Kara Hammes.
Brown County
~
Barn Burner
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
44 Our Brown County May / June 2026