Before purchasing Nottingham in 1987 with her husband and two other couples, Connell-Marsh worked there for many years as barn manager and instructor. When the previous owner decided to put the center up for sale, she wasn’t quite ready to part ways — especially since she had heard developers wanted to turn the property into townhouses.

The nice thing about being an owner, she said, is that she is able to make changes and have control over how the animals are being treated. The previous owner had bought the center for her kids, but it clearly wasn’t her life’s passion, Connell-Marsh said.

But once she and the other owners took the reins, the center grew into a family.

“We’ve really grown into a community for people,” said Connell-Marsh, who lives with her husband in a house on the center’s property. “There are so few places to go in the area, it’s important that people have a such a strong group that people can really rely on.”

Inside the barns

The center boards horses, offers lessons, clinics, in-barn horse shows, horseback games for the kids on Friday nights and a book club. Two years ago, Connell-Marsh said the book club consisted of four people. At last week’s meeting she said she looked around, and there were 16 familiar faces there.

The riders seem to change a lot over the years, mostly because many of the students move away either when they graduate from high school or from MSU. But they almost always come back.

“We’ll see them again and they’ll walk in the door and say it’s like coming home. It’s like they never really leave,” she said. “They’re always there for you. There’s a lot of love on this property.”

The center has two main barns, one that mostly hosts boarder horses and the other hosts the school horses. There also is an indoor riding ring, which is where lessons typically take place; a number of outdoor rings for jumping and open spaces for grazing and riding trails. It costs $465 per month for a stall board and $350 per month for a paddock, or outdoor, board.

Barn manager Erica Bogel moved to the area to be near her then-fiancee and attend graduate school at MSU. At the time, she hadn’t ridden for about a year and knew she wanted to get back on the horse.

“If you really ride, you can only go so long without riding,” said Bogel, who has been riding horses since age 4 and working in the barns since she was about 8.

For a wedding present, her husband said he wanted to pay for riding lessons at a local stable. So she started researching, found Nottingham, visited the barn and started lessons. By March 2007, about three or four lessons in, she started working at the barn to offset the lesson fees — something many of the students do. Eventually, that turned into a full time job as barn manager.

“I really can’t imagine not doing it every day,” she said. “I wake up at 5:30 (a.m.) but I’m so happy to be up at 5:30 and coming here. Even if I’ve had a day where I’m physically exhausted, I’m so happy to be here.”

Bogel said she teaches a “gentlemen’s riding club” consisting of three boys, ages 7-9, who ride ponies on Saturday mornings and make up most of the male population in the barns, not counting the horses or stray husbands who do maintenance work. Although she’s not sure why the students and boarders are primarily women and girls, Bogel said it could be that Nottingham teaches riding in an English saddle discipline, instead of the Western style that is traditionally thought of as masculine.

Changing times

As the years progressed, the landscape near Nottingham changed. The property north of the center was bought by a boarder, who cleared it out and fenced it in so that the horses would have more room to roam. The center now leases the property across the road, and Connell-Marsh and her husband bought the property and house south of the center to lease themselves.

What was once a relatively serene, secluded area has changed over the years as well. An open field behind the barn has been turned into The Landings at Chandler Crossings, 16789 Chandler Road.

“We used to go out there with the horses in the summer and there were wild flowers everywhere and butterflies everywhere,” Connell-Marsh said. “You would be parting butterflies as you rode. But now, life has changed.”

The nearby East Lansing Softball Complex, 6400 Abbot Road, and East Lansing Family Aquatic Center, 6400 Abbot Road, also have changed the dynamic of the area from being a quiet, country setting to being a location near the action.

Animal lovers

The center houses 10 horses and five ponies that are used for the school, in addition to 24 boarder horses, whose owners pay for them to stay there. Connell-Marsh said whether or not the center’s horses are able to ride, they have a home there. The oldest are 28 and 29.

“Once a horse comes here, it never leaves,” Connell-Marsh said.

Janet Fowler, another of the center’s co-owners, said the horses all have their own distinct personalities — including those that often behave like children.

On a typical day, she said she comes to the barn for about an hour to ride her horse, Joker, and visit. The atmosphere of the barn is much different from that at home and at the job she retired from at MSU. There’s something cathartic about being around the animals.

“I’ve cried on (Joker’s) neck and then I can go home and feel better,” she said.

Horses aren’t the only animals that can be found hanging around the barns — people also tend to drop off cats, thinking they’ll be at home in the barns. At any time of day, the cats, one of which has become such a good hunter the owners put a bell around its neck, can be found slinking through the barns or resting on the couches in the warmth of the viewing room above the indoor practice ring.

Connell-Marsh also is a certified wildlife rehabilitator, which means she finds or is given young or injured animals to try to nurse back to health. An injured bird she was looking after in her atrium likely got saved once again on Sunday as the area got hit with some springtime snow. Connell-Marsh said she didn’t want the poor bird to freeze to death, so she went out there with her net, caught him and brought him inside.

But her heart remains with the horses.

“I’m lucky to get to do what I love,” she said. “It really does make a difference. It helps keep good energy in the barn.”