Kent group wants to save historic barn in levee project’s path

An old, red barn that sits along the Green River could be just what Kent needs to preserve a piece of farming history.

Sharon Bersaas and Nancy Simpson are leading a drive to save the Dvorak Barn along Russell Road so future generations can know the story about the city’s once booming agricultural industry before warehouses and distribution centers took over much of the Kent Valley.

“That’s what started Kent,” said Bersaas as she stood last week near the barn. “We were the lettuce capital of the world.”

Efforts are underway to save the barn, built in 1925, because it sits in the path of a proposed Lower Russell Road levee expansion by the city and the King County Flood Control District. The city bought the property in order expand the levee to increase flood protection and change insurance requirements if the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) certifies the levee.

“We’d just hate to see the barn destroyed and bulldozed because it represents so much,” Bersaas said. “We thought what a wonderful venue this would make. It could be a interpretive center, brewery, community center, restaurant or gallery.”

Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke invited Bersaas and Simpson to a City Council meeting last month so they could tell the council about the movement to save the barn.

The David Neely family came to Kent in 1854 and later received a land grant of 320 acres near the river that includes the barn. The barn is named after the Dvorak family that last farmed the land. A farmhouse and several outbuildings also remain on the property and must be removed for the levee improvements.

Bersaas formed a task force to help keep the barn, possibly by moving it to a new location. She has started to get estimates about how much it would cost to restore and move the barn. The first company told her it could move the barn to the city’s nearby bird sanctuary for about $600,000, which would include building a foundation for the barn. She’s waiting for a response from a second company.

Other potential locations for the barn could be on city property next to the Neely-Soames Historic Homestead along the Green River or the old Smith Brothers dairy on West Valley Highway now owned by the Carpinito brothers and operated as a nursery.

Bersaas wrote a proposal to the Seattle-based Washington Trust for Historic Preservation to get the barn on the group’s Most Endangered Historic Properties in the State of Washington. In April, the barn made the list.

Chris Moore, executive director of the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, said the group’s goal with the list is to raise awareness of the issue. He said it also provides support to advocates trying to save historic buildings.

“We work with stakeholders and offer advice and guidance, such as with barn restoration or even moving the building,” Moore said in a phone interview.

Because the levee project must go through a regulatory process, Moore said his group will help make sure discussions about what to do with the barn are part of the proposal by the city and county.

“We will be the voice for the barn,” he said. “It’s endangered because of the levee improvements. We are not opposed to the levee improvements and do not intend to stop the levee process. But we want to ensure that the barn and homestead are considered as part of the project. If there is a way to save it or move it or commemorate it another way, we want to make sure that is part of the discussion.”

The federal government also could play a role in what happens to the barn. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for leading the regulatory process, including determining whether the property is eligible for the national Register of Historic Places, said Allyson Brooks, a historic preservation officer with the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation.

“The barn will fall under the Section 106 process…otherwise known as Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act,” Brooks said in an email about the process that requires federal agencies to take into account the effects of their undertakings (such as a levee improvement) on historic properties.

If the property is considered eligible for historic recognition, then federal and state agencies must determine ways to avoid, minimize or mitigate the adverse effects.

Kent and King County continue to negotiate a preferred project plan for the $17 million Lower Russell Road levee. The city’s Van Doren’s Park, just up the road from the Dvorak Barn, must be moved as part of a new setback levee. Levee work isn’t expected to begin until 2017.

Simpson and Bersaas hope that’s enough time to find a solution for the barn. Both have strong ties to preserving history. Simpson is past president of the Greater Kent Historical Society. Bersaas is president of the Mill Creek Neighborhood Council and helped the historic Kent neighborhood become a registered landmark two years ago.

The great grandparents of Simpson homesteaded in the Soos Creek area on the East Hill in 1890.

“I feel it’s an obligation,” Simpson said about her reasons for trying to save the barn. “My family committed their lives to this community. I think it’s important to support something like this that is historic.”

• Want to help save the barn? Contact Sharon Bersaas at bersaas@aol.com.