Joseph Conrad Farm, State Route 183 & Bright School Road (Penn Township), Mount Pleasant, Berks County, PA

Significance: This is a unique example of the convergence of Pennsylvania German industry, commerce, and agriculture. Because the land on the farm is substandard for the area, there was a constant effort by the owners to break into commercial and industrial fields. On the site of this farmstead, for example, there has been (aside from a general farm and dairy farm) a gristmill, a powder mill, a clover mill, a steam-powered mill, an important canal warehouse, and a budding bungalow community. The surviving house, barn, and warehouse bear witness to the general prosperity of the owners: the house is a large, five-bay, late Georgian, stone structure and the barn is a traditional Pennsylvania German bank barn with a large addition. The canal warehouse is particularly significant because it s a rare survival of its type. The farmstead also has the typical array of Pennsylvania German outbuilding- buildings, all planned according to vernacular traditions.
Survey number: HABS PA-260
Building/structure dates: ca. 1815 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: ca. 1850 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: ca. 1930 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1977 Demolished