By Nancy Boardman
Photography by James Schriebl
Putting the cupola atop the old Frost family barn is a dream come true
Waaaay up on the ridgeline of a five-story barn in East Dorset, on the sunny Friday of Labor Day weekend, a lone man stands in the middle of a wood-framed square. Fa-a-a-r down on the ground below stand some 20 nervous onlookers, with eyes and cameras trained on that man. Finally, the operator of the 120-foot crane stationed along the barn's long eastern side gives a signal. Slooowly the crane's cables tighten, and the harnesses begin ever so carefully to lift a 4,000-pound, 20-foot tall cupola. It ascends high enough to clear the barn's roof before the crane swings it into position, squarely over but still several feet higher than the frame.
Now comes the hard part.
Andrew Hazelton is the figure atop the barn. He instinctively reaches out to guide the cupula, as if a mere man's two arms could possibly maneuver this two-ton artifact. Wisely, he stops, letting the crane's operator take that difficult last step of the procedure. It's white-knuckle time as the cupola begins to make the slow, final descent, honing in on its home. When it does, a great cheer ascends from below. Andrew swiftly pounds in the nails that not only will permanently join the cupola and its base, but also represent the final, crowning touch of a seven-year effort the extended Frost family has made to restore the barn to its former glory.
Built in 1878, about 70 years after the classic Colonial main house was constructed on what was then Route 7, the stage road from Manchester to Rutland, the five-story "high-rise" bank barn has been an East Dorset landmark since the first beam was raised. C. W. ("Jack") Frost, who is married to Sally, Andrew's mother, bought the farm in 1965. Over the years Jack added contiguous land as it became available, so that the farm now comprises 220 acres on both sides of "new" Rt. 7. Known as Battenkill Rise Farm, the property actually encompasses the headwaters of two legendary Vermont waterways-the Battenkill, which winds south-east into the Hudson River, as well as Otter Creek, which starts on the Frost property across Route 7 and flows north into Lake Champlain.
Sometime in its long life, probably around 1930, the barn's original cupola came down, to be replaced by a practical, but not very attractive, metal cylinder topped with a pointed hood resembling the Tin Man's head. As part of their quest to restore the barn to its original looks, Jack and Sally Frost asked local architect Bill Badger to make drawings for its replacement....
