OXFORD – A bolt of lightning struck a barn on Robinson Hill Road in East Oxford on Tuesday afternoon, leveling it and an ell, and extensively damaging the 1899 farmhouse.

The raging fire at 301 Robinson Hill Road was where Gay De Hart and Chuck Howes had built a successful home-based business, Shaker View Furniture.

Howes and his son Charles Jr., were home at the time of the 4:15 p.m. lightning strike and were not injured. The couple’s two younger children, Abby and Sam, were away at camp.

The business, which manufactured high-end elegant maple chairs, stools and rockers, was destroyed.

Both the home and business were insured.

The families’ two horses and three alpacas were out of the barn at the time and were not injured.

More than 50 firefighters from five towns battled the blaze. The barn and ell were fully involved by the time the first Oxford fire engine arrived on the scene.

Firefighters fought hard to keep the flames from spreading to the house, but were only partially successful. Crews were still on the scene at 9 p.m., including Oxford Fire Chief Fred Knightly, who could not be reached for comment.

Carol Rowe, who lives across the road from the farmhouse with its sweeping views of nearby hills, was vacuuming her porch when the lightning hit the barn during a storm.

“The bolt went right over and whack! I thought it was as big as a truck,” Rowe said.

De Hart and Howes bought the house 16 years ago after the death of its former owner, farmer John Pike. They had installed a lightning rod on the roof of the barn, which has a cupola.

One woman among the crowd that had gathered across the road said she saw the lightning strike from Main Street in Oxford several miles away. Smoke could be seen rising high from as far away at the Oxford Federal Credit Union on Route 26 in north Oxford, according to one witness.

Rowe said De Hart and Howes had made many improvements to the home over the years. “I feel so sick over it. They’re a nice couple,” she said.

Pike’s granddaughter, Julie Ross, was visiting her mother a short distance away on the road when the lightning struck. Ross grew up on the farm, where her grandfather raised cattle, horses and pigs.

“That barn has been struck a lot of times” by lightning over the years, Ross said.

On their Shaker View Farm Web site, the couple wrote that they were drawn to the simple elegance of Shaker furniture.

“With a family, we wanted a business we could pursue here on the farm so we could be home while the children were young.”

They ship their chairs all over the country and service Shaker-based furniture retailers along the East Coast.

Responding to the fire were engines and tankers from Norway and Paris, which had been called out to a fire on Yagger Road in Norway only minutes before. The drivers had to turn around and head to Oxford after the call to Yagger Road was canceled.

Adding to the initial confusion was a report of a fire on Allen Hill Road, which turned out to be a false report of the smoke coming from the Robinson Hill Road fire. Fire engines with sirens blaring passed each other on the Station Road as several engines that had arrived atop Robinson Hill scrambled to respond to the Allen Hill Road fire report.

Other towns helping to battle the fire were Otisfield and Mechanic Falls.