DALLAS CENTER — When James Godfrey was 12 years old, he vividly remembers milking cows in the family’s stoic brick barn. Today, the family’s barn no longer houses livestock but instead serves as an amazing event center people flock to for its uniqueness, its history and its beauty.

Godfrey’s grandparents moved from Pennsylvania to near Dallas Center in Dallas County and built their home and barn on land they farmed. Sadly, the original barn burned down in 1930, but the family rebuilt it. It was a dairy barn and Godfrey recalls not only milking cattle but putting up baled hay with hooks.

“Dad used to milk along one side of the barn and they’d carry the milk over to the milk house, but then he made a nice milking parlor that lifted the cows up to eye level and he had a pipeline for the milk. When I was 12, I learned to milk and I milked until I went to college. In the early ’70s we sold the cows because they just weren’t making much money. The barn sat empty for a while, then we had some other livestock in it, but I eventually had this idea to use it for wedding receptions,” Godfrey said.

He tore out the inside of the barn and set his mind to sprucing it up and polish the family’s barn, an iconic of their agricultural roots.

“I jackhammered the floor, bought new windows, did simple things that I could do myself. It was fun fixing it up, but my wife said it had become a barn that she could host a wedding in,” Godfrey said. “So then she invested her time and energy into it and in the first year, we had five weddings without a bathroom. The next year we added bathrooms and it’s gone wonderfully since then.”

The Keller Brick Barn is stunning with its solid brick exterior and beautiful wooden interior from the floors to the arched ceiling. Chandeliers set a serene atmosphere inside and the tin roof gives it a gleaming appearance outside. Weddings are held there six months out of the year. The Godfreys don’t want to insulate it for year-round weddings because it would take away from the barn’s authenticity.

“It is heated in case it gets cooler and has air conditioning, but the heater couldn’t keep up with Iowa’s brutal winters. Pam pays excellent attention to every detail and makes sure everyone is happy,” Godfrey said.

The Keller Brick Barn is a family affair with Pam organizing everything, Godfrey helping with maintenance and projects, and their daughter Kady Godfrey handling scheduling, paperwork, social media and marketing. She’s also an outstanding photographer.

When Godfrey isn’t busy helping with the barn and events, he still actively farms the family’s crop ground. He hires out combining for harvest, but handles the ground prep and planting. He and his wife live a mile up the road on 80 acres that was his great-uncle’s farm where they have horses and their daughter lives in the family’s original farmhouse, making them the fourth and fifth generation to live there. There’s also a bit of interesting history behind the barn Godfrey shared.

“My grandfather was a member of the Old Order River Brethren. They dressed plain like the Amish and every year, they’d have a special meeting in the spring in the hay mows of this barn. It was a huge deal. The Des Moines Register even came out and took pictures, it was that interesting,” Godfrey said.