Hay Fever

It's hard to believe that anyone would want to save decrepit old barns -- until you see what became of one.

Know anyone in Massachusetts who's bought a barn off eBay lately? Make that a timber-frame barn with structural posts, built in the1800s?

Didn't think so.

But that's exactly what Lexington resident Ken Felton did three years ago when his friend, Michael McGarry, sent him an eBay link advertising a barn for sale in Illinois.

"My original idea was that I could obtain an interesting-looking structure for a modest price," says Felton, 40, who bought the barn for $500 because the farmer no longer needed it for cows. Felton had the barn dismantled and stored for two years in Illinois for $12,000, finally shipping it (for an additional $2,500) to the Lexington property where he and his wife, Kristen, own a home. The dismantling price also included blueprints that designated each barn board's original placement.

Not that Felton needed another barn. The year before, he'd purchased one in Harvard, and he was transforming the early 1900s structure into a four-bedroom, 3,500-square-foot home with custom finishes that he and Kristen planned to move into. He figured he could use his Illinois barn for extra storage once he completed the Harvard-barn renovations.

Felton, a project manager at a commercial construction company, Skanska USA, enlisted McGarry -- also a project manager at Skanska USA -- for design help but did much of the carpentry and custom work himself, including the detailed posts on the new interior staircase and front and back pergolas. "I love to work with my hands," Felton says.

The result is a modern take on old barn vernacular. Original trusses are exposed beams in what is now a 20-by-20-foot great room and dining area. A dozen clerestory windows and another dozen double-hung windows surround the room with bucolic views of trees and sky. Two sets of French doors flank a Rumford fireplace and invite easy access to a new but vintage-inspired front porch. Twenty-foot ceilings give enormous height and breadth to the room. Tiger-maple floors add warmth in a dance of wood tones and sunlight.

"The Harvard barn would have been torn down by a developer," says Felton. "I liked the idea of recycling and saving a building."

Originally the Warren Cider box factory, the Harvard barn later served the Waltham Watch Co., then an ice cream distributor called Cream Crock Co. It eventually fell into disuse until Felton came along and bought it in 2004.

During the two years it took to redesign and remodel the Harvard barn, strangers often stopped by to admire Felton's work. But near the end of the process, a sudden turn of events involving a family member's health required that he sell it.

Kim and Mike Morton moved in last year. "We love the history of the house. It has a timeless quality," says Kim, an emergency physician at Lowell General Hospital and mother of 6-month-old Liam.

Meanwhile, Felton's love for old barns is not lost or forsaken. Back in his Lexington home, he is resurrecting his transplanted Illinois barn into a three-bedroom, three-bath, three-story structure, which, if all goes well, will be finished in time for Thanksgiving.

Says Felton: "I enjoy the work. Some people golf; I like to do this stuff."

Jessica Keener is a freelance writer. Send comments to designing@globe.com.