Couple Recycles Old Grain Silos Into Bed and Breakfast

Eco-farmers didn’t want to waste old grain silos so they’ve repurposed them into a charming B&B, complete with homegrown breakfast


As grateful stewards of their new land, a couple of newbie farmers decided to waste not, want not.

Former insurance brokers-turned-eco-farmers, John and Judi Stuart wanted to do as much good as they could with the 82 acres they bought to retire on in Oregon wine country.

So they kept the old ranch house, grain silos and cherry orchard they inherited with the property and converted them into something new.

Instead of sending three giant, old hunks of metal to the dump, they decided to use the silos as the centerpiece of a farmhouse-style bed and breakfast.

The charming building was created by moving the three out-of-commission grain silos across a field and “pasting” them onto the old ranch house.

The silos have been converted into two stories of luxurious guest suites, while the ranch house serves as a lobby and social hub for guests.


The energy efficient building features concrete floors with radiant heat provided by one gas-fired 50-gallon hot water tank, while expanding foam insulation sprayed between the metal silo exterior and the interior walls creates what Judi calls “the world’s largest Thermos.”

The inn’s utility bills “are very, very, very much lower than they would have been with conventional construction,” John tells Mother Nature Network.

The silos’ big windows look over a pasture full of chickens, sheep, goats, llamas and alpacas and a wetlands habitat built as a refuge for ducks, red-winged blackbirds, geese and other wildlife.



Eager to share their farm-to-table lifestyle with their guests, use almost all local ingredients including eggs, dairy, fruit and veggies from their own farm.

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