The Team: Linda Royer, Lead Equine Designer
Linda Royer is the Lead Equine Designer for Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue.
A lifelong equestrian with a passion for architectural design, Linda Royer is excited to take on the unique project that is Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue as Lead Equine Designer. Linda’s visions have been brought to life through countless equestrian venues including private barns, breeding facilities and show grounds, and she looks forward to putting her signature touch on the Pegasus site.
“I’m a lifelong horse person,” explains Linda. “I was born into a non-horsey family, so I’ve worked all of my life to support my horses and I have integrated my horses into my life very nicely. For 25 years I’ve had my own design firm and practice, Farm + Ranch Equine Design. The driving force in starting my own firm was being able to work my schedule so that I could ride when the weather was good and the opportunity was good, and I could work other times.”
Linda has designed countless luxury barns and equestrian venues.
Linda not only has a strong equestrian background, but is well-rounded in the design field. She majored in Architecture in college with a second major in Landscape Architecture. This has served her well to be able to look at both site issues and development of equine structures. “I started my own practice after I worked for 11 years for a multi-disciplinary architectural engineering firm. I did some large projects there, including being on the design team for The Nike World Headquarters. When I developed my own design practice it was focused on equestrian design and I wanted to include all disciplines and every type of facility for horses. My practice is based out of central Oregon near Bend. It’s a wonderful outdoors place and we have access to virtually unlimited riding on trails. We can ride in the grasslands, in the juniper lands, in the tall ponderosas and up to high lakes.”
When it comes to the Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue project, Linda has been involved from the start, “I have worked with the Millegans for 11 years and we have looked at numerous sites for the Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue project. Oregon is very tight in terms of their land use regulations. I’ve worked in it all of my career and the land use laws in Oregon are designed to protect farm and forest from the expansion of the cities. Of course we needed a large acreage for the project, and finding the right site was difficult. We have done design on several sites in order to get the concept plan, do preliminary costs and incorporate all of the elements that we wanted, but for each one there were conflicts that came up.”
The Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue site has varied topography, which will play into site design.
Linda searched alongside the Millegans to find the perfect site, “We’ve looked all over the state of Oregon and even in northern California, and then about a year ago the Millegans found the current property. It’s just over 2,800 acres and is a beautiful, amazing site. It couldn’t be more different than other equestrian venues in that the site has a lot of topography to it with rolling hills, which will be a real determiner of site design. We will be placing big footprints on a site that has a lot of topography, then having to make the access easy between those different footprints and uses. In equestrian facilities it is important to always keep safety in mind. I like to have separate paths for vehicles, horses and pedestrians.”
Before starting the design of the Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue site, Linda considers what the site will look like from a competitor and visitor perspective, “I have been to many different national and international venues throughout my career to look at how they operate and what they offer. I’ve been to the World Equestrian Games as a spectator for three different games in Aachen, Normandy and Kentucky. I’ve done design work internationally, as well as all over the United States. I’m always looking to see what materials are used or how things function like the utilities, grading, drainage, lighting, the riding or pedestrian surfaces and the signage. I try to look at everything fresh from a newcomer’s eye to see how somebody else coming onto the site would view things. I have been a member of show committees as well as a competitor. That enables me to understand the needs of each in a facility.”
Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue will include multiple indoor and outdoor arenas.
Linda details the plans for the Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue site, “We will have at least three large covered arenas with substantial seating, one of which will likely be dedicated to western events. With horses, the biggest challenge is always footing, and the needs change between disciplines. The images that we are developing for the facility are very light and airy with a lot of glass that will be, in some ways, reflective of historic architecture of the early Iron Age from Europe, like the old train stations, but with a little more of a contemporary flavor. We will probably have 12-15 outdoor arenas along with a vet facility, farrier areas and a commercial area. We want to take care of the people and the horses. There will be between 1,500 and 2,000 stalls on site including some permanent stalls and some flexible stalls. I am a big advocate for at least 12x12 stalls and I like for them to be solid. I know how much people have invested in their horses and I want to keep the horses safe and to give them a reasonable accommodation. One of the nicest things about this particular site is that it has direct access right off of the freeway. The site is also unique in that at the top there is an existing airport with a runway, which will be improved for limited use at appropriate times.”
When it comes to amenities, Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue does not fall short, “We have a great team put together to work on the Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue project. Mary Arnstad will be in charge of hospitality and restaurants and has a long history of working in resorts and in restaurants. I think there will be a wide variety of food options, as well as accommodation options. We will have an RV park, the hotel and VRBO houses with stabling, along with a grocery store and our own fire station. Quite a bit of the site is very well-suited to growing grapes, and it lies in a great region in Oregon for growing grapes and making wine, so we will have our own grapes and a winery, along with a visitors’ center where people can learn all about horses.”
Sustainability is a top priority for the site, “One of the nice things is that we have beautiful clumps of trees throughout the site that we will be able to preserve, so we will always have the beautiful trees. Incorporated into the site will be all kinds of environmental considerations including solar, wind, recycling, composting, rainwater collection and a reservoir,” says Linda.
Coupled with the sustainability elements implemented into the site, Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue is being designed with future generations in mind, “I’ve been in horses for a long time and I have seen stables and show facilities come and go,” says Linda. “It’s usually caused by expansion from the urban areas, which in turn makes the land too valuable for equestrian facilities. Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue is in an area that is set aside for a resort development in a rural county. Because of Oregon’s land use laws, there will never be any urban expansion that is going to push this site out. It could be there for a very, very long time.”
As a lifelong horsewoman, Linda looks forward to one day riding at Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue.
Being a horsewoman herself, Linda looks forward to the opening of the unique venue, “I hope to ride in this facility one day, myself. That would be my dream. I have had the privilege of designing a number of really beautiful and lovely facilities, and it is always a great satisfaction when the owner moves their horses in or you see people using what you’ve designed. There is a place called Devonwood outside of Portland that was originally a dressage training facility, but has expanded into a show facility. I designed everything on the site, including the landscaping, grading, drainage and buildings. They just had their regional championship show and everyone was posting pictures of the Autumn Purple Ash trees lining the driveway and their brilliant fall colors, which is exactly what I had planned 25 years ago when I chose those trees. It’s so fun to see people riding and competing in a place that I designed.”
Linda designed Wild Turkey Farm over the course of nine years and is excited to begin working on the large-scale site of Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue.
Linda also designed Wild Turkey Farm in Oregon, a well-known Warmblood breeding facility, “Wild Turkey Farm is on 213 acres. I worked on it for nine years from the start when it was a field of old hazelnuts until the horses moved in. it was one of my favorite projects and is currently on the market. The indoor arena is 120x240. It has a training barn, a stallion barn, a big jump field, a broodmare barn and a retirement horse barn.”
Linda is excited to move forward with the Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue project, “I’m ready to go! We already have a contour map of the 2,800 acres, and my first job will be to do a slope analysis of the site, and to look and see the areas that are going to be of minimum impact to develop and the areas that we want to avoid developing. That is part of taking the master plan, which is based primarily on uses and ideas, and making it more specific to the site. It is almost time to look at real, two-scale footprints, and we want to do that with the least impact possible.”
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