(continued)
Reprinted by permission from Santa Barbara Magazine

Instead of fading away, however, Cynthia Wood's dream stable has been reborn. New copper cupolas gleam atop the white brick, red-tiled barn, which has been refurbished inside and out. Fences have been resurrected, a new arena added, and a riding path built around the perimeter of the remaining fifteen acres. Massive, showy Andalusians have joined the elegant high-stepping Saddlebreds in the daily round of training exercises.

The fairy godmother behind this remarkable turnaround is Diandra de Morrell Douglas, who grew up with horses in Mallorca and Santa Barbara.

The day is damp. A heavy mist shrouds the weathervane in top of the barn. "I've always been involved with horses," says Douglas, settling back into a maroon leather couch in the spacious clubroom as two men build a carefully light a fire.

"My mother used to say, 'One day you will grow up, and you won't care about horses anymore.' I looked at my mother and said, 'I don't think so.'"

Born in Washington D.C., to an American diplomat father and a Spanish mother, Douglas attended boarding school in Switzerland and Georgetown University in Washington, serving as a White House intern during President Jimmy Carter's administration.

At a White House party, she met her former husband, actor, Michael Douglas. They married in 1977 and had a son, Cameron, now nineteen. "We had a house in Montecito," she says, "and we came here for Christmases."

Diandra returned to Santa Barbara in the fall of 1995. "I was looking for a better place to raise my son." Searching for a stable for her two Andalusian horses, Douglas drove into the yard of Stalloreggi, a beautiful spot tucked in along Picay Creek behind Ortega Ridge, with a panoramic view of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Diandra arranged to train her horses with the Martins.

A year later the Stalloreggi property was for sale again, and plans to subdivide it into home sites had been filed. At the same time, Mike Martin was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Notified in Bali about this turn of events, Douglas, who considered the place a landmark, decided to intervene. "I decided I was going to do something," she says. "I didn't know what. When I got back, I went to the bank and bought it in foreclosure." She and Mike Martin came up with a new name for the place, Montecito Riding Academy.

Her hand absently caresses Pumpkin, a small Italian greyhound curled up on the sofa beside her. Surveying the comfortable room with its large fireplace, white plaster walls, and polished floor, she recollects, "It was in great disrepair."

Douglas often felt like Myrna Loy in Mr. Blanding Builds His Dream House. "I'd fix up one corner, and another one needed to be done."

"She's bringing it up to what Cynthia would've wanted," adds Liz Martin, shedding her ridding gloves and sitting in a nearby chair. Mike Martin died in August 1997, but the Montecito Riding Academy is going strong, with Diandra as owner and Liz Martin as resident trainer-manager, still showing under the name Martin Stables.

Douglas's impeccably groomed purebred Andalusians, Lusitanos, and one hackney pony now occupy a dozen of the luxurious stalls. Marin uses the others for her clients' Saddlebreds and her own, which bring home championships from every show they are in.

Douglas shows me a video on the breeding history of Iberian horses, gorgeous deep-chested Andalusians galloping over lush Spanish hillsides. Martin points out that both Andalusians and Saddlebreds were bred for war. Top officers rode Saddlebreds in the American Civil War, and they were dispersed across the country when hostilities ended.

Part owner of Avatar Designs, a Coast Village import shop, a board member of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the UCSB foundation, and a respected producer of documentary films, Douglas hopes the rain will stop in time for the outdoor benefit she is hosting that evening at the house she and developer Ken Slaught share in Riven Rock.

A groom brings her a spirited white stallion to the door, and she swings a booted leg over the English saddle. I watch her exercise the horse, it's fluffy mane and tail streaming as it prances up and down the 300-foot covered aisle. Generous circular turnarounds in towers at both ends make the barn an efficient space for exercising horses in any weather.

The stable is immaculate. New, lacquered stall doors shine. Tack glistens. A fly dares not enter.

"He has such a nice, big motor." Douglas declares, dismounting.

"Horses are very healing. Just sitting in the stall corner with my stallion is very powerful," she says. "We call this the O.K. Corral when children from CALM are brought here for outings. We have them brush the horses. While they are in the corral, everything is O.K. for them."

Currently there is a waiting list for private training and instruction at the academy. "We have the best facility," Douglas says, laughing with pleasure in what she has accomplished here.

Previous Page

Next Page

"Featuring the best in Montecito real estate."