McLaughlin Equestrian Estate
‘High Desert’ vegetation of alligator and shaggy bark junipers, pinon pine, scrub oak, and manzanita blanket this remote ranch site [min 40-acre lots] with its north and west boundaries adjacent to Prescott National Forest. A saddle existed at northwestern-most-private corner of site just below the highest point providing a vantage point from which to ‘sit in the saddle’ viewing the most extensive boulder-pile to northwest, the high point to southeast, and 200-mile pristine vistas to the north including the snow-capped San Francisco Peaks north of Flagstaff. Site elevation is 4950’ with a chaparral climate that includes moderate snow/rainfall, and it does get cold as we discovered camping on site May 23rd. Our client is a busy professional couple with a nine-year-old daughter and their Master Plan required an entrance road, equestrian/foot trails, a dressage Ring, a writing studio, stables-guesthouse, and main residence, wherein the stables must be an integral part of both the arrival experience and everyday-family-life of the summer/holiday excursions from Phoenix. A V-winged plan of distinctly different forms evolved with a stable-guesthouse-ranch-entry-gate and main residence opening ever-outwards to the ‘boulder-pile-of-outdoor-rooms’ and expansive horizon. To establish a daily dialogue ‘between the wings’, the stable is an open, fence-like structure of silver-gray lath and the main house is a solid, magenta-plum rammed earth mass-structure, whose contrasting colors mimic the distinctive manzanita trunks that grow from the site.
McLaughlin Equestrian Estate
‘High Desert’ vegetation of alligator and shaggy bark junipers, pinon pine, scrub oak, and manzanita blanket this remote ranch site [min 40-acre lots] with its north and west boundaries adjacent to Prescott National Forest. A saddle existed at northwestern-most-private corner of site just below the highest point providing a vantage point from which to ‘sit in the saddle’ viewing the most extensive boulder-pile to northwest, the high point to southeast, and 200-mile pristine vistas to the north including the snow-capped San Francisco Peaks north of Flagstaff. Site elevation is 4950’ with a chaparral climate that includes moderate snow/rainfall, and it does get cold as we discovered camping on site May 23rd. Our client is a busy professional couple with a nine-year-old daughter and their Master Plan required an entrance road, equestrian/foot trails, a dressage Ring, a writing studio, stables-guesthouse, and main residence, wherein the stables must be an integral part of both the arrival experience and everyday-family-life of the summer/holiday excursions from Phoenix. A V-winged plan of distinctly different forms evolved with a stable-guesthouse-ranch-entry-gate and main residence opening ever-outwards to the ‘boulder-pile-of-outdoor-rooms’ and expansive horizon. To establish a daily dialogue ‘between the wings’, the stable is an open, fence-like structure of silver-gray lath and the main house is a solid, magenta-plum rammed earth mass-structure, whose contrasting colors mimic the distinctive manzanita trunks that grow from the site.