By Kelsey Ligon

Stepping into the “Blue Barn” in the Raintree neighborhood in Zionsville is a bit like strolling through the history of Zionsville and its residents.

The blue Louden dairy barn on the edge of Zionsville now belongs to Robert and Cynny Robinson, but its past is long and varied.

The land that now includes the Raintree neighborhood originally belonged to David Hoover, who received a land grant in 1825. In 1901, James Hurst purchased five acres from Hoover’s family, and he constructed the barn that stands there now.

Today, a 26-foot high stone fireplace dominates the front room and draws the eye upward to the hipped roof, typical of a Louden-style barn. Along the ceiling runs the track and pulley originally used to store hay for the cows on the farm.

From the time the barn was built in 1925 until its renovation into a theater and then later a house, it was home to Hurst’s cattle. The original milk room is now the kitchen, and the basement once housed 25 cows in cement stalls.

Chip McDowell used to live across the street and played there when he was a little boy in the 1960s.

“We’d play in the hayloft, and of course they had the cows that were in the basement,” he said.

According to McDowell, the Holstein cows, or milking cows, grazed on the land that is now the Raintree neighborhood. Every day, they walked a cow path that extended to the end of the neighborhood.

In 1968, then-owner Carl Verplank rented the barn to the Zionsville theater group, the Off Main Street Players. The wrought iron stairs that are now in the garden were used by the theater group to allow playgoers access to balcony seating.

The area where the grand fireplace now stands was their stage for six years, and the huge beam that supported the stage came from a dismantled bridge in Broad Ripple. The structure of the barn suited the theater group well because the hipped roof and wood walls created ideal acoustics.

Jean Apple, one of the original founders of the Off Main Street Players, said they paid only one dollar each year to lease the barn. She, along with her husband and other performers, helped build the stage, piece together a curtain from fabric scraps, install dressing rooms and bathrooms and scrape the floors in the basement.

The first production at the barn drew celebrities from Indianapolis.

“They loved coming to the barn to see plays,” Apple said. “We took it as a challenge to be in this big barn. We thought it was a great privilege and had a lot of fun with it.”

In 1974, Ben Boleman purchased the land and built the first planned subdivision in Zionsville. The original land included Lions Park, which Boleman gifted to the town.

When Boleman began developing the land, he opted for minimal tree removal so it would retain its original essence. He also converted the cow path into Forest Boulevard and renovated the barn into a home.

When the Robinsons moved into the home in 1976, they added their own history to its walls. In the basement where the cows once stood, the Robinsons have displayed artwork from their time spent in Japan, Pakistan, Nepal and Grenada.

One of the most interesting pieces is a lid that Robert and Cynny found on the beach in Grenada. The lid is the top of a munitions crate sent from Hungary to the Hungarian Embassy in Cuba, bound for Grenada.

Further along the wall are Pakistani rubbings and Japanese ink paintings that Cynny created herself.

Cynny Robinson said she loves that her home is a historic yet welcoming space.

“In spite of the uniqueness of the Blue Barn, living within its four walls is comfortable, intimate, easy and fun,” she said.

Timeline of the “blue barn”

1825-Land granted to David Hoover
1901-James Hurst purchases the land
1925-Hurst builds the barn
1968-Rented out to the Off Main Street Players
1974-Ben Boleman buys land and plans subdivision
1976-Robinsons buy house