Barn House

Barn House is a 43-acre property on South Road in Chilmark, on Martha's Vineyard. It holds a small shingled farmhouse from about 1690, a barn from about 1786 reportedly built with salvaged materials from the old Chilmark meetinghouse, a mid-19th-century shed, stone walls, a stone-slab culvert and a group of simple cabins. The house retains planked walls and paired summer beams, features typical of early Colonial building on the island. The barn, open fields and walls reflect generations of sheep farming, from the Skiff family in the 1690s to the Vincent family in the 1880s. In 1919 a group of writers, artists and social activists bought the farm as Chilmark Associates. They shared meals in the barn, divided the chores and built small sleeping cabins. The name Barn House was adopted in 1927. The property is significant locally for its architecture, agricultural history and its long-running communal summer community, and the use continues today.