The Team: Mary Arnstad, Hotel and Resort Management
Mary Arnstad will oversee the hotel and resort at Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue. She also brings along Steve Wilson, who will manage the restaurant and beverage side.
Mary Arnstad is an avid equestrian and prominent fixture in the resort and hospitality industry. Mary has a wealth of experience managing and opening several renowned hotels and consulting for various equestrian venues. Mary brings her expertise to Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue, spearheading the hospitality side of the project.
“I am a Chicagoan, born and raised in Chicago,” says Mary. “I went to school in southern Ohio for liberal arts, and then I got really involved in hotels. I worked in the summers at The Drake Hotel, a beautiful renowned hotel in Chicago, much like the Plaza is to New York. I just got hooked on the hotel business; I had a feel for it and love it. I worked my way up at The Drake into a minor management position. One day fate kind of struck and I answered a line ad in the Chicago Tribune for Salishan Lodge, which was a five star hotel on the Oregon coast. I did a report on Oregon in seventh grade and I was always fascinated with the place. I sent in my resume in 1978 and they flew me out. I have been in Oregon since then.”
Mary spent several years opening and managing the Heathman Hotel in Portland, Oregon.
Mary’s career in the hospitality industry evolved quickly. “At Salishan I eventually moved up to Director of Sales and Marketing, then the number two position, Assistant General Manager,” she explain. “It was announced that The Heathman was opening in Portland and I had never opened a hotel. It was a historic hotel under renovation, but what fascinated me was that it was next to the developing performing arts center. We were joined with a common wall to the symphony hall. I’ve always been involved in the arts and cultural tourism, as well as equestrian sports. So, I put my hat in the ring and ended up moving up to general manager at The Heathman, and was there for 14 years. Then I got restless and I really wanted more rural Oregon. I had grown up in downtown Chicago and my career had been there in suburbia and downtown with the Drake, so I just craved the beauty of Oregon and it’s rural expression. From Portland I went over to Bend in Central Oregon and I was president and CEO of Broken Top Club & Community, which was a gated private residential golf community with a very active club and some overnight accommodations. For about two or three years I worked on that project, and then my husband, who was a lawyer and practiced law in Portland, had started to go into a semi-retirement, so he and I decided to go to southern Oregon. He joined a small law firm and I took on the Ashland Springs Hotel, another historic hotel. Again, as the Heathman in Portland was connected to the symphony hall, The Ashland Springs was right next-door to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which is the largest repertory theater in the United States. I went on the board for eight years and ran the historic hotel, so we built a very strong partnership between hospitality and the cultural elements of Ashland.”
Along with her experience in hotel management, Mary’s resume also includes resort development. “I also commuted from southern Oregon up to help develop The Allison Inn & Spa in Newberg, in the heart of the wine country. It was my first real ground-up new build property from a grassy slope to this beautiful resort. I was three years on that project prior to the opening in 2009 as part of an amazing team that selected the architect, the construction, the design, the interior, the landscape and the general manager. It has knocked it out of the park over the last 12 years. I was also Vice Chairman of Preferred Hotels & Resorts worldwide, which took me all over Europe and Asia, as well as North America and Canada. I was on that board for about 10 years.”
Mary has ridden since she was 15 and was highly competitive on the A Circuit.
Outside of her hospitality career, Mary also made a name for herself in the equestrian industry. “I went to a Catholic girl’s high school in Chicago and they had a riding club. I think I was about 15, and that is where I got the bug,” says Mary. “I started jumping and that was it for me. I just kept bumping along riding for other people as a catch rider, and I never owned a horse until I was 39 years old living in Oregon, when I finally had both the time and the money. I rode with several major trainers in Oregon. I just kept riding and, to be honest, the sport has opened my mind and heart to principles applied in hospitality. Many of the lessons learned on horseback I’ve used in business. I did the A Circuit for about six years, then I was getting older and I decided that I really needed to just simplify and moved to southern Oregon, which wasn’t quite the epicenter of show jumping. I stopped competing in around 2015.”
Mary has combined hospitality and equestrian sports to provide consulting for horse shows. “I’ve been consulting on and off and I consulted to the Wilsonville horse show circuit, which is managed by Team NW Equestrian, and did community outreach, hospitality and sponsorships. I did the same thing prior to that in Bend for the Oregon High Desert Classics, which was a fundraiser for a very well-respected youth services program called J Bar J Youth Services. If I had to sum up my work it’s kind of this convergence of things that I very much enjoy from French, to liberal arts to performing arts, to sport and hospitality, and then it’s been a love affair with Oregon since I was 30.”
