The center of agricultural activities at Pleasant Hill, this barn functioned as a home for livestock and storage for hay. Other barns on the complex were used to dry tobacco, a cash crop. Important but not prominent, barns—if they were painted at all—were required to be of a dark hue. Black, of course, raised the inside temperature, good for drying, but the color may also have originated with creosote, used to repel termites. Many barns in Kentucky have adopted black as a “fashionable” color.