What type of person endures a ton of stress and expense to renovate a large, rapidly deteriorating, old barn into a venue for weddings, proms and other special events? First, it would be a person with a strong appreciation for their family history.

“My great-grandfather bought this farm for my grandparents, Charles and Helen Shear, in the early 1950s, and they milked cows here for the next 20-some years,” says Deb Conner, owner of the Hopewell Barn near Wabash, Ind. “Dairy farming was my grandparents’ life. As a little girl, I remember watching Grandpa milk cows in the dairy parlor.”

Second, it would be a person who “can’t sit still,” and wants to share something of that heritage with others.

“My ‘barn mentor,’ Colin Craig, who has a restored barn near Kokomo, told me, ‘These barns are big museums,’ and he’s right,” Conner says. “I enjoy having a couple hundred people come here every week and get a little taste of that history. Many come from Fort Wayne or South Bend and have no farm background. That’s why in the groom’s dressing room I saved some of the stanchions, to help them feel a little bit of that.”

One of Conner’s biggest challenges was finding the right people to do the renovation. “Restoring barns is unique,” she says. “You must find people who know what they’re doing and like this kind of work. Colin helped me find an Amish crew that he’d used, and they did excellent work. They’re experts at this, so I listened to their suggestions, and by the time they left, we were best of pals.”

The Amish crew did most of the heavy lifting, starting in January 2018 and leaving in late April. Despite all the trials of repurposing her grandparents’ barn, Conner says it was a labor of love.

“I don’t think I could have lived with myself if I had taken this barn down,” she says.

“I just wish my dad, grandma and grandpa were still here to have seen it,” she adds. “Dad could never have imagined it, Grandpa would have said, ‘What have you done with my barn?’ and Grandma would have loved it.”