He salvaged wood from old barns to build new ‘recreation room’ in Chesterfield
When people move, they usually take their possessions. When Bill and Sandra Kirchoff have moved, they have also taken two barns, a log cabin and an outhouse.
Bill Kirchoff grew up on a 33-acre farm his grandfather purchased for $3,600 in 1906. Near what is now Creve Coeur Park in Maryland Heights, it had a small pasture, but it was developed as an orchard with myriad fruit trees growing "anything you can get from a tree," Bill says. In 1925 his grandfather added a barn to the property.
When the family farm was sold to the YMCA in 1997, Bill dismantled the barn and found a place to store it, thinking one day he would find a use for the lumber. He also took the two-seat wooden outhouse he remembers using as a child.
At the time he salvaged the barn, Bill and Sandra were living in an 1850 era home on a farmstead on Wild Horse Creek Road in Chesterfield, and it too had a barn from the same era. "That barn was huge," Bill says. "It had four levels."
Soon after they moved into the residence in 1975, they discovered it had been built around a two-story log cabin, which had been covered by plaster walls. "That house had been haphazardly added onto several times and after a while it was having electrical and plumbing issues, and the 20 acres was a lot of acreage and was a chore to maintain," Bill recalls.
By 2017 it was time to move.
They found a newer residence nearby on four acres. They moved in 2019. Not surprisingly, part of the appeal was that it also had a metal barn large enough to store the wood from the 1925 barn, with a lot of open space remaining.
They had retained ownership of the 1850 home and barn until 2022, when it was sold to a builder for a subdivision.
Since the home and barn were to be demolished, and since the metal barn at the new home had a lot of extra space, they dismantled the 1850 barn and the log cabin, and moved the lumber and hand-hewn logs from the cabin into the metal barn on the new property. They salvaged and stored all the kitchen appliances and bathroom cabinets out of the house before it was torn down. They also saved a gazebo and arbor.
There was plenty of storage room in the metal barn at the new home. There was even space left for the 1976 GMC pickup truck that belonged to Bill's father, and the 10-foot tall 1952 John Deere tractor he had used on the Maryland Heights farm as a young boy. He had kept both for sentimental reasons. "I just like to look at them," he says. "They remind me of good times."
The tractor and truck would have fit into the four-car garage at the new home, but the two extra spaces were already taken by a 1930 Ford Model A coupe and a 1957 Ford Thunderbird, both in pristine condition.
Meanwhile, with a background as an interior decorator, Sandra was working on updating the new residence. "We added crown molding and chair rails, replaced the white carpeting with wood floors, painted every wall and added windows."
Near a full bar in the lower level, Sandra contemplated painting over a 20-foot hand-painted mural of a Western bar scene titled "Wild Horse Saloon" but decided to leave it.
Just outside a walkout door from the bar, a gurgling waterfall cascades 50 feet down a hillside into a picturesque pond surrounded by white limestone boulders.
As Sandra was decorating, Bill set in motion a plan to replicate the 1850 barn on the new property, using the wood he had salvaged from both previous barns. Instead of a barn, the new building was destined to be a place to entertain friends.
In 2021 a shell was erected that complied with current building regulations. Then, Bill began to work on his own using the reclaimed wood to cover the exterior and interior walls, ceiling and floor.
In 2023 the interior work was completed. In addition to a huge great room, the new barn includes the kitchen and bathroom on the first floor that they had salvaged from the previous home. A loft bedroom and sitting area are on the upper level, behind a balcony overlooking the great room.
Bill made the stair treads leading up to the loft bedroom out of an old walnut tree he had cut into slabs and, of course, had stored.
Sandra filled the "new barn" with Western décor. Chandeliers incorporate deer antlers, and ceiling fans resemble repurposed windmill blades. Furniture is oversize leather chairs and couches, and cowhide rugs are on the floors. Two huge tree burls with irregular shapes and intricate patterns hang on the walls.
Although the new barn is freestanding and 50 feet from the home, Bill says "we think of it as a recreation room and part of the house."
The next project? Erect the log cabin. "We are looking for someone who can help us do that," Bill says pointing out the location where it will be located.
"When the log cabin goes up, we will have our own village," Sandra says.
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