Brays Island is a unique place. It was a working plantation as recently as the 1980s, until owner Sumner Pingree chose to preserve the property by allowing 325 families the opportunity to purchase one-acre circular lots and share the remaining 5,250 acres. Consider the fact that we have 3,500 acres of hunt lands, an 18-hole golf course, a Holland & Holland-designed sporting clays course, freshwater ponds, saltwater impoundments, etc. What Brays also offers is the space and natural beauty to make this an equestrian’s dream property.
"I’ve been an owner at Brays for 28 years and lived here full-time for the last 10 years," said Cindy Rochester. "Brays is a special place for horse and rider. Owners and guests are able to ride trails underneath the beautiful live oaks scattered around our 5500 acres. We are fortunate to have Nicole and her knowledgeable staff overseeing the care of our horses."
As is the case with any valuable asset, it needs to be protected and improved when possible.
The Equestrian Center, the hub of Brays’ Equestrian amenity, is one such asset. To this day, it maintains a certain look and feel that connects the present to the past. The structures are vintage Brays Island, but with newly added upgrades.
“The equestrian center was originally the dairy,” said Nicole Palazzo, Brays’ Equestrian Director. “The lounge area was the milking parlor so it has large doors and brick floors, and the building itself is brick. The view you get when you drive up today is the view that we want people to see going forward. It is really important to us to keep the silo (a focal point) to keep the history of the plantation alive. The cow barn, which now serves as a horse barn, is where they originally fed the milk cows, so maintaining that history is important.”
Over the past year, Nicole and the Equestrian Department oversaw a number of upgrades that prioritized safety and the needs of the horses, while improving the overall efficiency of the staff.
“The plantation barn was probably the least favorable barn that we had before the upgrade,” Nicole said. “The ceilings were incredibly low, it used to get uncomfortably hot, and it needed better walls. We also needed to look at the building itself and make sure that it was in good shape and would last another 50 years.”
During the renovations, the interior of the barn was completely gutted, the ceiling was raised two-and-a-half feet, and new, steel-lined walls were installed. In between the stalls, there is now a half-wooden partition with metal bars above. This change has improved airflow dramatically, making cooling the barn much more efficient. The horses are loving the new setup with ceiling fans situated below the rafters, which allows the air to blow directly on them. “Fast forward a few months” Nicole said, “and this is now probably the nicest barn on the plantation.”
The six-stall barn received a makeover, as well.
“There were dutch doors previously, which allowed the horses to hang their heads out, and it was quite dangerous when you would walk in front of the stalls because the horses would lunge at you and bite owners’ horses because they were being protective of their food,” said Nicole. “So we not only changed them for safety, but the doors that we put in are a much nicer quality. We were also able to check the structural integrity of the door frames and replace any wood that needed to be replaced. The stall walls were also covered with grills so that the horses were contained in their stalls, which makes it much safer to walk through the area.”
The former cow barn now has galvanized steel frames over the window sills and a small eave on both sides of the barn to prevent the rain from running down into the barn, thus extending its life.
What seems to be a minor upgrade, the improvements made to the laundry room have had a significant impact on the equestrian staff and how efficiently they spend their time.
“One of the other big improvements was expanding the laundry room,” said Nicole. “The contractors did an amazing job of integrating it into the existing layout of the building. You can’t tell that they’ve added it, but we did laundry for 80 horses in a really small space. So not only did we double the size of that space, but we got a much larger washing machine and so now we can do a better job cleaning horses’ fly sheets and saddle pads. This also makes us much more efficient. We probably did 5 - 10 loads a day prior to getting this new washing machine. We probably do two loads now and it gets everything much cleaner.”
It has been a busy year for the equestrian staff!