John McConnell, right, and his son, Ian, attend to two of the spread’s four horses (under the watchful eye of their Australian cattle dog, Jesse) at Mr. McConnell’s soybean farm in Derry Township, Pennsylvania, near Blairsville.
The McConnell Farm buildings, including what is now the family’s extensively remodeled house, which was a bull barn, were once part of the dairy operation at the Torrance State Hospital, a psychiatric and indigent-care hospital that opened just across the road in 1919.