Newark-area 8-bedroom home built from 1820s barn for sale for $1.35 million

A Licking County home built from the timbers of an 1820s Ohio barn and flooring from a South Carolina tobacco warehouse has landed on the market.

The home, on 14 acres north of Newark, was built in 2004 out of timbers hauled from a dismantled Bucyrus barn.

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"I've always had a thing for hand-hewn barns and timbers," said Larry Palur, who owns the property with his wife, Vicki. "I always wanted to make a barn into a house. I wanted it to look like a barn and live like a house."

The couple, who built the eight-bedroom home to accommodate their six adopted children, made a point to repurpose as much of the material as possible.

In addition to the barn timber and the hardrock maple flooring from the tobacco warehouse, the home includes doors from a demolished mansion in Texas and kitchen cabinets from a Minnesota cabinet maker intended for a cabin that was never built.

"There's a little bit of this house from all over the country," Larry Palur said.

Now that they are largely empty nesters, the couple are selling the home, which fronts the Clear Fork Licking River.

"When the kids all moved out, we were like two BBs ratting around in a tin can," Palur said. "We need eight bedrooms and five bathrooms like we need a hole in the head."

Carol Marr, with Re/Max Premier Choice, is listed the property for $1.35 million , down from an original price of $1.475 million.

In addition to the main home, the property includes a 2,000-square-foot three-bedroom guest home and a 30-by-40-foot pole barn, which the family used for cattle and horses.

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The timber-framed main home includes 10,811 square feet counting the lower garage level, which includes a family room and another room that was converted into a ninth bedroom. The walls of the house are built of structural insulated panels between the exposed timber frames, making the house unusually well insulated.

Palur said the house cost $260 to heat the first winter the family moved in.

The heart of the home is the 1,600-square-foot great room, which includes a stone fireplace.

"The great room ceiling is 16-feet-5-inches at its peak, so we always had one hell of a Christmas tree," Palur said.

Palur added some special touches to the home for his large family such a fire pole that allowed kids to slide town to the first floor, a hidden playroom and a light fixture built of an old ladder that hung over the family's 12-foot-long dining table.

"I'm 75 now, but basically a big kid," said Palur, a retired educator who taught business, economics and management at Franklin University for several years.

Palur and his wife, Vicki, an intervention specialist at My Place To Be school in Newark, hope another family can enjoy the property as much as they have.

"It would be neat to have a big family here, or someone who wants a big family, and have horses and other animals running around again," he said.

jweiker@dispatch.com

@JimWeiker

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Newark-area 8-bedroom home built from 1820s barn for sale for $1.35 million