Greene Acres Equestrian Center, LLC.
Challenge – Competing with area stables
Solution – Hercules Truss Arch Building
Size – 65′ wide x 120′ long
Application – Indoor riding arena
It’s no secret that starting a business takes a lot of work. The entire Hodgen family pitches in at Greene Acres Equestrian Center in Belchertown, MA, where they have been in business for about a year and offer boarding, lessons, leasing, trailering and equine dentistry. Parents Ike and Kathy manage the company, while eldest daughter Amanda is a licensed instructor and certified equine dentist. Younger daughter Candace and Steven, the youngest, help with the day-to-day operations while older son Jeffrey handles most of the construction work.
To continue to develop their business, the Hodgen family decided that they needed an indoor riding arena. “If we were going into the horse business, we needed to offer year-round training and riding to be able to compete with other successful stables in our region,” Amanda explains.
She continues, “After doing research and speaking with a ClearSpan representative, we were sold on the idea of a fabric structure.” They chose a 65′ wide by 120′ long Hercules Truss Arch Building to serve as their indoor riding arena and added custom printing to advertise their equestrian center.
“When people found out that we were building an indoor riding arena, we started getting calls,” Amanda says. “All of the boarders that we have picked up chose us because we have an indoor arena, and having the arena also allows us to command more money for boarding.”
Amanda finds that the natural, daytime lighting and ventilation make the ClearSpan structure an ideal riding arena. “With such a good building and a great installation crew, we wouldn’t have done anything differently.”
