A California Barn with Beauty & Functionality

Lauren’s barn is modern, thoughtful and well planned.

Situated in Northern California, Demerara Stables is owned by Lauren Lockliear-Narducci to offer world class care with a focus on training young jumpers, dressage, and event horses, and conditioning and rehabilitation. Lauren’s views on horsemanship are reflected in her barn’s thoughtful design choices. Her dreams were brought to life on paper, creating a happy and healthy environment for the equine residents of the space. With the help of Lauren’s father in law, architect and owner of Freestone Inc. and RM Construction, a local builder, the barn was expertly executed.

The barn’s exterior is composed of light gray fire retardant hardie shingles made from durable composite material to match the residence. Pops of hunter green frame the sliding barn doors and exterior windows by Lucas Equine Equipment.

Barn Interior

Inside, the beautiful barn features a 12′ wide barn aisle with dyed and stamped concrete flooring. The barn’s roof is lined with pairs of 4′ x 4′ skylights that allow natural light to fill the barn aisle. White washed pine on the ceiling and opposing tack and feed room walls offer a beautiful and light contrast.

Lauren’s barn colors of black, hunter green and silver are reflected throughout the space. Artistic details, including a gallery wall of alumni of the training program are carefully placed on the exterior tack room wall.

The black pendant lights are from Troy RLM and the rest of the barn lighting was purchased from Lumens.

The custom stalls were built and designed by Lucas Equine. They feature low profile sliding doors with a powder coated green finish surrounding the gray wood. The stalls are 12′ x 16′, which allows larger horses to feel comfortable and able to move around the stall when they are not turned out.

The barn’s lighting and technology ensures safety and the ability to keep a watchful eye on the horses at all times. Nest Cameras are installed in the barn along with a smart light system installed by Brilliant in San Francisco. All of the lights are set up according to the horse’s names and stalls. Lauren has an app she can access when she’s not at the barn and there is a touch pad next to the wash stall.

The lights over the exterior stall doors can be dimmed or brightened, it’s important to have a variety of lighting available for different scenarios. There are flood lights around the barn and the paddocks off the stalls all have excellent lighting.

The tack cleaning stand from McGuinn Farms is a barn accessory that is used regularly for keeping tack cleaned and conditioned.

Tack Room

Having a place for everything inside the barn allows clutter to be minimized. Inside the sage green cabinets, Lauren stores saddle pads, wraps, shampoos, ointments, fly spray, cleaning supplies, bits, extra brushes, fly masks, first aid supplies and everything she needs. Hidden behind the cabinet doors is also a combination washer and dryer and a stock mini fridge with drinks, tea and snacks.

Across the way from the lovely cabinets are the saddle and bridle racks.

Lauren treated herself to handcrafted saddle and bridle racks from Andrew Nebbett Designs in England.

There are 4 light switches inside the tack room for recessed can lighting in the ceiling, over the bridle and saddle racks, under cabinet lighting and a chandelier.

The fifth stall in the barn opens up to its own paddock and doesn’t share a fence line with the existing turnout in case there needs to be herd separation.