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HORSES IN LOUDOUN COUNTY VIRGINIA - THE WELCOME MAT IS OUT

By Lenn Harley

Real Estate Agent with Lenn Harley, Homefinders.com, MD & VA Homes and Real Estate 303829;0225082372

June 30, 2007 06:41 AM

HORSES IN LOUDOUN COUNTY ARE MORE WELCOME THAN EVER. The Loudoun County Code was revised in 2006 to permit home owners to keep a horse for personal use on properties of 3 acres or more. The former requirement was for 5 acres.

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Properties in the 3-5 acre range that are now available to keep a horse.

Purcellville - 3 acre property with 77 year old home priced at $620,000. Property includes a 6 stall center isle barn.

Round Hill - 3 acre property with 39 year old home priced at $469,900. 3 stall barn.

Aldie - 3.73 acre property with 60 year old home priced at $625,000. Property includes a 3 stall barn.

Driving through the country side of Loudoun County is a treat for horse lovers. It seems that almost every home has fencing and a horse or a few. Also in view from many properties is the Blue Ridge Mountain Range to the West.

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Loudoun County Horse Farm Loudoun County homes with view of the Blue Ridge

SEARCH LISTINGS IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA

Courtesy Homefinders.com

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Patricia Kennedy

RLAH@properties - Washington, DC

Home in the Capital

Lenn,

I just finished reading Jane Smiley's book, A Year At The Races. If you like horses, you'll enjoy it.

Jun 30, 2007 08:31 AM

Silvia Dukes PA, Broker Associate, CRS, CIPS, SRES

Tropic Shores Realty - Ich spreche Deutsch! - Spring Hill, FL

Florida Waterfront and Country Club Living

Lenn, I really like the maps you are using in your posts.

Jun 30, 2007 08:52 AM

Lenn Harley

Lenn Harley, Homefinders.com, MD & VA Homes and Real Estate - Leesburg, VA

Real Estate Broker - Virginia & Maryland

Patricia. Thanks. I'll take a look at it. I live in horse country. It might make a good gift.

Silvia. Thanks. I think I have a map fetish.

Jun 30, 2007 09:14 AM

Joanne Hanson

Coldwell Banker Colorado Rockies Real Estate - Frisco, CO

Summit County, Colorado Realtor

Hi Lenn, I just read a post on eprotalk asking "Is Lenn ok? We haven't heard from her lately" I didn't want to tell them you were busy blogging on AR instead. I was wondering how you managed to keep up with both. Now I know you take turns. John told them that you are just fine and are taking a break.

Jun 30, 2007 10:32 AM

Paula Henry

Home to Indy Team @ HomeSmart Realty Group - Avon, IN

Realtor - Indianapolis Real Estate - 317-605-4174

Lenn - Born and bred a KY girl - I love these horse properties and the rolling hills.......beautiful. You have a map fetish? :)

Jun 30, 2007 02:54 PM

Lenn Harley

Lenn Harley, Homefinders.com, MD & VA Homes and Real Estate - Leesburg, VA

Real Estate Broker - Virginia & Maryland

Hey Paula.

The horse is, to me, the most beautiful animal on the planet. I love driving through the Northern Virginia countryside and seeing the open spaces, rolling hills and horese everywhere.

Thanks for dropping by.

Jun 30, 2007 10:49 PM

Celeste "SALLY" Cheeseman

Liberty Homes - Mililani, HI

(RA) AHWD CRS ePRO OAHU HAWAII REAL ESTATE

Beautiful land and beautiful horsies! That first picture...he is looking straight at you..what a ham. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us!

Jul 01, 2007 08:19 AM

Lenn Harley

Lenn Harley, Homefinders.com, MD & VA Homes and Real Estate - Leesburg, VA

Real Estate Broker - Virginia & Maryland

Thanks Sally. I could shoot these pictures all day. I even painted one.

Jul 01, 2007 12:02 PM

Anonymous

As a 35+ year Loudoun resident, longtime foxhunter/competitor/trainer/professional horseman and large-farm owner, I'd like to put my two cents in and say that allowing horses on three-acre lots in Loudoun looks like a bad idea to me. Five-acre lots are already on the edge. Anyone who's ever watched a couple of horses hoover their way through a lawn has got to be able to figure out that after a week of that the lawn's going to be bare ground -- and can take a month or more to recover (in a drought all bets are off -- the grass isn't going to recover, period).

Assume one acre for the house, driveway, and yards. That leaves two acres for the 'stable' and 'pastures.' A single horse generates 10 piles a day in manure (some can really crank it out). Over a week, two horses produce somewhere around 140 piles of manure confined to roughly 400'x400' (those two acres).

Let's be generous and assume this owner picks up the manure at least once a week. And moves it to where? Trust me - composting is an art that's usually done badly. Flies and maggots love the combination of Virginia's humid summers and a steaming (steadily increasing) hill of poop. If the owner doesn't pick up the manure quickly enough -- well, does anyone here know anything about worms and parasite cycles?

Now add starry-eyed beginners to the mix, who don't know that they should, for example, fence off their 'farmette' into multiple small paddocks that can be rotated and recovered through the year. Ick.

I realize real estate agents are in the business of selling land, not taking care of it. But maybe there's an exceptional one here and there who might want to delicately inquire as to whether one's prospective buyer is thinking past the immediate craving for a piece of the Ralph Lauren/Hunt Country dream towards how this actually works, flies and all. Bottom line: the smaller the property, the more labor-intensive the upkeep. And boy, is it an eyesore otherwise. Not at all like those beautiful photos.

Sep 05, 2007 01:06 PM

Lenn Harley

Lenn Harley, Homefinders.com, MD & VA Homes and Real Estate - Leesburg, VA

Real Estate Broker - Virginia & Maryland

I wondered what caused the reduction in acreage required for horses myself. In fact, reducing the acreage for horses from 5 acres to 3 seems to make little sense in a county where subdivision and small lot development is discouraged, at least in Western Loudoun County. In fact, one very large problem that I see is that the 3 acre minimum doesn't limit the number of horses that can be kept. A home owner can keep 2, 3, 4 etc. horses on 3 acres. The county spokesman indicated that the owners can feed the horses and do not have to have grazing acreage. That, of course, as the comment above leaves the matter of horse droppings uncontrolled.

Most of the new home subdivisions in Western County are zoned for 3 acre lots or more and most are in the 3-5 acre range. To control the "horse situation", the developers often establish covenants that do not allow for horses. I suspect that the matter of horse dropping, odor, might have some influence on covenents Of course, once the developer is out, the home owners, as the owners of the HOA, can change any covenants they wish.

As a home owner in Western Loudoun County, I hope to see home owners use common sense when purchasing property to keep horses and not warehouse the animals. One of the charms of Western Loudoun County is the open spaces and horses are a part of that charm. Crowding horses onto small lots is not healthful for the animals nor desirable for the communities.

As a real estate broker in Western Loudoun County, my job is to find proper properties for my buyers' needs. I don't see a conflict.

Sep 05, 2007 10:50 PM

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