Biting the Dust : Old Stables Give Way to New 3-Ring Center in Lakewood

Chris Baredian squinted as she gazed across a freshly graded field in Lakewood toward Carson Street.

“To tell you the truth,” she admitted with a smile breaking across her sun-wrinkled face, “I like horses more than I like most people.”

Baredian was in good company. On a warm weekday at the Lakewood Equestrian Center, Baredian was surrounded by about 200 of her equine friends and only a handful of their owners. In a couple of years, there should be plenty more of both.

Baredian, her daughter and a longtime friend have joined the city of Lakewood in spending more than $1 million to transform the time-worn stable into a top-notch riding facility for 330 horses.

The 26-acre center just east of the concrete-lined San Gabriel River at 11369 E. Carson St. will sport everything from three riding rings to a petting zoo for children. It will serve as a retreat from the urban runaround where smoke-belching cars and jangling telephones are replaced by the thud of horse’s hoofs and sweet smell of hay.

“It was always a dream of ours to develop that area as a public facility,” Lakewood Councilwoman Jacqueline Rynerson said. “It’s going to be improved and offer a lot more to the public.”

Some Resistance Noted

The change has not occurred without resistance.

Some horse owners have moved since the new management took over last July, as the country atmosphere was being broken by construction noise. Some are concerned about rent increases after the grand plan is complete.

But other riders have taken their place and filled the stable to capacity. Monthly fees will increase to a yet undetermined level, but owners will have nicer facilities, said Baredian’s daughter, Sandie Mercer.

Changes at the Lakewood stable represent the trend toward large, modern equestrian centers like those in Huntington Beach and Industry.

While grander and fancier, such centers are not without problems. For example, the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, bordering Griffith Park, went into foreclosure last week after amassing $27-million in debt over the past six years. Before being ousted in the legal action, the center’s director had proposed turning horse stalls into equine “condominiums” selling for $30,000 each, building a medieval-style restaurant and staging jousting matches.

Modern centers also cater to a variety of riding disciplines such as English, Western and dressage, while boarding stables are oriented more toward a single style, Baredian said.

“The days of the mom-and-pop back-yard boarding stable are being phased out,” Baredian said.

She should know. She has run her own 300-horse operation in Long Beach for 33 years. In a few months, Baredian said she will close her Sandie Mercer Stable in Long Beach as the 40 remaining horses are trailered to Lakewood or elsewhere.

The closure will be the latest among riding stables in Long Beach where horses may eventually go the way of the strawberry patches.

“I would wager that in 10 years we won’t have any stables in the city,” Long Beach Planning Director Robert Paternoster predicted. “I think that as the city becomes more urban, it becomes more difficult to keep a horse.”

That is partly because the city zoned horses out of all but a few select neighborhoods several years ago, he added.

A handful of stables still remain, however. Trainer Lisa Wall said that the Rancho Rio Verde Riding Club operated by her mother boards more than 100 horses. Two other stables are across West Carson Street.

The End Was Coming

Baredian, 60, said she knew encroaching residential development would eventually put her old stable, on Golden Avenue near Wardlow Road in Long Beach, out of business.

“We were slowly getting crowded out of our Long Beach location,” she said. “I was going to retire. We could see the writing on the wall.”

Then along came the opportunity for a quick gallop to Lakewood.

Lakewood officials launched a search in 1986 for concessionaires to join in the renovation of the stables as part of a 25-year lease arrangement.

What is now the Lakewood Equestrian Center has been a fixture since the early 1950s, known then as Spiller’s Stable. Over the years it changed management several times both before and after the city purchased it in 1980.

Baredian, Mercer and Gloria Simpson won the bid to become the new concessionaires. As part of their 25-year lease, they are supposed to invest $721,000 over four years to build all new horse barns, corrals and other facilities.

The city is committed to spending about $350,000 for parking, block walls, landscaping, irrigation, underground electrical lines, sewers and other improvements.

“It is going to be a combination of two things,” said David Rodda, Lakewood’s director of Recreation and Community Services. “It’s going to be a fine boarding area at reasonable rates and it’s going to have the capability of unique public programs.”

The stable and adjoining River Park together will compose a 55-acre recreation area for group horseback riding, hay rides and barbecues in the open stretch along the banks of the San Gabriel River, Rodda said.

Rynerson said the city is nearing completion of its first phase of the stable renovation with grading and demolition of some old structures.

Taking a walk around the stable, Baredian motioned toward the new pipe-railed corrals in stark contrast to the older, worn version. She pointed to old wooden barns that will be razed to make way for new ones.

The owners and riders, as a group, are about equally mixed between children and adults, she said. Among the children, girls outnumber boys by a ratio of about 20-1.

Horse ownership remains on the pricey side. Baredian said a decent horse can be bought for less than $1,000. From there, the sky is the limit. Some owners buy the best saddles, tack and riding clothes that can run the sport into the $8,000 to $10,000 range.

A pipe corral now rents for $120 a month and box stalls go for $150 a month, including feed and cleaning. Include shoeing, vaccinations, worming and other items and the cost rises to about $300 a month for horse owners with a modest budget.

While those boarding costs will increase as the facility is rebuilt, Baredian said, “most people are happy it’s being upgraded. They will have real restrooms and not outhouses.”’

Annick Milligan, who owns a black-and-white horse, said she is worried about the possibility of future rent increases and said the construction may last longer than scheduled.

“I imagine this place when it is finished in five years will be quite nice--if you can afford it,” she said. In the meantime, she said, the construction makes riding difficult.

Owner of 3 Arabians

Brett Minor, a Lakewood city planning commissioner, keeps three Arabian horses at the stable and said he looks forward to the changes.

“I don’t mind the improvements,” said Minor, a mortician who dreams of buying a small horse ranch. “I figure I’m going to have horses all my life.”

He said he appreciates the way the new managers joined him in the around-the-clock vigil when his mare, Essence, gave birth a few weeks ago.

“We’ll stay up all night to help,” said co-lessee Simpson, Baredian’s friend for more than 30 years and now her business partner.

For Simpson, Baredian and Mercer, their operation of the center offers a chance to stay close to the horses they love.

Baredian said she is so accustomed to being around horses that she moved out of a house in a Long Beach neighborhood and into a trailer at her old stable. Now she plans to live at the center in a rustic house that is expected to be one of the few existing structures that will remain after the renovation.

Simpson said she, too, loves being around horses seven day a week. As she put it:

“When your pleasure is your business, you’re the luckiest person in the world.”