We have been privy to lots of owls so far this spring, close up and personal. Two nights ago a pair of barn owls, raising cain right outside our living room window, and last night a screach owl doing its monotone call......quite pretty......outside the back door. Owl boxes are easy to make and you can find lots of plans online one can craft out of pine (one of the recommended woods). We keep scrag trees on our property for cavity nesting birds and it's also an area with both forest and fields. Owls have different preferences as to their habitat. Good luck.

The red-tail hawks have returned to their nest on a ledge of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. There is a camera just inside the window. I watched them hatch three eggs last year and all three babies made it and flew away. This year they have three eggs again. I love the owls. What fascinating birds. Here is a link that might be useful: hawks

Oh my goodness, it was so surprising to see this old thread of mine show up today! Hmmmm, OK, this is what I did in the days and weeks right afterwards. 1) I called the sheriffs department and filed a complaint, which was pretty much worthless. They could only do something IF they saw it themselves or if I captured it. 2) I sent every home on my road an email telling them the details of what I saw and when, etc. And how angry and violated it made me feel. 3) I belong to our community NextDoor online website. I posted pretty much the same thing. THAT really got many, many people talking, and exchanging experiences and ideas. And voicing a lot of anger. Both of these were good things as I was sure that the voyeur/pervert was a nearby neighbor in the area. Meaning, he would see this and the uproar it was causing. And hopefully stop. 4) Finally, I talked with my adult son who works in the intelligence field for X (I can’t go into details for who), but VERY big. He’s not only brilliant in his field of expertise, but knows people who can and will go over any captured drone with unbelievable expertise, in their spare time as a favor to my son. Fingerprints, any data or photos found, etc., etc. This I posted on our NextDoor website and sent to all my neighbors, encouraging everyone to be diligent, watching for it, and how to capture it preserving any possible fingerprints, etc. I told them I now had access to an expert who I would send it to to retrieve any and all identifying data. And that I absolutely would not only hire an attorney to pursue legal action to the nth degree, but that I would also contact all the tv outlets with that info as well. And I was/am very serious about this. I think, I hope, that I put the fear of god in this guy’s heart, as we haven’t spotted a drone since then. But, I am always watching now. Sadly, though, this incident brought back a kind of PTSD for me, as I was the subject of an attempted kidnapping when I was younger in order to gain access to my father’s banks. It thankfully failed thanks to quick action by the FBI, but the fear of vulnerability, of never feeling totally safe, was all brought back in a heartbeat by this jerk! It took well over six months for me to feel semi-comfortable with drapes open here. . . and this place has many huge doorwalls and windows, most without drapes. That fear still revisits me now and then. I hate the fact that these drones are now so readily available to anyone, and can steal away your privacy . . . and more, on a whim!

We built basically half the structure you’re talking about as a workshop. Without the plumbing. Vaulted only 1/4 of it for the auto lift clearance. 62K in today’s money with us doing all the labor but the excavating and slab pour. A 60x60 square will have a lot of issues with roof size and shape. Square isn’t good. Rectangle is good. A big square will need steel trusses and supports. A 30 x 120 or something rectangular that works within a standard inexpensive wooden truss widths will be a lot less expensive. Planning in a bathroom was something that we really wanted. We were not allowed to connect to the existing septic. Sewer was available, but the whole property would have been forced to connect. That was 40K from a plumber and not allowed to be DIY. (My neighbor had to redo theirs, and it was 35K) So to do half of your projected project would have been 100K here in a low labor cost market with mostly DIY. You are planning on climate control? No wood basketball floors without it. Or woodshop. Ours is insulated well enough to not need a large system, but that too had its costs. Insulation requires a finished drywall surface for fire prevention issues. No HVAC without insulation, or you’re trying to heat the outdoors as my grandmother would say. You are planning on cooking ventilation if the grill is under roof? You’ll asphyxiate without it. We just pull the grill out to the driveway between the house and shop which serves as a patio. I don’t think 100K will be enough to do this. You can plan it in stages though, if you plan it correctly. The big wild card is the plumbing issue. Hire a plumber to consult now about the siting and connecting issues, before you do anything else. If allowed to connect, the existing plumbing could limit where you place the barn. Good luck!