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HOMES
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MARKETS
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PEOPLE
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MANSION
UPKEEP
MATT FURMAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (GRETZKY)
VALUES
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NEIGHBORHOODS
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REDOS
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SALES
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
© 2016 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved.
TEXAS Jodi and Van Wilkinson built this 3,500-square-foot
home at Cordillera Ranch, which is near San Antonio.
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‘There is nothing so good for
the inside of a man as the outside
of a horse.’ —John Lubbock
FLORIDA Harrison Reicher, 1O, with Mimi, his family’s polo pony,
at Windsor in Vero Beach. Harrison, with his siblings, below.
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FIXTURES
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BROKERS
Friday, October 28, 2016 | M1
SOUTH CAROLINA Cindy Miller’s horse Boo, a mustang-paint
cross, rests after a trail ride at Brays Island Plantation.
AMY MIKLER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (TEXAS); ALEXIA FODERE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (2, FLORIDA); ANDREW SHERMAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (SOUTH CAROLINA)
Hockey’s
‘Great One’ recalls
his dinky rink
HORSE LOVERS PONY UP
Pricey, equestrian-friendly gated communities lay on amenities, including state-ofthe-art stables, dressage rings and weekly vet visits; try a simulated fox hunt.
BY AMY GAMERMAN
A SELECT GROUP OF RESIDENTS at Brays Island Plantation, a 5,500-acre gated community
in coastal South Carolina, are pampered with
massages, acupuncture therapy and custom diet
plans. They also get their manes pulled.
“My horses get new shoes every five weeks—I
don’t do that for myself,” said Cindy Miller, 58,
a Brays resident who keeps her two horses at
the plantation’s full-service equestrian center—a
remodeled dairy with a staff of 13 and weekly
visits by a veterinarian and two farriers, to trim
and shoe hooves.
Gated enclaves that cater to horses—and the
home buyers who love them—are laying on
equine-friendly amenities like never before, with
state-of-the-art stables, jumping and dressage
rings, polo fields and miles of maintained trails.
Please turn to page M6
YOUR NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
INSIDE
Some agents who think a ghost will derail a home sale turn to psychics, ghostbusters and paranormal investigators
for help; success stories abound, but was that spooky sound really a ‘dark energy’ or just a plumbing problem?
MIKE LEMANSKI
BY KATY MCLAUGHLIN
LOTS OF THINGS can thwart
a home sale—ugly décor, a
bad location or an unrealistic
price. But some homeowners
and real-estate agents cite
another reason: ghosts.
For help, there’s a cottage
industry of people who advertise themselves as psychics, ghostbusters and paranormal investigators. Some
charge hundreds of dollars
to visit “haunted” properties—either in person, or via
astral travel—and “clear”
them of unwanted spirits.
Others are volunteer ghostbusters who comb homes
with high-tech gear to suss
out paranormal activity.
Jane Phillips, a paranormal investigator and self-described clearer in Santa Fe,
N.M., markets her services to
real-estate agents because
“it’s easier to get them to
pay for something if it gets
their houses sold.” Ms. Phillips, 65, was a mortgage
banker for 30 years in Minneapolis, before moving to
New Mexico in 2008, she
said. Since then she has
worked on hundreds of
Please turn to page M4
LEGEND’S LOFT
A musician and model
sell their condo M2
SAY GOOD NIGHT
Three homes with
sleeping porches M10
BACK IN BERKELEY
A home reclaimed
from squatters M12
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
M6 | Friday, October 28, 2016
MANSION
HORSE LOVERS PONY UP
A FAMILY THAT PLAYS TOGETHER Polo players Harrison Reicher, 1O, in front, with brother Theodore, 8, center, and sister Maeve, 12, in back, at Windsor, a development in Vero Beach, Fla., that has a full-size polo field. The family moved from Manhattan to Windsor in 2014, drawn by its horses and its year-round beach lifestyle.
FROM TOP: ALEXIA FODERE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; ANDREW SHERMAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (3)
Continued from page M1
Residents can saddle up borrowed horses for catered
ride-and-dine evenings, ford
rivers on rugged trail rides—
and even ride to hounds in
simulated fox hunts.
Although equestrian facilities are costly to maintain—
and rarely turn a profit for
developers—horses are powerful marketing tools who
earn their keep in home
sales, advertising a bucolic,
outdoorsy lifestyle to toptier buyers who may never
have never sat in a saddle.
