By Lauren Young
Staff Writer
For Jo Stephenson, an “old, dumpy-looking barn” inspired her to become a renovator at age eight.
“The dream has always been to open up a run-down place and breathe life back into it,” said Stephenson, managing owner of the Whispering Hill Equestrian center, located at 2993 US-20 in Cazenovia.
When eight-year-old Stephenson was leaving a horse show with her mother, Connie, one day, she noticed a decaying, “broken-down” barn next to it and told her mother, “I’m going to buy that when I’m older, and I’m going to fix it and make it beautiful,” she said. “My mom was like, ‘Yeah, uh huh, sure.’”
Less than 20 years later, Stephenson renovated an abandoned barn she discovered in Cazenovia – naming it the Whispering Hills Equestrian center.
The business launched in February 2015, three years after Stephenson graduated from Cazenovia College with a degree in equine business management.
“Since we moved in, it’s just been a roller-coaster,” she said.
Whispering Hill offers full horse boarding, riding lessons and training six days a week, including an IEA (Interscholastic Equestrian Association) team for students in grades six through 12.
While the equestrian center has only been in business for about three years, the renovations performed on this once-decrepit barn, abandoned for nearly 15 years, are as massive as its indoor riding arena.
“The only thing that’s original … is the fencing for the outdoor arena”
When Stephenson set her sights on this previously abandoned barn located along U.S. Route 20 less than five years ago, she knew it had the potential to be fully-renovated into the equestrian center of her childhood dreams — but it was certainly no walk in the park.
“The barn was abandoned for about 15 years before we moved in,” said Stephenson, who asked her younger sister Gina Hennington, a 2015 graduate of SUNY Morrisville, to be her business partner. “We tried to buy it, but every step we took toward buying the place we hit a roadblock.”
When the barn went up for auction, Stephenson’s landlords bought it, which Stephenson said “worked out beautifully,” as she ended up signing a five-year lease to rent the property from her landlords, which ends next July. When the lease ends, Stephenson said they will buy out the property.
“This used to only be 32 acres. When we purchase, we’ll be purchasing 115 acres,” she said. “So that’s wonderful for us because I would like to have more acreage.”
And since its opening in 2015, Stephenson has brought nothing but horsepower to the massive renovation project.
To date, renovations performed on the barn include a new roof, new sliding and viewing rooms, tack and feed rooms, grooming stalls, aisle repaving, new fencing — aside from the outdoor arena’s fencing — and a 75-by-210-foot-wide indoor riding arena.
“It’s one of the biggest in the area,” said Stephenson. “A lot of the barns in the area are more 40-by-60 or 40-by-100, so ours is pretty substantial; we love it.”
Stephenson said the entire barn was also rewired so every stall has an outlet outside of it for box fans during the summer and heated water buckets during the winter.
“We’ve rebuilt every wall between every stall,” she said. “The only thing that’s original to the place is the fencing for the outdoor arena, which we’ve started to paint, but it’s a long process to paint very old wood.”
They currently have 13 permanent paddocks — or horse enclosures — and are in the process of building another seven. At the end of this year, they’ll have 20 functioning paddocks.
The farm currently cares for 13 horses — as June is their slowest month and most college students have returned home for summer break — but, on average, the farm usually cares for about 25 horses at a time. Nine of those horses belong to Stephenson and Hennington.
“We have plenty of space to host”
Not only does Whispering Hill offer a massive indoor arena, it also includes two viewing rooms and one judging room. The viewing room also includes bleachers for future horse shows and clinics, as Stephenson said the center plans on hosting an IEA [Interscholastic Equestrian Association] Horse Show starting next year.
Last year, Whispering Hill even started its own IEA team, 14-year-old Harlei McAllister being one of the members of that team, and the only one from Cazenovia. “I really like it, it’s a lot of fun,” said McAllister, an incoming freshman at Cazenovia High School, who has been riding with Whispering Hill for about three years now.
While McAllister might be Stephenson’s only Cazenovia student, other riders hail from all over Central New York, including Canastota, Chittenango, DeRuyter, Fayetteville, Syracuse, Baldwinsville and Minoa.
Next month, the IEA team will help run the kid’s corral at Lorenzo’s Driving Competition, a carriage riding competition at the Lorenzo State Historic Site in Cazenovia, which Whispering Hill plans to sponsor.
But Whispering Hill is more than just a horse farm — “it’s a full-family operation,” said Stephenson.
Not only is Stephenson’s sister her business partner, but so is her mother, who takes care of financial business and accounting, while her father, Dennis, does landscaping and maintenance work.
Stephenson and her husband Tyler, a fellow Cazenovia College graduate, even got married on the farm and had their reception on the front field. Together, they have a two-year-old son, Skyler Lee, and live in a family home onsite, also shared by Stephenson’s parents and sister.
And although the Whispering Hill logo can be found on their horse jumps and polo shirts, Stephenson said her favorite thing with their logo on it is the sign on the front field, handcrafted by her mother-in-law as her wedding gift.
“It was exactly what I wanted, to the T,” she said. “It’s beautiful, it’s the perfect sign.”
The logo itself was designed by Cazenovia College student Angela Martini.
“She was fast and made exactly what I wanted,” said Stephenson.
“I like to up-cycle things”
As a Cazenovia College graduate, Stephenson said she likes to support her community, as it has supported her.
“I just love it up here,” said Stephenson, who got her start in Cazenovia by working for a few years after college at John Madden Sales, a horse farm home to two-time U.S. Olympic team gold medalist Beezie Madden.
“I try to keep [the products I use] as a local as I can,” Stephenson added. “I get my feed products from a feed store in Cazenovia; I buy my hay from a guy in Morrisville; and our grain company, that we get from the feed store in Caz, they’re a smaller company out of Vermont that takes our hay samples to make sure our quality of hay is good enough.”
Not only does Stephenson want what is best for the horses, but she also wants what is best for the environment, as she constructs all her jumps from reused materials, like old silos, fence posts and telephone poles.
“I like to up-cycle things,” she said. “I feel like there’s too much waste going on, and I don’t feel the need to throw certain things out.”
Next in her path
By the end of this summer, Stephenson said Whispering Hill will host its first horse show, and is planning a Winter Horse Show Series later this year. Recently, the equestrian center has begun Pony Camp, for ages six and up.
“No experience necessary, we do everything from teaching kids how to brush the horses to riding them,” said Stephenson.
For older kids, the center even teaches them how to treat wounds and wrap a horse’s leg properly.
Also at the end of the summer will be two mini ponies moving in — both of which are smaller than Stephenson’s two Great Danes, or “house horses” as she calls them, Cali and Bumper.
While Stephenson said progress on the farm has been gradual, nothing will slow down this family of workhorses.
“Slow and steady we’ve been making everything work,” she said. “I definitely keep myself busy.”
For more information about Whispering Hill Equestrian Center, visit its Facebook page or call 315-244-6151.
