The Harold J. and Agnes McFarlane Stone House and Barn in rural Rusk County is located among several small family dairy farms from the same era, both productive and idle. The fieldstone house and fieldstone basement barn are constructed of local fieldstone and represent a building tradition that predates the twentieth century. While the forests of Rusk County were being logged off, the fieldstone was hardly noticed. It was after the logging had been completed in the early 1920s and the cut-over-land was being sold to prospective farmers that fieldstone became both a blessing and a scourge.

The fieldstone house and basement barn are both fine examples of the skill of a master stonemason. These traditional fieldstone laying skills were passed from father, William Stacey Burce to son, Charles Freeman Burce. Charles Freeman Burce’s diverse fieldstone building skills are demonstrated in the light whimsical nature of the fieldstone house and the weighty massive fieldstone walls of the basement barn.

Charles Freeman Burce added special whimsical details to the fieldstone house. The fieldstone on the walls of the house is laid up having a slight inward slope, giving the house the look of a story-book illustration. The chimney which rises up the south facing wall of the house has only a depth of seven inches (one stone). When viewing the chimney from afar it seems to appear and disappears with the movement of the light of the day. Inside the house, on the face of the fireplace chimney, is a wheel motif created with spoke-like shards of pink granite and small round rocks. The same stone wheel motif, only smaller and created with just small round stones, is located at each side of the top of the east facing door.

The whimsical details, the exceptional craftsmanship of the stone mason, and the rarity of farm buildings built using this method of construction at this scale, in combination, make this an exceptional example of stone building traditions.

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