Aware of public concern about the future of Somerset County’s Lord Stirling Stable in Basking Ridge, the park commission and freeholder board have issued a statement to address the rumors, particularly speculation that the stable will be closing permanently.
While stable programs were suspended in response to the Covid pandemic, “there is neither a plan in place nor has any consideration been given to selling the Lord Stirling property to any third party,” according to a statement from the park commission.
Instead, the goal is “to reopen the stable in some fashion that makes sound fiscal sense.”
Even so, those who see the stable as an important part of the community have been worried about the situation.
Realtor Sharon Vopal, whose children ride at the stable, organized a petition signed by more than 4,000 people apprehensive about the facility’s future.
“Those of us in the community and the 4000-plus people who signed the petition will be closely following the plans to reopen LSS in 2021 and we hope that the public will be kept informed as those plans develop,” she stated.
The pandemic and the resulting restrictions to ensure the safety of staff members and the public have had an across-the-board “profound impact” on the park commission, not just the stable, according to the statement.
That situation resulted in an extreme effect on the financial well-being of the commission. According to the agency’s statement, “the loss of revenue experienced will, no doubt, result in long lasting aftereffects.”
To help ease the financial burden, the number of lesson horses in the herd was reduced during April and staffing cut to the minimum possible.
Despite those measures and efforts of stable management and staff to reduce costs, the expenses remained substantial and the deficit continued to increase. A month later, the remainder of the herd had to be dispersed, the commission said.
The plan for Lord Stirling, which is the same at many other commission facilities, is to “hibernate” for the balance of 2020.
Since the stable consistently operates at a significant loss, the commission “cannot afford to do much else,” the statement continued, adding, “the plan has never been to close the stable permanently.” There still are 30 horses boarded at Lord Stirling, many of whom were previously part of the lesson herd.
The majority of the property that is Lord Stirling Park (comprised of the Stable and the commission’s Environmental Education Center) was purchased by Somerset County in 1967, utilizing a combination of funds contributed by the New Jersey Green Acres Program, North Jersey Conservation Foundation (now known as New Jersey Conservation Foundation) and the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund.
The 1,105 acres that comprise Lord Stirling Park are listed on Somerset County’s Recreation and Open Space Inventory, and, as such, the property is subject to New Jersey Green Acres rules.
As Deputy Freeholder Director Sarah Sooy noted in an interview this month with the Bernards Township Regional Chamber of Commerce, “that land will never be developed.”
At the same time, she acknowledged the stable has been hemorrhaging money for the past 10 years–the park commission said the facility was losing $500,000 a year–and said the best way to approach this is with “an outside eye; bring in someone and look at ways to make this profitable.”
Since January, before the pandemic hit in March, commission staff and senior management, as well as park commissioners and county representatives, have met as a committee in order to explore alternatives to address the stable’s financial challenges.
“While one option could be to cease stable operations, the committee quickly and unanimously dismissed same and is now focused on a financially prudent plan of reopening Lord Stirling Stable,” according to the statement.
The freeholder board and park commission, according to the statement, “are working their very hardest to ensure that a herd of horses will continue to roam Lord Stirling’s pastures,” and that the stable’s programs will resume.”