This is one of my favorite Irwinville Farms barns. I don’t think all of the barns and houses were originally painted white, but in images from the project in the Library of Congress, many were. This may be one of just a couple that are still painted. These tobacco barns were built so well that there are still a few around today, nearly 90 years later. That’s amazing considering they were built to be used and they were given a lot of wear and tear in the labor intensive culture of tobacco harvesting.
Most of the barns I have seen in my travels across rural GA and SC were never painted at all. Don’t know that I ever saw one painted white. Many of the wooden houses in rural SC do not seem to have ever been painted, either. I always thought it was just that those folks had no money for paint.
Houses in towns were more likely to be painted. Even in smaller towns. Again, that may have just been more of an economic issue that a “design choice.”