Counterintuitive as it may seem, there is something very urban about a barn. The wide-open spaces of industrial real estate find their country equivalent in sheds, stables, and lean-tos. When the New Jersey Barn Company began rescuing farm buildings around 1980, its first clients were New Yorkers with property in East Hampton. “They saw the opportunity to create something like a rural loft,” says co-founder Elric Endersby. At the same time, the barn offers instant rural authenticity. “It’s like living outside under a big roof,” says interior-design consultant Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan of his family’s 1850s structure on Long Island, which was trucked out from Princeton—and then rebuilt peg by peg.

Related:

• Archive: “Features”
• Articles by Wendy Goodman