Wayne Gularte knew he had to do something about his old barn when one day a cow fell through his milking parlor roof.

He briefly considered demolition but decided on a complete restoration instead. Gularte and his crew jacked up walls, replaced rotted posts, poured concrete pier supports, installed a new roof, and renailed the exterior redwood siding.

Though the work was sometimes challenging, Gularte estimates that he saved $25,000 over the cost of a new barn. He uses the structure to store a variety of equipment and supplies for his farm, which includes a small orchard as well as vegetables and livestock.

The restored barn has become a local landmark. Every now and then, Gularte says, "an artist stops on the road nearby, sets up, and paints a picture of it."

Doug and Ruby Bussell's family homesteaded their 3,800-acre Montana farm in 1913. The first modern building that went up on the property was a state-of-the-art round arch barn, erected in 1919. Doug and Ruby say, "Although Grandma Helinger would have rather had a home to replace the one-room shack that housed nine people, the family knew that a proper barn was critical to the survival of the livestock and for successful farming."

The family has worked to keep the barn in good condition over the decades. Originally left untreated, the barn's wood siding received an initial coat of paint in 1965, necessitated by the harsh Montana winters.

Since then, the family has replaced the roof, repaired interior joists, and repainted again three times. The barn is still the centerpiece of the farm, used for saddle horses, calving, small tractor storage, and hay storage.

Ed Bender was only 5 years old in 1916, when his father built the round arch barn that anchors his family's 800-acre farm. But he still remembers his father's instructions to the carpenters, asking that they include a distinctive concave pointed arch above the opening to the hayloft.

The arch looks as good as new today, after the family's recent work to paint and reshingle the barn that houses livestock and feed. Scott has yet to find another barn in the area with the distinctive peak design.

Since 1852, six generations of the Faeth family have maintained fruit orchards on their historic southeast Iowa farm. Faeth Orchards produces 60 types of apples, including 25 heritage varieties, as well as peaches, pears, plums, row crops, and hay.

One of the most prominent structures on the farm is an 1882 timber-frame barn, which is topped by an eight-sided cupola. The Faeth family recently put a new metal roof on the barn and cupola, and repaired several other historic farm buildings. The entire 160-acre farm, including the barn, was recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places.