HISTORY

WHO IS EMALEE?

15 years ago, Emalee and Lance and had their wedding reception in an old barn (a matching old barn that’s across the block actually). “We knew we wanted to celebrate our big day somewhere a little out of the ordinary and I had seen some magazine pictures of some beautiful barn receptions back East.” You see, Pinterest wasn’t a thing yet.

Finding a barn to have our reception became a bit of an adventure though. We found ourselves driving around looking for old barns that we might be allowed to use. That habit of admiring old barns became a beloved tradition of ours over the past 15 years and has never stopped! We notice and admire every single one. On one of those earlier drives, one of us, though I’m not sure which (most likely Lance), had the crazy idea of owning our own barn one day to host weddings and events. That silly idea became a dream we loved to talk about when we didn’t want to talk about anything else.

Well, recently and unexpectedly, we took that crazy step of changing our dream into a reality when we found this barn. Since the first time Lance and I walked into this barn and noticed its beautiful gambrel truss ceiling, we thought that this place was just too good to be true. So we did it, we bought it from the family of the original homesteaders. This amazing family has helped to build Rexburg into what it’s become. Ask anyone of our older generations here in Rexburg and they probably remember attending a barn-dance or a rodeo here. 

So here we are on our journey so far. We will probably always be working on this beautiful, old barn. Trying to make it wonderful for everyone to enjoy while keeping as much of its original qualities and charm intact. It feels good be living our dream and to keep a piece of Rexburg’s history alive.”