Red Barn renovations nearing completion for a July debut
Palm trees, the signature of many new developments on campus, were planted throughout the Red Barn complex as part of the $4 million renovation that began in October. The Red Barn, above, and the neighboring School Barn both received new coats of cardinal and white paint as part of the sprucing up.
A bronze statue of the fabled Electioneer welcomes visitors to the Red Barn, which is undergoing a $4 million renovation that began in October.
Horses that step through the main doors of the Red Barn will find new rubber flooring installed, one of numerous improvements to the stables at the complex.
BY RAY DELGADO
If the fabled Electioneer were to step hoof into the newly refurbished Red Barn today, who knows how many more champion horses he would have sired out of delirium.
Even Leland Stanford, a pioneer in the practice of scientifically breeding champion horses at the Farm, would have been amazed at the facelift his Palo Alto Stock Farm has received over the past six months.
The fresh coat of dark cardinal paint and the 16 palm trees that have been planted in front of the historic Red Barn only hint at the changes that the entire complex has undergone. The horses that will soon return to the facility will find state-of-the-art stalls with new rubber flooring, automatic water troughs, new grates for better breathing, bug sprayers to help control flies, new grooming stations and a new lighting system that will allow some stalls to remain dark while others are illuminated during nighttime hours.
The changes are part of a $4 million renovation to the Red Barn, a historic landmark that is the original Stanford Farm's last remaining building. The renovation is the third one in the barn's history (the last one took place in 1984), and officials plan to introduce the gleaming complex to the community sometime in July.
"It's pretty exciting to be in striking distance of being able to move back into the barn," said Vanessa Bartsch, general manager of the barn. "We had an alumna who was here the other day to see the barn and she started crying because she liked it so much."
For Bartsch, the renovation has been a labor of love—albeit sometimes more labor than love. Bartsch, a former Stanford equestrian team member, has taken only one day off over the past several months. Earlier this month, though, she managed to make time to get married in Italy. She had postponed her wedding a couple of times because she was overseeing the care for 41 horses in the temporary facility on the other side of Electioneer Road, as well as all of the renovations taking place at the Red Barn complex, which includes the Red Barn, the neighboring School Barn, the old brick stable and an outdoor riding arena.
The renovations were much more complicated than originally anticipated, said Ray Purpur, associate athletic director. The Athletics Department assumed control of the barn on Sept. 1 from a local equestrian company that had leased it for more than 20 years. Officials initially thought the barn would need a sprucing up, but quickly realized that the entire facility required several million dollars' worth of renovations, Purpur said.
"All the utilities infrastructure had to be redone," he said. "There was substantial grading to do that we didn't expect for the whole property. The foundation was non-existent for the School Barn."
Real estate developer and longtime university supporter John Arrillaga stepped in with the funding needed to refurbish the complex and its infrastructure and to create a new museum and equestrian team facilities in the fenced-in, decaying brick stable that sat unused for decades. The brick stable was built in the late 1800s after a fire gutted a wooden stable that housed many of Leland Stanford's prized horses. Farm managers quickly realized their mistake in housing the horses in the brick stable when many of the horses, including the famed Palo Alto, died from pneumonia due to the damp conditions.
The brick stable fell into a state of disrepair over the ensuing decades and was completely fenced in because it was not seismically sound. Newly renovated, the brick stable has been braced with wooden beams and will contain small locker rooms and offices for the equestrian team. Copper rain gutters also have been installed on the structure, a gleaming touch the building had never known before.
The brick stable will be a permanent home for the equestrian team, which currently operates as a club sport, with the possibility of hosting future varsity competitions, Purpur said.
"We think that the formula is to build a grand facility for the team to use and then at some point in time we'll investigate whether we should turn this into a varsity sport," Purpur said.
Although the Red Barn was spruced up with a new paint job and an array of horse-friendly features, officials were limited in what they could do because of the barn's historic status. Not so with the neighboring School Barn, which has been extensively remodeled so that it resembles a horse Hilton compared to the average stable.
Most of the barn is being redone using sustainably farmed wood from Brazilian walnut trees, among the most dense in the world, to reduce wear and tear on the facility. Each of the stalls has new windows that are more than twice as big as the old windows, allowing more light and air circulation, and each will have new feeding doors that eliminate the need for a handler to enter the stall to deliver food.
The School Barn also was lifted off its base so that construction crews could pour a foundation under the building. The building had no foundation before, which allowed the horses to dig deep holes in their stalls, making it difficult for them to sleep and sometimes causing injuries. The building also will have a new interior roof and new storage lofts.
Fewer horses will be housed at the complex than before, a decrease from about 110 to 67 due to the renovations and a desire by officials to avoid overcrowding. Twenty of the stalls will be occupied by equestrian team horses, 20 will be used by horses owned by students, and the remaining 27 slots will be made available to community members, including faculty and staff, for rentals.
The cost of renting a stall at the barn will rise considerably due to the upgrades and the costs associated with hiring seven full-time grooms to maintain the horses and facility. Community boarders will pay $1,100 per month (minus $100 if they previously housed their horse at Stanford), faculty and staff will pay $800 per month, and students will pay $450. The average rate for board in the area is about $700 to $800, Bartsch said.
The horses that return to the complex also will find that the improvements extend well beyond their stalls. There will be new footing and fences installed in the outdoor covered arena, and new 40-by-60-foot paddocks will be created to provide more opportunities for exercise. The complex also will have a new Eurosizer machine, a freestyle automated horse walker.
"Each horse will get premium care instead of mediocre care," Bartsch said. "We'd rather run this at a smaller margin and have happy horses."
