I’m in rural Ohio this weekend for a wedding.
In driving around I see lots of houses that have a large 5 pointed star on the side.
Is there any meaning to these or are they decoration?
Yes they do. Thanks for the info.
N.b., if you’re ever in Columbia, SC, and wondering what the stars on the state house are all about, they mark where Sherman’s artillery scored hits.
In addition to the style in the Wiki link, I’ve also seen a fair number of barn stars made from woven grapevine. The folks I know with them consider them purely decorative.
We have a couple of them on our house. There’s no real deep meaning to them. They are just good luck symbols, kinda like horseshoes. You see them a lot through PA and OH, especially in areas with heavy Pennsylvania Dutch traditions.
Not always purely decorative, my family’s 130 year old stone farmhouse has 5 pointed cast steel stars serving as decorative washers on the outside ends of long bolts that go through the walls. The bolts extend all the way through the house, inside the 2nd story floor joists, with nuts and the about 1’ across star washers on the outside of the house. Obviously to help keep the walls from leaning, I think only the better made houses have them though. One of my sisters lives in a similar age, two story stone house, and her south wall bulges noticeably, like a little residential pot belly.
Now, we built an add-on to the house that required moving/covering up two of the stars, so we replaced them with plain steel plates and moved the two stars to a purely decorative position near the front door, so I guess “some” are structural now and some not.
I got one, though haven’t put it up yet. In my case, it means:
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Astronomers live here.
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I think barn stars look cool.
You see a lot of them around here, too. Then again, I live in the Lone Star state. 
I am rather fond of hex symbols on barns - it hits upon my german side, not so much of the stars though. I always thought a hypercube starwould make a great hex symbol 