To pull it off, a developer
must set aside plenty of
valuable acreage for grazing
and trails, hire an equestrian
manager and staff, maintain
paddocks and pastures so
they stay green and nonsmelly, and pony up for feed,
veterinarians and hefty insurance policies.
“It’s a lot of work, but it
broadens our appeal to families—they may not be horseback riders themselves, but
they get excited about the
option,” said Charlie Hill,
president and COO of DH Investments, which developed
Cordillera Ranch, an 8,700acre community of homes
priced from $600,000 to
over $3 million near San Antonio, Texas. Cordillera offers residents an equestrian
center stocked with retired
rodeo horses for lessons and
trail rides.
Equestrian communities
are a niche market that appeal to 11% of all new home
shoppers, according to Mollie Carmichael, a principal at
John Burns Real Estate Consulting. “There’s a character
to the equestrian lifestyle
that is unquestionably
great—teaching your kids to
ride, teaching them about
nature,” she said.
There’s a wait list for
stalls at Brays Island Plantation, a sporting community
with golf, clay-shooting and
quail-hunting, where available homes are listed between $725,000 and $3.5
million. As many as 80
horses live at Brays during
its high season from October
to May—including 10 plantation-owned horses reserved
for members and their
guests.
In February, Brays equestrians saddle up for the annual Middleton Place Hounds
hunt, a fox-free hunt with
trained foxhounds brought in
from Charleston, who chase
a dragged scent on a planned
route across the plantation’s
3,500 undeveloped acres.
Owners pay $630 per
month to stall board their
horses, or $420 for pasture
boarding with run-in shelters. A full acre to an acreand-a-half of pasture is set
aside for each horse, keeping
the landscape pristine.
“In past years, home sites
adjacent to horse pastures
have commanded up to a
20% to 25% premium over
home sites adjacent to the
golf course,” said Paul Burton, managing partner of
Brays Island Realty and one
of the plantation’s 325 equity owners. The pastures
are dragged at least once a
week to stay odor free.
Basic operating costs for
the equestrian center average $600,000 annually, a
chunk of which is covered by
residents’ monthly dues and
annual capital assessments,
which will total about
$27,000 per owner this year.
To cover the balance, the
plantation charges user fees
for everything from manure
removal ($24 per hour) to
paint-the-pony sessions for
the grandchildren ($11 per
participant).
Ms. Miller said she will
pay about $23,000 this year
in boarding fees and services
for Talar, her palomino quarter horse, and Boo, a mustang-paint cross—horses she
acquired after buying land
on a saltmarsh at Brays,
where she and her husband
Paul built a $1.6 million
home in 2000.
“We bought the lot because they had horses here—
that was a childhood dream
of mine, and something I
HORSING AROUND Cindy and Paul Miller at Brays Island Plantation, a community in South Carolina,
above left; the equestrian center, top right; the Millers built this $1.6 million home in 2000, above right.
couldn’t afford as a younger
person,” said Ms. Miller, a
retired financial controller
who learned to ride on plantation horses with Brays instructors.
Now she spends most
mornings riding her horses
on the plantation’s 60-mile
network of trails and sand
roads, often with women
friends. “After we ride, everyone goes to lunch together,” Ms. Miller said, adding that her husband prefers
to shoot sporting clays or
play golf: “The men never
want to go.”
You can play polo at
Windsor, a 440-acre oceanfront enclave in Vero Beach,
Fla., where homes for sale
are priced between $1.65
million and $9 million.
Prince Charles has played exhibition matches for charity
on Windsor’s full-size polo
field. This winter, top polo
players will drop by with
their ponies to play informal
chukkers with residents.
“It’s like polo in their
backyard—the players go for
drinks afterward and meet
people at the club,” said Max
Secunda, a professional polo
player and coach who became Windsor’s equestrian
director in September. The
facility features jumping and
dressage rings and 14 green
paddocks—manure is hidden
away behind a hedge until it
can be trucked off-site.
“The kids never played
polo before we came here—
they did ride, but now it’s
100% polo,” said Craig Reicher, who moved with his
wife, Erin, and three younger
children from Manhattan to
Windsor in 2014, drawn by
its horses and year-round
beach lifestyle.
