Volunteers hope to resurrect old barn that became a memorial

STANWOOD — Kristy Comstock has the barn doors on display in her backyard.

They say “RIP Anthony Comstock” and were painted in memory of her 16-year-old son, who died in a car accident on Pioneer Highway in July 2013.

Friends and classmates painted the doors when they still were attached to an old barn along Marine Drive. For decades, local teens painted the barn with messages, class colors and, when they lost someone, names and notes of love and grief.

Anthony’s name was one of the last painted on the barn before it was taken down in November 2013. Megan Dascher Watkins, a local mother of three, bought the barn and had it taken apart by a preservation expert to save the pieces. She hopes to turn them into an open sculpture where teens can continue painting the old wood, covered with the memories and emotions of generations.

Now two years on, Watkins says the project is more complicated than she expected but she and others in the Stanwood Memorial Barn Resurrection group continue their work.

Pieces of the barn are propped against the back of a shed at Watkins’ house, layered with chipping paint but smooth to the touch along the lines of stark blue letters.

Anthony’s name is here, too: “RIP Anthony I Love You.”

Some large parts of the barn remain in a farmer’s field. The farmer wasn’t always keen on having his barn vandalized by high-schoolers but over time it became tradition. When space ran out, teens painted over past designs. In recent years, the barn had been decorated with the names of a mother lost to cancer, teens killed in car accidents and a 7-year-old accidently shot by her younger brother, among others.

More young people have died since the barn was taken down, including three teens who committed suicide.

“We still need the barn,” Watkins said. “I loved that the kids had a safe, artistic place to grieve.”

She first felt drawn to the barn after 17-year-old Ellen Floyd died in a car accident in 2010. She didn’t know Ellen but decided to help paint.

It seemed that countless layers of paint were holding up the aging barn, she said. Kids were climbing inside and on the roof, a concern for parents and the owner. When a “For Sale” sign went up, Watkins realized the barn needed to come down but she didn’t want it permanently destroyed.

Though painted by kids, it had become important for parents, too. It was the cornerstone of difficult talks Watkins had with her sons about suicide and reckless driving.

“You say, ‘I never want to see your name on that barn,’ ” she said.

Comstock didn’t realize how important the barn was until her son’s friends gathered to paint.

“You just want to know your child’s life mattered,” she said. “To see all of these kids come together meant so much. It made me realize he touched so many lives.”

She has pictures on her phone of Anthony grinning or making goofy faces. He was funny, loving and generous, Comstock said. After the crash, she was told there were more people than seats in the car and Anthony gave up his seatbelt for a friend. His friend survived.

Comstock felt close to her son at the barn. She met Watkins when she went there to grieve a few months after his death.

Watkins had purchased the barn that morning. It was the day Anthony would have turned 17.

Moments like that make Comstock believe the barn was meant to have a second life.

“But I honestly think I bit off more than I can chew,” Watkins said. “It’s been a lot more difficult to get up than I thought it would be.”

She wanted to build something near the downtown park-and-ride, within sight of where the barn once stood. Then she learned it was owned by the state, not the city.

Now she wonders if the barn could find a home at Ovenell Park, a newly purchased, undeveloped park at the west edge of Stanwood, but she needs to talk more with city leaders and staff.

Whether Ovenell Park would work depends on development restrictions for the property, Mayor Leonard Kelley said. A planning committee is being put together now and they’ll look deeper into the options.

“Finding a home for the barn, I think, would be a good thing,” Kelley said. “I would like to see it happen if we can find the right location and get buy-in from the City Council.”

When the barn came down in 2013, the city heard from a lot of people who were upset, he said.

It also captured the interest of two Warm Beach filmmakers, Kyle Porter and mother Anna Porter. Since the demolition, they’ve been working on a documentary called “In Their Memory: The Stanwood Memorial Barn.”

They’ve talked to 24 people, including parents, the sheriff and a grief counselor. They reviewed newspaper archives, gathered photos and “nearly broke Google,” Kyle Porter said. It seems the first name was painted on the barn in 1968, though they haven’t been able to confirm who it was.

“The connections to this barn are just nuts,” Porter said. “It’s been a joy to work on, and it’s also kind of been heartbreaking.”

If the barn pieces are reassembled before he finishes the documentary, he’ll film it, he said. If not, he plans a black screen with white text explaining where the story leaves off.

The barn was a mix of tradition and emotion, he said, a place where expression never needed explanation.

“Kids need blank canvases,” Porter said. “Blank canvases make us feel like things are still possible.”

No matter how many layers of paint there were, the barn was a canvas for young people wrestling with grief.

Comstock and Watkins want it to be that again. Once they find a home for it, they said, the Stanwood Memorial Barn will be back.

Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.