~by Boris Ladwig (courtesy photos)
Every Memorial Day weekend, more than 20 members of one Indiana family, ages 5 to mid-80s, converge on Brown County—arriving from as far away as Arizona, Texas and Ireland—to spend a few days together around the Indy 500. They cook, play games, relax around the second-story fire pit at the Brown County Barn Burner and catch up on their lives.
It’s the kind of gathering that’s not easy to pull off in Brown County, where most short-term rentals are limited to far fewer guests. As their family grew over the years, hotels split them up and typical vacation rentals simply couldn’t accommodate the group under one roof. That meant they lost precious time together.
In 2023, the family started looking for places a bit farther away from Indianapolis and found the Brown County Barn Burner online. Some family members drove down to Nashville to check out the property, on South Jefferson Street, about a block from the Brown County Visitors Center, and immediately booked all four units for 2024.
“The Barn Burner is an ideal setup,” said Vicki Beveridge, who lives in Arizona and at 78, is the eldest of seven siblings.
“We are all from Indiana but have spread to many corners of not only the U. S., but one brother has a home in Ireland as well,” she said. “It is nice to be able to spend as much time as possible whenever we are all together again.”
The family plans to return this year and Beveridge said she already knows she plans to renew for 2027.
Barn Burner owner Kara Hammes designed the place with large families in mind, in part because of her own experiences with traveling in a large group.
An Ohio native who has visited Brown County State Park all her life, Hammes and her husband, Clint, and their children Ayla, 13, and Bree, 11, made a spur-of-themoment decision to move from Zionsville to Nashville in late 2016.
The couple met while studying at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute. Hammes holds a degree in biology and public health and has a project manager background. Her husband, a mechanical engineer, works for Hard Truth Distilling Co.
Hammes said the couple had thought about buying a rental property to supplement their income and her own experience traveling in a large group—her husband has three siblings, and they all have families—prompted her to look for something larger.
Local short-term rental rules in Brown County generally cap occupancy in residential properties at around 10 guests. Because the Barn Burner property is zoned for commercial use, those residential limits do not apply, allowing it to accommodate large groups under a single booking. In 2018, the couple bought the Barnyard Shops property, two derelict buildings that had been vacant for many years. They tore down the structures. The new building holds four self-contained units: two three-bedroom, two-bath units upstairs, plus a two-bedroom and a one-bedroom unit on the ground floor. Each has a kitchen, laundry and private entrance, but Hammes said about 75% of guests rent the entire space, including the shared rooftop deck and event space.
Hammes and her husband handled much of the Barn Burner’s design themselves, focusing on how large groups actually use a house: dining together, cooking in bulk and staying in shared spaces rather than sitting separately in small hotel rooms.
“I know how hard it is to find a place that’s been set up with the idea of a group in mind, not just, ‘Oh well, there’s technically enough beds or enough space on the floor for all of us, but there’s not enough forks,” Hammes said. The Barn Burner is “designed with the mind of the people that are coming here, because that’s how we travel.”
The couple also wanted to make sure the design avoids the interchangeable look of many short-term rentals.
“It’s a new space that still feels like it fits in Brown County. That was important to me,” Hammes said. While the couple’s timing on the project was less than ideal—they closed on the loan March 11, 2020, days before the COVID-19 pandemic hit— Hammes said as they were ready to go, they already had locked in prices for materials. They opened the business a few months before payments on the $1.7 million construction loan began and have been able to cover all expenses since then.
“It’s not, like, easy to run a small business,” she said,
“[but] it’s going the way we thought it would.” Hammes worked as a Purdue Extension educator when the couple launched the business. She now runs the Barn Burner full-time.
She has also monetized her expertise about everything Brown County, through a blog, Tanglewood Hideaway.
“I was answering the same questions all of the time of, well, ‘What are the wineries, or what trail should we hike? Or where should we do this or that,” Hammes said.
For Beveridge, it’s clear what really sets the Barn Burner apart.
“One answer, really: Kara,” she said via email. “She makes all the difference.”
Beveridge described the host as someone who anticipates the guests’ questions, offers suggestions for activities and meals and provides small but impactful touches such as providing a s’ mores kit or pre-ordering cinnamon rolls. And, Beveridge said, Hammes knows when to leave guests alone.
“If you don’t need her for anything, she is definitely not intrusive. She seems genuine and it feels like you are friends, ” Beveridge said.
“At 78, I can easily agree with those who say that life goes by quickly. We should all enjoy the times we are able to be together. The Brown County Barn Burner is just that place.”
More information: bcbarnburner.com and tanglewoodhideaway.com