David and Barbara Maycock knew they had found their ideal rural getaway when they bought a 200-acre farm near Vinland in 1993.

“We didn’t know anything about it, but we fell in love with the place,” David Maycock said, recalling how quickly he and his wife moved to buy the farm after seeing its 1880s Victorian house, limestone barn and other old outbuildings. But Vinland residents familiar with local history soon let them know that they had purchased a historical gold mine.

The property originally belonged to William E. Barnes, one of the co-founders of Vinland and a businessman thought to have operated the first vineyard in Kansas on the farm. He used a limestone barn, built in 1857, to store and package fruit that was then shipped to customers throughout the country. Barnes also operated a tree nursery on the farm.

“So I got interested in it,” David Maycock said of the farm’s history. “Then we found the ledgers.”

A search through the attic of the house led to the discovery of an old suitcase crammed full of business ledgers kept in the late 1890s.

The Maycocks have since worked with the Kansas State Historical Society to get the barn, commonly known locally as Barnes Apple Barn, nominated for the National Register of Historic Places. That application is pending, and the Maycocks don’t know when a decision will be made.

A national historic designation would allow the Maycocks to apply for federal grants to be used for restoring the barn. So far they have done a few things on their own. They have fixed the roof and replaced support poles and beams on the lower level.

Barbara and David Maycock have worked with the Kansas State Historical Society to get a limestone barn, commonly known locally as Barnes Apple Barn, nominated for the National Register of Historic Places.

“This building was pretty much in its original state,” David Maycock said.

More work needs to be done to support the walls, replace some windows and the tongue-and-groove wood floor. The lower level has a dirt floor and probably was used to store fruit, David Maycock said. The lower level was dug out of the side of a small hill with an entry on the back side. An opening in the upper-level floor leads the Maycocks to think fruit was conveyed out of the basement up to the main floor for packaging. Windows on the lower level slide on grooves into “envelopes” in the walls.

A few years ago a stone mason estimated it would cost $10,000 just to tuckpoint the walls, David Maycock said.

“It’s kind of a money pit, but we thought it was important because of the local history,” he said. “It’s possible this is the oldest stone barn in the county, but we’re not sure of that.”

The Maycocks also are working on their house, removing the siding to take it back to the original wood siding.

The Maycocks didn’t move to their farm until 1998. They own Indian Trails Resort near Branson, Mo., and David Maycock, a 1970 Kansas University graduate, is an architect who designs amusement parks and some of their rides. He currently works for Silver Dollar City in Branson, but also has worked on projects at Dollywood in Nashville, Tenn., and Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta.

The Maycocks purchased the farm from Don and Elisabeth McKillup, who had purchased it from Roberta Hoskinson a few months earlier after it had been in the Hoskinson family for years.

The Maycocks aren’t sure what they will do with the barn once it is restored. Barbara Maycock thinks it could be used for weddings and receptions.

“I thought that would be nice; not change it at all but put some light fixtures on the walls,” she said.

The stone barn is one of several historic buildings in Vinland. Already on the national register are the Grange Hall, Coal Creek Library, the old Presbyterian Church and the exhibition building at the fairgrounds.