San Luis Obispo's Octagon Barn
Near Pismo Beach, California
The octagon barn south of downtown San Luis Obispo was built in nineteen oh six by three men: Henri LaFranchi, an Italian-Swiss immigrant and butcher; John Damaso, an Azorean carpenter; and a third partner known only as a milk farmer. They may have drawn on octagonal-barn plans from farm journals of the era, since nothing like it existed in the area at the time.
The first tenant was Antonio Stornetta, another Italian-Swiss immigrant who ran the Santa Fe Dairy here until nineteen seventeen. Other dairy families then operated it into the nineteen fifties. When small-scale dairies became economically unviable the barn sat idle until the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County took over a lease in nineteen ninety-seven and restored it as a community gathering place. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in twenty fourteen.
