Niwot – Most people are content to watch fireworks and eat watermelon on the Fourth of July. Alan Villavicencio thought in grander terms.
Villavicencio was busy Wednesday painting a giant American flag on a barn he bought near Niwot on Colorado 52.
Early in the morning, he interrupted his work to field calls from friends inviting him to picnics.
“Hey, what are you doing?” one asked.
“Painting the flag,” came the reply.
“What?”
“Painting the flag,” he said again. “Painting.”
The barn has become a labor of love for the 39-year-old neurosurgeon.
He bought it two years ago from Boulder County for $20,000 – with the understanding that he’d repair it.
Since then, Villavicencio says he has spent $100,000 restoring the barn.
His work brings back a landmark of sorts in Boulder County.
During the Persian Gulf War, farmers who owned the barn painted a flag on the 1925-era structure.
The rundown barn became an often-photographed image. This past year, it was a backdrop in an advertising campaign for the Country Music Awards show.
The barn, however, fell into disrepair and was acquired by Boulder County, which is looking to preserve the area’s agricultural and historic structures.
“It was leaning 2 feet over,” Villavicencio said. “The roof was caving in. Basically the whole thing was falling apart.”
Villavicencio, who already had bought 10 acres of land next to the 1-acre plot where the barn sits, made an offer to the county.
He said that if it sold him the land at the low price of $20,000, he would restore the barn and maintain a conservation easement on it.
The county would get to keep a historic agricultural structure intact.
These days, the barn sports a new foundation and cedar shingles as a roof. Milo Construction has done the heavy-duty restoration work.
Villavicencio gets a little extra land out of the deal to go with his eventual plans to build a home and maintain a farm nearby.
Tugging at his heartstrings were memories of growing up on a cattle farm in Clovis, Calif.
“I wanted to farm,” he said. “I grew up on a small farm, and I think there’s no better way to raise a kid.”
Villavicencio and his wife, Karrie, a pediatric cardiologist, have two children – 19-month-old Vinko Luigi Villavicencio, otherwise known as Farmer Vinko; and 2-month-old Victoria Adrianna Villavicencio.
Vinko enjoys riding on the tractor and feeding the chickens on the weekends.
Helping on Wednesday were Jamie Glantz, a surgical technician, and Carrie Riantong.
As she painted red stripes on the side of Villavicencio’s barn, Glantz said, “I work for him, and I grew up on a farm.”
Also in attendance was Riantong’s golden retriever, Maverick, who surveyed the progress from the shade of a tractor.
As the flag began to take shape, Villavicencio spoke proudly of the work that had gone into the design.
“We even checked with the American Legion to make sure we got just the right shade,” he said as the red stripes went up.
Staff writer Christopher N. Osher can be reached at 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com.
