A Two-Story Stable with a View in France

A gently sloping hillside offers the perfect opportunity for a unique barn design.

Ecuries Lalande Laborie is a training and sales barn that focuses on connecting the rider with their perfect partner. It’s located in Auriac du Perigord, a charming and historical region in Southwest France. The facility is owned and run by Sanne Udink, a dedicated show jumper who has competed at a 3-star level internationally and nationally. Sanne has been an active equestrian since 2002, schooling under renowned trainers, including Helena Weinberg, Rob Ehrens, Bruno Jazede and Morton Gunnarson.

Sanne designed her stunning two-story barn. It became a family project and was built by her father who owns an engineering and architecture firm called MUC. Sanne’s family also has their own construction company in France called Auriac Multi Service. These resources allowed Sanne to confidently build a special barn from the ground up. The uneven ground might have been viewed as a design challenge to some, but for Sanne this was the opportunity to work with the hill and make a bank barn.

There are seven stalls inside the barn. Five of the stalls are on the top level. Three of the stalls are regular sized boxes for the show jumpers and then there are two foaling stalls on the top as well. The bottom level has two yearling box stalls, one for the colts and one for the fillies.

This thoughtful box plan makes life with foals much easier.

“I love the layout of the boxes, by having the yearling boxes on the ground floor it is less stressful to wean the foals,” Sanne explained. “The foaling boxes on the first floor have their own doors so that the mares and foals don’t have to pass by show jumpers which can agitate them.”

Having stalls on separate levels also makes it to bring in a new horse to the barn. They can be quarantined from the group on the bottom level.

Sanne’s favorite features about her barn include the beautiful wooden finished ceilings inside the barn and of course having a two-story barn with an amazing view.

If you’re wondering about the barn’s two-story floor plan, it includes hay and shavings storage downstairs. The upper level is accessed by a path that goes up the hill to the second level. Inside the second level there is more storage, a grooming area and tack room. The tack room is on both levels of the barn. The main tack storage is on the second floor, but the washing machine, additional storage and bathroom is on the first floor in the tack room which has a set of stairs for easy access.