Grand View Dairy Farm

Grand View Dairy Farm lies on the slope of South Mountain near Wernersville, Berks County, with about 100 acres of which 85 are tillable. Its farmhouse was built in three sections, with the earliest part dating to the late 18th century, and a stone smokehouse of the same period stands among the farmstead buildings. John Wenrich built the original section of the barn in 1849 using red sandstone, and a 1901 enlargement produced a 176-foot dairy barn with five cupolas, dormers for ventilation and a stable holding 65 cows. The barn is regarded as one of the most advanced dairy facilities of its period in the county, relying on gravity-fed water and air-current ventilation. The farm is significant for showing the change from a family maintenance farm to a dairy operation in the early twentieth century, and for its well-preserved buildings spanning 200 years.