New facilities to enhance the visitor experience at the Barns at Wolf Trap have been approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.
Supervisors voted unanimously at their Dec. 9 meeting in support of land-use changes requested by the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts for a 9,300-square-foot addition to the 352-seat performance facility, located at 1635 Trap Road in the Vienna area.
The changes won’t impact the performance space itself, but they will allow for larger gathering areas and improved kitchen and cellar space, as well as expanded restroom facilities.
“This is going to be a nice little addition to this wonderful facility,” Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn said.
The expansion would be located on the southwest side of the property. The project also calls for additional bicycle parking at the venue.
The Barns at Wolf Trap consists of two 18th-century barns from New York — one in the Scottish style, the other more German in technique — that in the early 1980s were moved to and repurposed on the grounds of Wolf Trap.
Foundation officials expect to use materials from a Loudoun County barn for the expansion project, supervisors were told. That barn is being removed from its original location along Route 15 due to a Virginia Department of Transportation widening project.
The expansion proposal won support from county staff, the Hunter Mill Land Use Committee and Fairfax County Planning Commission before heading to supervisors. There were no public speakers who testified either for or against the proposal at the Dec. 9 hearing.
Catherine Filene Shouse, who donated the land and served as the guiding force behind Wolf Trap, in the 1970s attended a concert in a historic barn in Maine, providing the inspiration to create a venue smaller and more intimate than the 7,000-seat Filene Center that opened in 1971.
This year marks the 300th anniversary of construction of the German-style barn, which is used as the performance space. It was built in 1725 in Blenheim, New York, by Johan Peter Niskarn to house seven cows and two horses.
The accompanying Scottish-style barn was constructed in the 1790s by Joseph Valentine — a Revolutionary War veteran — in Jackson, New York. It was designed to house five cows and two horses, and currently is used for dining and reception areas.
According to a history on the Wolf Trap website:
“Mrs. Shouse chose The Barns’ location [on the 17-acre Wolf Trap parcel] in part because of the proximity to her private residence, which allowed artists such as Beverly Sills or cellist Mstislav Rostropovich to stop by for lunch.”
The new venue had a soft opening in late 1981 and formally opened with performances in January 1982. Those performing there through the years have included Tony Bennett, Judy Collins, Vince Gill, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Graham Nash, Darlene Love, Patti LuPone, Art Garfunkel, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Washington Ballet and Wolf Trap Opera.
Wolf Trap National Park, where the Filene Center is located, is a public-private partnership between the National Park Service and Wolf Trap Foundation, a nonprofit was founded by Shouse in the 1960s when she donated her home and grounds to the national government.
The foundation produces the performance and educational programs, while the Park Service has operational oversight of the grounds.