Mary first heard of the Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue project through friends in the industry. “I heard some murmurings from my friends in the sport, and I think the first one who told me about it was Kevin Freeman,” she notes. “I think I was at a horse show in Wilsonville in the Portland area and he mentioned that someone was looking at a project for equestrian sport. The Millegans actually found me through a mutual friend. What appealed to them was the hospitality piece. I heard about the Millegans’ interest in incorporating hospitality with the competition venue, and doing it in an integrated way where it is not an afterthought. I liked the concept of the project being inclusive from grassroots to the elite, which is a big ethic in Oregon. It was such a fit for me. Again, it’s back to the rural urban connection to the betterment of the Oregon economy and its lifestyle.”
On the food and beverage side, Mary has joined forces with Steve Wilson. “I got a call and met, kind of coincidentally, with Steve Wilson. He is very important to Pegasus because, where I am involved in hotel and resort in a broader sense, especially on the lodging side in the area interest side whether it’s cultural or sport, Steve is involved in food and beverage. Steve is a well-respected restaurateur and is very strong in food and beverage. We are both quite well known in Oregon. We’ve worked in several regions both rural and urban. I was on the tourism commission for eight years and I made a pledge to former Governor Kulongoski to continue bettering Oregon through tourism and travel. My pledge, interestingly enough, was that very concept of bridging the rural urban divide. I’m fascinated with weaving the entire Oregon experience in a sort of town and country way.”
“Currently I am working with Steve on projects for a restaurant he has owned it for 15 years called The Bay House. It is one of only two AAA, four diamond restaurants in the state of Oregon,” explains Mary. “With the scope of this project between the resort, hotel and experience center is so broad, and it’s a ground up project; I knew I wanted Steve on my team. When the Millegans were looking at sites for Pegasus, I encouraged them to look in southern Oregon and, lo and behold, they found the beautiful 2,800+ acre site on I-5 in a county that is welcoming all sports that are in concert with the love of the land. They went through the permitting process and were welcomed in Roseburg and Douglas County, which is in reach of Eugene, the sports capital of the state.”
The resort & spa will feature stunning views of the Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue site.
When it comes to the plans for Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue, Mary is adamant that the resort side should be a quiet escape. “It’s still a work in progress,” she explains. “The Millegans are experts in working with investors, but also have experience in land-use, which made a big difference when it came to finding a site, due to Oregon’s restrictive land-use laws. As far as the resort, we have found several spots on the property that would accommodate a 150-room hotel. The spots all have some elevation for views and what I call ‘quietude.’ The driving idea behind the resort is a quote by former Governor Tom McCall that states, ‘Above all, comfort.’ The site of the hotel is also very important to ensure that it is close enough to the equestrian activity, but far enough to live up to those concepts. We anticipate a dining experience which is very connected to wine because that is becoming incredibly big in Oregon. On the restaurant side, it will be modeled after The Bay House, which is nestled inside of Salishan. If I were to paint a picture it would be a reflection of Salishan Coastal Lodge, The Allison Inn & Spa and a little bit of The Heathman, particularly its connection to its community, and certainly The Bay House on the restaurant side.”
Mary is also looking forward to the experience center onsite at Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue. “Another fascinating element of Pegasus will be the experience center. When I was on the tourism commission we were also involved in our welcome centers, and I worked for over a decade alongside Travel Oregon getting a state-of-the-art welcome center in southern Oregon. It is the first impression of Oregon for one of our major markets, California. That is a model for us, thanks to Travel Oregon. They have done a wonderful job with that specific welcome center in Ashland, and we hope to have an equally impressive experience center at Pegasus. We want to bring in a cluster of Oregon brands that will thread through the experience center, as well as the resort hotel. It’s all about sense of place in Oregon, and all about Oregon. There are certain wonderful opportunities to move the equestrian sport forward. Like tennis and other sports, it tends to look a little inward on itself and is viewed as a very elite sport. We would like to introduce a dimension that invites even those that do not ride to enjoy the sport. It needs to appeal to an entry-level competitor up to a Grand Prix and World Cup competitor. I think the keyword there is inclusion. Oregon is a fairly flat society and we want to keep it that way. The educational element needs to be just serious enough for the welfare of the animal, but still fun,” says Mary.
Mary is eager to begin the development process at Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue.
While she is excited about the project itself, Mary also looks forward to merging her two loves: hospitality and equestrian sport, “I think the biggest thing that excites me about my career is to go from downtown Chicago off of a want ad, to working at hotels in four distinct regions of the state: coast, Portland Metro, central Oregon and southern Oregon. I now get to merge my passions of hospitality and equestrian sports at Pegasus Equestrian Resort & Venue. I just feel like it’s somehow fate. I am really looking forward to working on this project and helping develop an incredible combined equestrian and resort venue in an underserved market on the west coast.”
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