THE NICASIO RIDING CLUB that opened a year ago in Marin County is aiming for stardom, and with its fine trainers and modern design improvements to the buildings it occupies, its founders, architect Julie Dowling and program director Michele George, may succeed.
Confident of attracting a community of riders who wanted a convivial après-ride atmosphere, Dowling and George leased seven acres to start their own club within an existing 38-acre “horse-property” in Nicasio that Dowling owns with her husband.
“Michele worked on the horse program, while I worked on the buildings,” the architect says.
However, the linchpin, a long 4,000-squarefoot barn, unchanged in shape or size, is where small and large improvements abound.
Outside, an exposed light bulb over the barn doors was replaced with a gooseneck pendant fixture that mitigates light pollution at night; the wide 2-inch-thick siding and the sliding barn doors were painted a uniform black. They are all the more striking minus ugly leaky windows on either side of them and the pipe-railfenced paddocks flanking the barn that were removed to allow for new landscaping. Large potted lime trees at the entrance are attractive sentinels, while, opposite the barn, Dowling tidied up simple weather-resistant corrugated steel canopies sheltering existing paddocks. There, and in the riding arenas, George recommended natural-fiber and sand footings instead of sand and aggregate to lend buoyancy and support underfoot.
Dowling’s new black storage trunks, horse-blanket bars, bridle hooks and adjustable saddle racks in front of every rolling stall door, each of which sports a stainless-steel nameplate for the resident horse, look custom but are mostly off-the-shelf. An ineffable ingredient that adds to the transformation is, inside each stall, the scent of fresh pine wood shavings that the horses love to lie in.
For club riders and visitors, Dowling redecorated ill-used storage space at one end of the barn into an open-plan sitting room with new freestanding lockers tucked out of sight. Blownglass pendant lights above an island table, blackand- white art, wide plank laminated wood floors over the old concrete slab, and modern Ikea cabinets instead of funky redwood cupboards in the existing kitchen are also smart low-cost additions.
“It has become less about simply getting a horse to ride. Even when the weather is bad people want to linger, check emails and enjoy a cup of tea,” says George, who as a child in Cape Town frequented the Cape Hunt and Polo Club. “They have an extension of the riding experience of the kind you have after golf or skiing,” she adds. “That was our inspiration.”