Columbian Designs Graham 'Barn'

May 31, 04:05 AM

Current Headlines: By Jason Ryan, The State, Columbia, S.C.

May 31--CHARLOTTE -- Franklin Graham asked Derek Gruner to design a barn. He wanted it big and red -- with a giant cross in its side.

Graham wanted the barn to be part presidential library and part family attraction capable of accommodating 200,000 visitors a year.

He also wanted a place where he could bury his parents.

Gruner was asked to design a tribute to the Rev. Billy Graham, the N.C. minister credited with turning millions of people worldwide to Christ.

It wasn't a typical commission for Gruner, whose Columbia architecture firm spent 21/2 years designing the buildings for the $27 million Billy Graham Library.

Today, the three living former presidents and dozens of supporters join the Graham family to dedicate the 15-acre library campus, which opens free to the public on Tuesday.

The 2 p.m. ceremony caps a project that became all-consuming for Gruner, entailing frequent 90-minute drives to Charlotte and almost monthly meetings with Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son and leader of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

"As an architect you consider this a milestone. It was a difficult project, but no one ever lost sight of the importance of it," said Gruner, who never met with Billy Graham.

Gruner, a partner with JHS Architecture, considers the building the peak of a 20-year relationship with the evangelistic association, for which he has designed cabins, inns and offices at The Cove, an Asheville retreat.

In Columbia, JHS Architecture designed the Suggs Kelly Law Center on Huger Street and buildings for Palmetto Health Baptist hospital, and supervised the rehabilitation of the building housing the Publix supermarket in the Vista.

For the library, he was asked to create a rustic structure, one that harks back to Billy Graham's childhood on a dairy farm, before he traveled the world and met with presidents back to Harry Truman.

Hay bales and milk canisters decorate the lobby, which is surrounded by a cafeteria, a bookstore and a mechanical cow that talks to visitors about Billy Graham's youth.

An old carriage hangs from a truss, in front of the 40-foot glass cross cut into the wall.

Intended to be modeled after presidential libraries, the building is short on archives, longer on memorabilia, including photo displays, short films on Graham and souvenirs -- much of it housed in a warehouse-like structure behind the barn.

The bulk of Graham's papers are at his alma mater, Wheaton College in Illinois.

"It's a little bit of a misnomer," Gruner said of calling the building a library.

The biggest influence on his design, he said, was from Northern barns.

While North Carolina shed barns had triangular roofs, Northern barns had the gambrel roofs that are more iconic for visitors, said Gruner, who had more than a dozen books about barns on his desk at one time.

With his design, Gruner wanted to do his best to recreate a 1920s barn without the distraction of all the modern technology.

"An authentic barn wouldn't have a giant HVAC system, so how do you hide that?" Gruner asked.

The library design seems to conflict with what's inside, said Peter Waldman, an architecture professor at the University of Virginia.

"On one hand, it's speaking to (Billy Graham's) humble origins, but it sounds a little kitschy with the talking cow," he said.

Besides the barn, Gruner oversaw the assembly of Graham's childhood home on the campus. The 1920s mansion had been dismantled and was stored for years in the back of trucks.

At a meeting last summer, Gruner was asked to make a change inside the gardens next to barn. He needed to design potential burial spots of Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth.

Gruner worked through the night and sent drawings the next morning.

"It's a highlight for an architect," Gruner said. "You're drawing the tomb for two of the most important people in the 20th century."

The Graham family has been split over whether Billy and Ruth should be buried in Charlotte or Asheville. Billy Graham has been keeping mum about his decision.

Visitors on Wednesday --mostly donors and evangelic association board members --flashed smiles as they toured the exhibits and snapped pictures.

Jody Scherr of Lubbock, Texas, cried as she remembered her grandmother, who often watched Billy Graham on television in the 1960s.

"It was like the world stopped. She had to sit down and watch," Scherr said.

Gruner said those reactions to the library satisfy him.

"Those images become more enduring to me than some of the architecture."

Reach Ryan at (803) 771-8595.

THE BILLY GRAHAM LIBRARY

The library opens Tuesday.

Hours: 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday

Admission: Free

Address: 4330 Westmont Drive, Charlotte

Directions from Columbia: North on Interstate 77 to Charlotte. Take Exit 6B at Billy Graham Parkway. The library is about 11/2 miles on the right.

Phone: (704) 401-3200

Web: billygraham.org

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