May Speaker Series: The Oldest Two-Level Vernacular Barn in Pennsylvania – The Swiss-German Sweitzer Barn
A Remarkable Pennsylvania Barn Tradition
Pennsylvania is home to one of America’s richest collections of historic barns, but among them, one form stands out for both its age and influence: the Swiss-German Sweitzer barn.
Join us for our May Speaker Series as barn historian Greg Huber explores what is believed to be the oldest two-level vernacular barn form in Pennsylvania. Directly patterned after the rugged barns of the eastern cantons of Switzerland, the Sweitzer barn introduced a practical and enduring design that took root in the southern half of the state, especially in areas south and southeast of Lancaster City.
In this illustrated talk, attendees will learn about the distinctive construction features of these early bank barns, how they differed from later Pennsylvania barn forms, and why so many examples have survived. For anyone interested in regional architecture, farming history, or the cultural landscape of southeastern Pennsylvania, this presentation promises a fascinating look at one of the Commonwealth’s most important building traditions.
About the Presentation
“The Oldest Two-Level Vernacular Barn in Pennsylvania – The Swiss-German Sweitzer Barn” will trace the origins of this barn type and examine how it spread across southeastern Pennsylvania. Greg Huber will highlight the architectural details that define the Sweitzer form and explain what these barns reveal about the Swiss-German settlers who built them.
With hundreds of these barns still standing across Pennsylvania, they remain a powerful reminder of the state’s agricultural heritage and the building traditions brought here by early immigrants.
About Greg Huber
Greg Huber is a barn and house historian, independent scholar, consultant, and principal owner of Past Perspectives and Eastern Barn Consultants, two historic and cultural resource companies based in Macungie, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania.
Since 1974, Huber has specialized in pre-Civil War house and barn architecture in Holland Dutch and Pennsylvania Swiss-German regions. Over the course of his career, he has documented more than 8,000 vernacular buildings, including more than 5,000 homestead barns.
He is the author of more than 350 articles on barn and house architecture and edited and published the first barn research journal from 1991 to 1994. He is also co-author of The New World Dutch Barn (second edition, 2001) and Stone Houses – Traditional Homes of Pennsylvania’s Bucks County and Brandywine Valley (2005).
Huber has led more than 260 house, barn, and tree tours over the past four decades and has delivered 300 lectures on house and barn architecture. His work has earned him the Alice Kenney Award in 1997 and the Allen Noble Book Award in 2003 from the Pioneer America Society for the best edited book on material culture in North America.
His 240-page book, The Historic Barns of Southeast Pennsylvania – Architecture and Preservation 1750 to 1900, was published by Schiffer Publishing in July 2017 and reached number one on Amazon’s best-selling list in the vernacular architecture category.
Join Us
Do not miss this opportunity to learn more about one of Pennsylvania’s oldest and most distinctive barn traditions from one of the region’s leading architectural historians.
📅 Wednesday, May 13, 2026
🕕 Doors open at 6:00 PM | Presentation begins at 6:30 PM
📍 Sehner-Ellicott-von Hess House, 123 North Prince Street, Lancaster, PA
🎟️ Admission: By donation
Date
- May 13 2026
Time
- 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Location
- 123 N. Prince Street, Lancaster PA 17601
Category
Organizer
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Office Manager
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Phone
717-291-5861 -
Email
amy@hptrust.org