The Reichers’ younger
children, ages 12, 10 and 8,
train with Mr. Secunda and
all play polo competitively.
The Reichers recently moved
into a larger Windsor home,
paying $6.9 million, according to public records—and
gaining a view of the stables
and their Argentinian polo
pony, Mimi. “The kids can
literally look off the balcony
and see their horse peeking
her head out of the stall,”
said Mr. Reicher, 55, a vice
chairman at CBRE, a real-estate services company.
Mimi’s stall costs $1,000
per month; the Reichers also
paid a $120,000 club initiation fee and $14,325 in annual dues (golf memberships
are more expensive). Lessons
and trail rides on the club’s
12 horses—which include six
thoroughbreds trained for
polo—are billed separately.
“It’s not a moneymaker,”
said Betsy Hanley, president
of Windsor’s development
company, noting that the
horses are a valuable carrot
for home buyers: “We offer
it as an additional amenity,
so that it would help us attract a certain type of member,” she said.
Other developers fell off
their horses during the re-
cession. A bank owns the
glass-and-poplar stable built
in 2008 as the centerpiece of
the Long Branch Lakes, a
planned equestrian community in Tennessee that went
into foreclosure last year.
“It’s a super high-quality
barn. I just don’t have the
pockets to buy it and run it
at a loss,” said Cliff Davidson, a builder whose Highland Rim Retreats is now
marketing part of the development as an executive
sportsmen’s retreat.
Cordillera Ranch, which is
halfway through its development, with 1,300 homes and
home sites, leases its equestrian center from a partner
in the development—a move
that mitigated some of the
financial risks involved as
developers gauged the
horses’ popularity with
homeowners.
In 2006, Cordillera packaged the equestrian facility
and its ranch horses (there
are nine) as one of seven
“lifestyle clubs”—including
golf, a rod and gun club and
watersports—all available to
residents for a $65,000 deposit and $760 monthly dues.
“Cordillera is one of a
very small number of communities that have both golf
and equestrian—I’ve met
people who came here from
out of state just because of
that,” said Jodi Wilkinson, a
horse-lover whose husband,
Van, prefers golf on the
ranch’s Nicklaus Signature
course.
The Wilkinsons bought a
4-acre lot for about $100,000
in 2000, building a 3,500square-foot home in 2011. Although she has enough land
for a barn, Ms. Wilkinson decided to keep her quarter
horse Pete, at the stables,
paying $650 per month for
stall boarding. “Caring for a
horse, that’s a 24/7 job,” said
Ms. Wilkinson, who is 64.
“My husband’s retired, we’d
like to travel.”
Pete is a Cordillera celebrity who dresses up for Halloween, Texas Independence
day and the barn’s annual
Easter brunch buffet, which
draws as many as 250 residents. “We do International
Beer Day. I have one of those
beer mug hats I put on him,”
said Ms. Wilkinson, who is
training Pete to a pull a cart
so she can take her grandchildren for rides on the
ranch’s 8 miles of trails.
The kids have also signed
up for the ranch’s riding
camps, where activities
range from swimming on
horseback in Swede Creek, to
decorating the resident pony
with bows, braids and glitter.
Shane Reynolds, Cordillera’s recreation director,
said the equestrian club is a
loss leader that is well worth
the cost.
“We are projecting a loss
of about $40,000 this year—
but it really helps us sell the
lifestyle of the club,” he said.
“It’s worth it to a developer
to have a loss on that amenity, but sell dirt out here.”
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
NY
Friday, October 28, 2016 | M7
MANSION
AMY MIKLER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (6)
SADDLE UP Jodi and Van Wilkinson, right, at Cordillera
Ranch in Texas. Counter clockwise from top: Ms. Wilkinson in
the saddle; her horse Pete, a
Cordillera celebrity; photos of
the couple’s home.
EQUINE FRIENDLY The meeting lounge of Cordillera Ranch’s equestrian center overlooks the riding arena, above. Halfway through its development, with 1,300 homes and home sites, Cordillera Ranch is
an 8,700-acre community of homes priced from $600,000 to over $3 million near San Antonio. In 2006, Cordillera packaged the equestrian facility and its ranch horses as one of seven ‘lifestyle clubs.’
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O: 212.350.8050 | C: 917.301.5369
[email protected]
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