February 15, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Northwestern Stables narrowly escapes privatization
Fairmount Park officials considered turning the facility over to a private operator.
by Kristin Pazulski

The publicly held Northwestern Stables, home to 20 horses and more than 80 riders, must be improved by its board or face privatization. (Photo by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

The potential leasing of the Fairmount Park-owned Northwestern Stables to a private organization has been put on hold for at least a year while the stables’ nonprofit board of directors will attempt to remedy financial, physical and program problems that have increased in the past few years.

Northwestern Stables, Inc., situated at Germantown and Northwestern avenues, serves a group of diverse riders from Northwest Philadelphia and nearby parts of Montgomery County and has been operated as a nonprofit community barn since 1993.

Currently the barn is boarding about 20 privately-owned horses, and more than 80 riders (mostly children) are registered in their winter lesson program, according to Anne-Marie Corner, mother of a Northwestern rider and a board member since March.

While the approximately 10-acre facility has an active and diverse community of riders, inactive boards let the equestrian stables fall into disrepair over the past few years, and major improvement projects are needed.

“The previous boards haven’t done a good job caring for the building,” Corner said.

The barn, built in the 1920s, and adjoining structures need new electrical and plumbing systems and new floors. The barn’s interior needs to be sanded down and repainted, cracks in the exterior of the barn need to be repaired, and the entire barn needs to be cleaned, repainted and re-stuccoed. The roof, made of slate, is a patchwork of repairs and needs to be replaced.

Corner noted that a line of horse stalls at the rear wall of the old barn is unusable because the wall’s foundation has been weakened by old age, neglect and flooding from Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

The cost of the necessary improvements to Northwestern was estimated at approximately $800,000, based on a facilities assessment done in 2001, said Mark Focht, executive director of the Fairmount Park Commission.

Last March, Mike Desfor and his wife, Carolyn, who own Desfor Farms in Chester Springs, Chester County, expressed interest in taking over the operation of the nonprofit stables. Desfor Farms is a 46-acre equestrian center, with similar programming to Northwestern, including boarding, lessons and involvement with competitions.

The Desfors, who knew about the stables from their time living in Roxborough, have been interested in the stables ever since Carolyn Desfor boarded her horse there about five years ago.

“We always thought it was a tremendous facility, and when we had achieved a certain level of success out here, Carolyn said it would be fun to try to go back there and do something with it,” Mike Desfor said.

Carolyn Desfor said while riding there, she was not happy with the stables’ care for the horses, explaining that the stalls were dirty, blankets were ripped and horses’ turn out (the time a horse is allowed to roam in fields for exercise) was not frequent enough.

Dale Shilling, the stables’ veterinarian who has worked with Northwestern’s boarded horses since 1980 — when Philadelphia’s police department horses were boarded there — said the stables’ condition is “OK,” but it could be better.

“The sooner the improvements get done, the better for the horses,” Shilling said.

The Desfors, who were originally unaware of the amount of work needed for the barn, re-wrote their proposal to encompass the nearly $1 million in improvements. Mike Desfor said the new plan, as recommended by the Fairmount Park Commission, proposed operating the facility as a for-profit under a trust (originally they had proposed nonprofit operations) with a nonprofit branch that would include the current board.

There was no urgency in considering the Desfors’ proposal until this past summer, when the current board decided not to hold its summer program, which is required in its lease.

In July, Dennis Waller, deputy director of business administration for Fairmount Park, called the Desfors and asked if they were interested in acting on their proposal soon and if they would meet with the current board. With the recent inability of the board to fund even its summer programming, the park was unsure of the board’s ability to raise funds for necessary capital improvements.

Mike Desfor contacted the board members, whom he had never spoken to or met before, and the two groups met in September and October about the operation of the stables.

By the second meeting, Desfor said he felt comfortable with the board and felt their priorities were the same.

But, according to Desfor, amiable communication between the two parties stopped after that. And Corner said the board became wary of the for-profit status being proposed.

“We felt very strongly that a for-profit would be under pricing pressure, and that there was a significant risk that the community programs that, as a not-for-profit, we ran would be in jeopardy,” Corner said. “Even if they have the best of intentions, if the goal is to be a for-profit organization, the prices have a tendency to rise.”

Focht agreed that “the focus is to maintain [Northwestern] as a community barn.”

“I’m very cognitive of the community’s interest in it,” Focht said. “But if we want the barn to be here in the future, we need to put money into it.”

Focht, who became Fairmont Park’s director in 200X, said he never met any of the former board members, but said he was “impressed” with this board and plans to let it have the year to prove itself as a reliable operator.

“At the end of the day, it wasn’t about what we thought, but about what Fairmount Park thought, ” Corner said. “The Desfors have a plan, but we felt very strongly our vision should be given a chance.”

To make good on that promise, the four board members have until the Dec. 31, 2007, to, among other goals, add five board members with relevant experience in running a stable, raise funds for building renovation, improve spending and management at the facility and raise $150,000 in non-city funding for capital improvements.

The park will be updated on the board’s progress with quarterly reports, due on the 15th of April, July and October of this year and January of 2008.

Most of the requirements were suggested by the board in a presentation to the park in January 2007, which, Waller said, impressed him.

“From what I’ve seen and heard, it can be accomplished,” Waller told the Local.

If they meet these requirements by the end of the year, then Fairmount Park will consider the possibility of giving the board a long-term lease.

Focht said, however, “If the board does not meet those obligations, the options are left open.”

Corner said the board members are already interviewing persons interested in becoming board members. As for the $150,000, she said the board plans to begin a capital campaign and solicit funds from grants, foundations and private donors.

“The nice thing for us is that we volunteered these commitments,” Corner said.

Mike Desfor said last week that he was disappointed by the decision to allow the board to reach those goals.

“Everyone deserves a chance, but shouldn’t someone else have been given the chance, too?” he asked, pointing out that the stables have been run the same way for more than 20 years. He is also worried that come December, board members will not have reached their goals and the stables will be in worse condition than they are now.

In January, Focht posed this question after seeing the board’s presentation: “They can have the best intentions, but can they fulfill those intentions?”

Until December, the board has been given the chance to prove it can.

Contact staff writer Kristin Pazulski at 215-248-8819 or Kristin@chestnuthilllocal.com.