Like frugalannie, my horse lives in the area – just a few miles up the road. The property had fallen on hard times, and there was even a bizarre and complicated criminal case against the man who managed it for the elderly, out-of-state owners (he was sent to prison). I board with some people who used to be there, and they swear that the place was cursed. A horse got stabbed while they were there. One of the trainers who was there not too long ago just died of brain cancer. Etc.
But it had probably the best trails access in the area – and this is saying something, as our trails access is simply unbelievable for a place that’s within 20-25 miles of Boston. A lot of the land with trails is permanently protected, and there is an organization that works with private landowners to keep access to their land. My only complaint – and I do get why – is that a lot of the trails are closed to horses December 1-May 1. I can trailer to some of the open trails, but that has its own set of problems (mostly due to the mare, and me, both being nervous sorts.) My main regret is that I did not move my horse there sooner. We are going on 2 years in the area, but she’s getting older, and I have a degenerative hand condition that is keeping me from riding as much as I want to. I wish that 2 years was more like 8.
In 2015, a trainer I know lost the place he was leasing during Snowmaggedon. The indoor caved in, horses were trapped in stalls, etc. (No horses died, thank G-d, though a couple got scraped up.) He somehow managed to find temporary accommodations for something like 30 horses, his personal ones, his school horse string, and boarder’s. The property owner would not rebuild (and probably could not), so the trainer got a lease for one wing of empty stalls at Canterbrook and put a huge amount of time into fixing it all up. He even got a grant from the state to install energy efficient lighting in the big indoor, and more or less became the manager, eventually. But there was no way he or anyone else could buy the place to keep it from development. The property is big enough that the land alone would be well into 7 figures.
The hunt club is active but declining – the younger crowd are mostly too broke to get into expensive sports like foxhunting. They already have their own property (and part of it is now a golf course.)
The area is wealthy, and aging, and Canterbrook had been zoned for senior (55+) condos a while back. The owners finally decided to sell.
As of 2 days ago, the silo and the barn attached to it were still there.
Change is inevitable. Every barn in San Diego I rode at as a kid/teen, except the one that was quite literally in a creek bed, is now covered in housing, business parks, etc. There are a lot more people… and they have to live and work somewhere.
