by repairing and re-painting the exterior to signal a new birth for this iconic building as well as cleaning, restoring and upgrading the two main spaces, the “fireplace Room” and the “Classroom”. These spaces mostly need a sweep out, a clean out, a fresh coat of paint and some work on the windows to make them functional.
The outside grounds will also be cleared, seating areas installed and additional event-only parking developed to ensure we have access to spaces to park when hosting events in this busy community park.
We’ll also begin to clean out the two upstairs bedrooms and bathroom - which once housed estate staff and later AmeriCorps volunteers as recently as the 1980s - and to assess and develop plans for restoring the plumbing.
The initial few years of use will focus on building community around the Red Barn while we develop a longer-term capital campaign plan to fully restore the entire structure.