A Barn Built Around Workflow: The WVU JW Ruby Research Farm

Rising from the ashes of a devastating fire, the new barn at West Virginia University’s JW Ruby Research Farm provides a modern home for horses.

After an equipment fire in December of 2024 at the West Virginia University JW Ruby Research Farm, a new ten-stall, center-aisle barn was constructed. The design came together in spring 2025; the project went to bid that summer; a design-build contract was awarded to Zetti Contracting in the fall; construction began in January 2026; and the horses moved into the finished barn in May.

The rebuild allowed WVU to design around how a program actually runs, adding a sense of ease into daily operations. For a research farm with a working teaching herd, that meant a barn that could provide foaling stalls, isolate a horse when needed, and hold up to daily institutional use without any of those functions getting in each other’s way. The barn’s amenities include a feed room, utility room, laundry room, bathroom, tack room, double wash rack, and two grooming stalls.

Credits:

Design: Dr. Crystal Smith, Teaching Professor, West Virginia University

Contractor: Zetti Contracting LLC, Morgantown, West Virginia

Stalls: American Stalls

Photography: Mick Posey

The wash rack features a half wall dividing the bays with hot and cold water at both stations. For ease, spring-loaded retractable Cox Reels are positioned overhead, and a trench drain with a clean-out basket running the length of the rack handles the drainage generated by a double bay over a working day.

Otto Environmental Solariums help the horses dry and/or warm up before a ride.

Dutch Doors are installed within these spaces for better ventilation and airflow to allow these areas to dry quickly.

Stalls

The barn is outfitted with ten twelve-by-twelve sliding stalls. Four of them are fitted with American Stalls hinged partitions, which means the wall between two adjacent stalls can be swung open and locked back to create a twelve-by-twenty-four-foot foaling stall. Closed, the row holds ten horses. When opened along those four partitions, the same row becomes six stalls and two foaling boxes, with not a single panel coming off the wall.

For a facility that foals out mares, the hinged design is the difference between reconfiguring the barn each season and reconfiguring it in an afternoon. The mare gets the room she needs to lie down and move comfortably. The foal gets the floor space to find his feet. When weaning is finished, the partition closes, and two stalls are created again.

One of the ten stalls is set aside for quarantine and treatment, positioned within the run rather than separated from it. full privacy partitions on either side cut down nose-to-nose contact with the neighbors. A horse held back from the herd for biosecurity or recovery stays within the barn’s daily rhythm rather than being walked out to a remote stall that staff will eventually work around. The remaining stalls carry a mix of full privacy and partial privacy partitions, depending on placement in the row, offering built in flexibility.

American Stalls bridle hooks and blanket bars at each stall front keep the aisle clean and tidy.

Each stall opens to the aisle through a sliding door with a French yoke. In a university barn where horses spend stretches of the day in their stalls between sessions, the engagement into the aisle keeps them settled and easier to handle when the work begins.

Two pieces of equipment in this barn carry most of the daily load. The StableComfort Stall Mattress System sits under the bedding in every stall, supporting the joint health of horses standing for extended periods. A Nelson Heated Automatic Waterer is installed in each stall, delivering clean water at a consistent temperature year-round and removing the labor of carrying buckets twice a day across ten stalls.

Each stall also has a Dutch door that opens to the outside. The top halves opened along the length of the barn create the cross-ventilation that respiratory health depends on, particularly in a herd cycling through travel, varied workloads, and the close quarters of an academic schedule.

Rolled rubber runs the length of the aisle and continues into the wash rack and both grooming stalls, giving the horses one consistent surface from stall to crossties.

The feed room, utility room, laundry room, bathroom, and tack room are arranged so that daily routines stay out of the horse traffic in the aisle.

Tack Room

The tack room accommodates the daily needs of a space with a lot of foot traffic. The doors are extra wide, storage is split between wall-hung and mobile pieces, allowing the room to reconfigure as the program shifts across semesters.

Upper and lower countertops with cabinets give working surface and enclosed storage at two heights. A utility sink with cleaning hooks handles bit cleaning, brush washing, and the small tasks that pile up over the course of a week.

Exterior Features

A 40 x 80 foot Priefert Ponderosa Fence multi-use lot is located at the end of the barn. It will be used to quarantine new arrivals, pull horses off grass when needed, or to lightly exercise horses for veterinary exams, farrier visits, or classes.

It has a frost free hydrant conveniently located to fill a water tank and a covered duplex outlet to plug in a float heater when needed in the winter.

Dr. Crystal Smith is the teaching professor for WVU’s Equine Studies Program and led the rebuild and design process.

“We managed the project as a design-build and involved our students heavily in the process. Alumni and current working students were consulted on design and construction decisions that impact the use and flow of labor through the facility. Their understanding of the workflow helped us make good decisions on everything from layout to latches. We found a great partner in Zetti Contracting that embraced our vision and carried out the build with the same care and attention to detail that we put into designing it.”