manning heritage park

We love this place so much it's actually where we'll be getting married! Beautiful barn and a wonderful hall that will allow for a large wedding! Church building also on the grounds. It's wonderful!!

The things you can see in the midwest...Persia, Macedonia, Venice, on and on. Here is another. While driving to Templeton, Iowa, along Hwy 141, to celebrate the opening of the new distillery for the wonderful Templeton Rye, I saw on a low hill a typical midwestern German Lutheran church from times past...the tall narrow steeple, often painted silver (here too) and the church in white, simple aspiring Gothic lines. These are wonderful old places to visit.There then was a sign for something called Das Hausbarn, a German name combining house and barn, and having some time, turned the car into the dirt road to see what was what. Passed a little picnic ground set among some trees, a guy mowing very tall grass (a common sight in these parts in the summer) and then found the road up the hill to the church. As I passed a quite nice looking meeting house/conference center (in the middle of Iowa miles from nowhere...high hopes and the 'build it and they will come' philosophy, I guess), a woman in fancy German peasant garb waved wildly. How nice, I thought, waved back and motored up to the church, where I got out, braced myself into the prairie wind, and began to walk to the church to take a look. The woman, who by now had run - not walked but ran - up the hill, told me I need to take the tour. Turns out, this is a touristic effort on someone's part and it costs 6 bucks a pop to tour the conference center, the reconstructed barn from Germany and apparently the church. I asked if I could then just walk up to and around the church, not go in at all, would there be a problem with that? Yes. Yes, there would be a problem? Yes, there would, she said. Well, I said, having lived in Germany for some years, you certainly are German in both dress and attitude and bade her, and the wonderful church, farewell. I left still thinking this was an actual working church but it turns out, no, it is not, although nothing is posted to hint at this. It is simply part of this 'roadside attraction' . Getting home, Googled it, and there it was, a heritage park. (see the website, attached here, for a picture of the church) http://www.davidkusel.com/hausbarn/promote/promote.htmRather a startling experience, like having trespassed on some area and being blamed for it, despite absence of signage. But that too is rather German. So, I know that the likelihood of you ever seeing this is low, I know, but should the opportunity present itself, perhaps on a drive across country, don't bother. The attitude is poor, more in line with the old German Feldgrau and marching orders, not the merry farmer's daughter outfit, not at all accomodating or friendly (which is very out of place in IA), and you can see any number of such old churches as you tool along. However, do visit the Templeton Rye Distillery if ever in Templeton and avail yourself some of that fine rye if you have a chance.