A LONG LOOK AT AN OLD BARN
BY STEVE SHEPPARD INDEPENDENT WRITER
Nestled on a gentle slope of former farmland, it separates the seventh and ninth fairways at the old 'Sconset Golf Club. It housed cattle, perhaps until sometime early in the last century, after the links were first laid out and organic fertilizer was still the nutrient of choice for the surrounding greens. The manure trap is still there, dug out under the barn at the far end, where wire fencing and slim wooden posts now rest.

It is old, even by Nantucket standards, and remains an iconic landmark on the Milestone Road. It has attracted photographers, landscape painters and those who continue to appreciate farm architecture of the 1800s. It has been featured on postcards and calendars; in coffee table books and town reports. Its shingles and siding are beyond weathered now, and old boards whose nails have failed from rust have dropped to the ground, leaving ample room for the swallows who inhabit the building to enter and exit at will.

It is a symbol of Nantucket's agrarian past; and like that past, it is slowly eroding.

It hasn't been used for well over 20 years now, when the mowers and landscaping equipment were relocated to other buildings elsewhere on the course. Before that, and well after the cows moved out, it was home to the lawn aerators and other paraphernalia needed to maintain the fairways and greens. For a time, it was the course caddy shack, but weather and years have erased the names that some of the caddies etched on the inside walls.

For many, it is as much a part of the course characteristic as the wide-open fairways and nearby stand of tupelo trees. It has absorbed innumerable errant shots; and it has protected golfers on both the seventh and ninth fairways from getting conked by the sporadic slice or hook.

To Bob Day, veteran department head of Nantucket High School's industrial arts program (and an avid golfer himself), the old barn is one of the more pristine examples of rustic Nantucket architecture. Like so many others, he'd always admired its classic lines and broken saltbox appearance. "Tell me," he said, "who doesn't like an old barn?"

And on Nantucket, the old barns are getting scarcer and scarcer.

PHOTOS BY ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent Brothers Robert and Henry Coffin (top photo) reminisce. Above: The old barn has seen its share of golfers over the years - and has taken some serious hits.

Last Friday morning, Day took a closer look at the barn's unique construction, courtesy of Robert "Skinner" Coffin, who ran and maintained the course for decades, and his brother, Henry, the former greenskeeper at the Sankaty Head Golf Club, who now maintains the greens and fairways at the family course. The land the old barn sits upon has been in the Coffin family for centuries, and it was their grandfather who had the 'Sconset Golf Club built on what was in the nineteenth century the Bloomingdale Farm.

The 'Sconset Golf Course is one of the oldest in the country and is, reportedly, one of the first 10 golf courses built in the United States. It opened in 1894, although Skinner Coffin said he'd heard some old-timers say people were playing golf there a year or so before that. It was here, in 1917, that Massachusetts Open Champion Mike Brady made two holes-in-one during the same round, the first time that had ever happened in the country. The original club members moved over to Sankaty Head in 1922, but through the years the 'Sconset Golf Club has remained an inviting place to play a leisurely round. The number of islanders and summer visitors who have learned to golf on its rugged fairways is countless. Skinner and Henry believe the barn may have been moved onto the property, and they say it most likely dates back to the 1850s. Dick Corkish, who rewired the old farmhouse that was converted into the clubhouse (a farmhouse, he says, that was moved onto the property from the island's original settlement of Sherburne) notes that the north side of the barn was cut off to make room for what is now the seventh fairway.

Weathered shingles reveal their age, while one of the barn's few remaining windows looks out over the seventh fairway.

PEERING IN

The swallows take flight when Skinner swings open the doors. Inside, old lawn equipment shares space with vintage bicycles and tires. Looking to see whether the original barn was added on to over the years, Bob Day notices instead that the sheathing is horizontal on one side and vertical on the other. Proving Corkish's point, there is evidence of the roof's being raised, but only on the north side.

PHOTOS BY ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

There are old golf clubs here and there, some tucked away in faded leather bags in a couple of corners, left over, no doubt, from the barn's time as a caddy shack. Behind a planked wall is Skinner's and Henry's father's old work table; some rusting lockers rest nearby. Nestled in a crevice, Skinner finds several antique, bench-like tee boxes, relics of the golf course's historic past. He explains that one side of the bench held sand, while the other was filled with water. Golfers would rub balls in the sand to remove the dirt and grass, and rinse them in the water to clean them. The wooden tee boxes gave way long ago to the red metal ball washers of today, more testimony to the age of both the golf course and the barn.

He also finds a couple of pieces of machinery that, he says, remind him why his sentiments for the old barn aren't necessarily endearing. "I remember when I started up that tractor one day, and it backfired. I went, wham, right into the wall."

His brother has a laugh when he sees an old mower. "Skinner cut all 10 of his toes on that mower," he said. Behind that, a rotary mower reminds Skinner of the day, "I couldn't turn it off, and it kept going right across the 'Sconset Road."

Back outside, Skinner and Henry look the old barn over as the wind whistles through the weathered planking and the swallows dart and hover near their home. Skinner talks of the birds' migratory patterns that he'd gleaned from years of observation. "They all get together - from the barn to the trees - and circle around and leave the same day," he said. With the wind whistling through the ancient shingles and loose boards, the barn would not make a good winter rental, even for swallows.

The old barn was pieced together, added on to and cut back over the years - "farmer construction," as Day pointed out. Skinner and his father, Henry, rebuilt the front and back of the barn "about 50 years ago." Windows that were broken time and again by golf shots were finally closed up with wood. Henry believes the barn must have been moved onto the property because "there are no windows on the south side."

The rickety barn is perhaps a reminder that nothing lasts forever. Many people, including Corkish, would like to see it rebuilt. "They made quite a fuss about the old Chase barn (off the Madaket Road)," he said. "This is more deserving of salvage than the other."

Day said he'd like to take his students out next year to study the barn's lines and simple construction. "It's a classic, just a classic," he says. "There are certain angles you just don't see anymore." He takes out his tape measure just for the heck of it - 29 1/2 feet by 32 feet.

"Every year I come back from Florida, I come out here and say, 'The barn's still there,'" notes Skinner.

As for the course itself? The Coffin brothers say they would love to see the land remain as a golf course, but they wonder how much longer they can make a go of it. Skinner looks out at the ninth fairway and says how the course remains a throwback - there are no golf carts here; no modern irrigation systems either.

"This is the way golf courses originally were," he points out. "They were part of the natural landscape.

"My father used to take an hour to cut each green with a hand mower."

The land is pure Nantucket, and a walk from hole to hole reveals many different variations of island topography, from plains to wetlands to sheltered vales. Because it has been managed with little impact for over a hundred years, the land remains an unspoiled oasis of unique Nantucket countryside. A round of golf at the 'Sconset Golf Course today is pretty much the same as it's always been. Like an old barn, there aren't many things you can say that about these days.

And if the barn can't be saved,

then surely the golf course must. I