A RIDER’S DREAM
Clarion County estate is high style in the woods
LEEPER, Pa. — The country estate Jack and Janice Fuellhart built in this tiny hamlet (population: 158) is the stuff a rider (or farmer) dreams of.
Nestled on 75 acres on the outskirts of Cook Forest State Park, the 5,000-squarefoot private retreat boasts five outbuildings, including two picturesque barns.
One barn, built into a hillside in the 1860s, was transformed into a luxurious three-bedroom home in the 1990s. The other was built in 1991 and customized to include an elevator to a three-bedroom apartment overlooking 50 acres of pasture. The barn houses up to eight horses in high style with rubbermatted stalls, hot and cold water, and a heated tack room for riders.
Crown Farms was the perfect place to raise a family that liked the outdoors and found joy on horseback. So the decision to downsize, after a quarter-century of living there, was a difficult one.
“We loved it,” says Mrs. Fuellhart. “But
this is a lot to take care of, and I don’t want to begin to hate it.”
The sprawling estate (www.110crownfarms.com) at 110Crown Farm Lane is on the market for $2.4 million (MLS No. 1227235) with Elaine Shetler-Libent of Keller Williams Luxury Homes International (724681-0412). It is open by appointment.
When the Fuellharts purchased the Clarion County property in 1984 from the Haggerty family, it came with a Civil War-era farmhouse and lots of history: Robert Haggerty and his wife, Rebecca Easly, were some of the earlier settlers to arrive in Farmington Township in 1831, when local streams danced with trout and wild panthers roamed the woods with wild turkeys and other game.
After the original house was destroyed by a fire in 1986, the couple built and lived in a cottage on site while they contemplated whether to stay. Then they came up with a novel plan — transform the four-stall bank barn that held their daughter’s horses into upscale living quarters.
“We just always liked the old beams and the look of the barn,” Mrs. Fuellhart says.
Converting a horse barn to a house was still fairly unusual at the time, especially in a town as rural as Leeper. But the barn’s rustic beams and soaring spaces were so alluring.
“Our architect kept saying we couldn’t do it,” she recalls.
So they designed the twostory home themselves, using as many local craftspeople and products as possible. The key was finding people who knew how to work with wood and would maintain the barn’s integrity. The family also wanted modern amenities such as a gourmet kitchen, master spa and an in-ground swimming pool with a pool house for guests.
Contractor and master carpenter Harry Culp of Vowinckel spent three years cleaning, reconfiguring and rebuilding the 130-year-old barn into a comfortable country residence. One big job involved busting up brick and manure-stained dirt floors with a jackhammer to make way for Pennsylvania bluestone with radiant heat. He also had to figure out how to support the building in a way that matched the barn’s rustic aesthetic. (He faced a steel piperunning the length of the first floor with reclaimed barnwood.)
The living room’s most striking features are its stone half-walls and handhewn beams and posts with ax marks. Under the windows in the dining room is the remnants of a manger that held hay for the horses.
Dave Kahle of Kahle's Kitchens created the gourmet kitchen. Designed for the serious cook, it features commercial-grade Viking double ovens, a six-burner Jenn-Air stove,two Sub-Zero refrigerators and a grill top. White Corian counter tops complement the hickory cabinets with glass fronts and plate racks. Mr. Kahle also crafted the home’s solid French mahoganydoors.
In the library, custom shelving for books and guns stretches two stories up, and a massive 1869 painting shows Union Gen. Philip Sheridan’s famous ride from Winchester, Va. Craftsman Tim Buxton created the floor-to-ceiling woodwork and a stairwell using handhewn barn beams.
Just around the corner, in what was once a groom’s quarters,lies a billiards room graced with a 25-foot paneled ceiling and a spiral staircase leading to a loft bedroom. Two large arched windows flood the room with light. A former grain room under the loft has been converted into a fullbathroom.
The second level also holds a spacious master bedroom overlooking the backyard patio. Pocket doors lead to a mirrored exercise room. A master spa holds both a soaking tub with views of the horse pastures and stairs leading to a sauna
A three-bedroom guest house with two full baths has a solarium, an open deck and a covered back porch that stretches the entire length of the house and overlooks the 20- by-40-foot pool. A one-bedroom, one-bath pool house brings the total number of bedrooms on the complex to 10.
Twenty-five of the farm’s 75 acres have been cleared, and much of it is fenced. For a time, the owners raised thoroughbred horses on the farm. They also introduced a new breed of cattle to the area, the Scottish Highlander, and for a time marketed the low-fat meat through the mail as Crown Farms Estate Beef.
The property — which backs into a half-million acres of Pennsylvania State Game Lands — features sugar maple, ash and linden trees and includes a 2-acre pond with a dock, a tennis court and a potting shed with a copper cupola. The owners once used it as an office. A detached garage with concrete floors and 15-foot clearance has eight stalls. The barn features a tongue-and-groove interior, mahogany doors and a laundryroom.
Need even more room? The owner also is selling a 114-acre entertainment compound up the road with a Honda Pilot ATV racetrack, cross-country clay sporting (shooting) range and two recreational cabins, priced at $285,000.
The property is being marketed as a private or corporate retreat, says Ms. ShetlerLibent, but it also would make a great bed-and-breakfast or wedding facility. It comes with gas and mineral rights, which means free unlimited gas for the farm. Real estate taxes are currently about$5,134 per year.
“When you come to the farm and drive through the gates, you’re in another world,” says Ms. ShetlerLibent. “It’s a Disneyland for adults.”