GOOD OLD DAYS:

Of all the buildings that represent the ever-changing face of Newport Beach and Irvine Ranch, this one may take the cake.

“The Barn,” now stationed on UCI’s eastern campus, for decades rested on some of Newport Beach’s best real estate, at MacArthur Boulevard and Ford Road.

The red gambrel-roofed barn was a focal point of what used to be known as Bonita Camp, after the nearby Bonita Canyon. The camp was the base of Irvine Ranch’s agricultural operations on the southern portion and housed the primary slaughtering facility for the entire ranch.

A testament to its history, the barn was a Sears and Roebuck pre-cut building, and was illustrated in the company’s 1938 catalog as one of two barns on the Irvine Ranch site. While it once served as home to an ostrich farming operation, most Newport-Mesans probably know it better as part of the Buffalo Ranch beginning in the 1950s.

Other pieces of the Buffalo Ranch were highlighted by the Daily Pilot earlier this year, including the famous silo now at home at the Orange County Fairgrounds.

Buffalo Ranch was 100 acres of rented Irvine Co. land where a couple of entrepreneurs raised buffalo in hopes of competing with the budding Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm amusement parks.

That mission ultimately failed, but The Barn — like so many other pieces of the ranch’s history — lived on.

Famed architect William Pereira bought the ranch in 1961 and renovated the barn as his personal office while he completed his master plan for Irvine Ranch.

Other buildings, such as the silo, served as general office and work space.

But being the “old barn enthusiast” UCI historians say he was, Pereira took the barn with him on jobs, literally.

When he was commissioned to design the Chet Holifield Memorial Federal Building in Laguna Niguel, he had the barn moved there to serve as his field office, intact.

According to school records, while Pereira was designing the building, the remaining buildings at his Irvine Ranch site, known as Urbanus Square, were removed.

Seeking to commemorate his work on the developing UCI campus, Pereira worked with modern dance innovator Jersy Gratowski to bring the barn onto the UCI campus.

In 1971, it moved to the eastern end of the campus, where it now sits. It housed the university’s Farm School until 2007, when the school was moved to Aliso Viejo.

The barn is still used as a dance studio to this day. No word whether it’s square dancing.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.