Duke Farms #5 - The Hay Barn and the Marble Statues

cognoscere (68)in #photography • 8 years ago (edited)

This large collection of images was taken last weekend on a visit to Duke Farms in Hillsborough, N.J. They highlight the Hay Barn at Duke Farms (which met with a firey fate in 1915). I attempt to show some close-up shots of the various features of these magnificent marble statues that now grace the open-air interior remains of the Hay Barn.

These statues are arranged around the internal perimeter of the remaining fieldstone walls of the Hay Barn which was constructed on the grounds at Duke Farms, circa 1905. Roughly four decades after the Hay Barn burned down in 1915, Doris, the daughter and only child of tobacco tycoon James Buchanan Duke (affectionately known as Buck), collected a number of the marble statues that were scattered throughout the estate and arranged to have them displayed as a contemporary sculpture garden within the confines of the hay barn.

Currently, the hay barn has a grassy floor, an open-air view of the sky, and beautiful ivy-covered stone walls. This gives it a very interesting look and is the perfect setting to gaze at these marble wonders! You can see a picture of the Hay Barn it all its glory before it burned down in the link below.

Here's a description from Duke Farms - Hay Barn:

Built in 1905, the Hay Barn was at the hub of farming activity. It originally housed a haypress, a tool that baled hay into compact squares and was important to early agriculture at Duke Farms. The Boston architectural firm of Kendall, Taylor & Stevens designed the 140 footlong by 64 foot wide stone barn. With its gabled roof, spires and buttresses, it mirrored the architectural style of the earlier Coach Barn. That same style would later be used for the Farm Barn. In 1915, a fire destroyed all but the stonework. Doris Duke used the remaining shell as a sculpture garden, which remains today.

At the end of 1924, less than a year before his death, James Buchanan Duke established The Duke Endowment. The resulting foundation was chartered to serve the better good of the people of the Carolinas and focused on funding and support for various programs on higher learning, child welfare, and other human services.

I hope you enjoy having a look at these marble works of art! I definitely plan on a return visit to Duke Farms when there is snow of the ground, as I'm sure it would give it a whole new look.

Here are my previous posts in this series about Duke Farms:

All images @cognoscere and taken at Duke Farms with a Canon PowerShot SD 1400 IS.