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Putting The Carriage Before The Horse

Tribune photo by CHRIS URSO

Horses are bathed after pulling a carriage at the Florida Carriage Museum & Resort in Marion County's rolling horse country.

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By MICHELLE BEARDEN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 23, 2009

Updated:

WEIRSDALE - As a girl in the 1950s, Gloria Austin sat transfixed in front of the family's black-and-white television set watching the adventures of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.

She liked cowboys all right, but what she loved were the horses they rode.

"I was like a lot of little girls," she recalls, laughing. "I bugged my father all the time for a horse until he finally gave in."

A girl never forgets her first love. His name was Duke, and he was an 18-year-old American Saddlebred, a big majestic breed used in shows and parades. A fine horse and gentle teacher who became her close companion, he lived on her family's 1,000-acre dairy farm in New York.

But little girls grow up. Austin would go off to college, marry, have two children, run a business in New York and get involved in public service. Duke eventually would be sold, and she would be horseless for a long stretch, nearly two decades.

She never got over her love for all things equine, however, and now, she's come full circle, living a dream she hadn't even imagined more than half a century ago.

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Austin is the founder of the Florida Carriage Museum & Resort, a hidden treasure tucked away in Marion County's rolling horse country. Located on 400 acres of manicured grounds, verdant pastures, picket fences and thickets of old oak trees draped in Spanish moss, the facility she opened in 1995 is a testament to a gentler era in Florida's rural and storied past.

Visitors get a feeling of stepping back in time almost immediately when they enter the grounds. On the long road leading to the museum, they pass a Japanese koi pond and Chinese Qin Dynasty garden, replete with blooming seasonal flowers. From a distance comes the clippity-clop of horses' hooves transporting passengers in open-air carriages on winding pathways. Fountains shoot streams of water into the blue skies; natural rock waterfalls provide a gurgling backdrop of sound.

Horses gallop alongside beautifully kept pastures, greeting newcomers with snorts and whinnies. In all, some 20 equines make their home here: Morgans, Friesians, Saddlebreds, Ardennes, Paso Fino, a miniature and a rare Poitou donkey from France. Egrets and blue herons peck for food on the banks of ponds, while fat fox squirrels chatter at the strolling human intruders.

"Beautiful, peaceful and very interesting," says Courtney Scott of Charlotte, N.C., who visits a few times a year with her husband, Marshall. "And even though the pace is so slow, there's never a lack of things to do here. What is missing is the loud noise and demands from the outside world."

A Multipurpose Destination

What began as a modest tourist operation and training facility in 1995 has evolved into a multipurpose destination.

More than 160 carriages of all eras are on display over 45,000 square feet in four distinct galleries: European, New Vehicle, South Gallery and American. Each exhibit details the vehicle's place in history and its contribution. Visitors can sign up for carriage-driving lessons or just take a tour of the grounds. Overnight to seasonal accommodations, with or without horses, are available in 24 cozy cottages and duplexes scattered throughout the property.

Sandy Zajac lives outside Portland, Maine. Understandably, she prefers Florida's winters. Last January through May, she and her husband rented a house on the resort property and boarded their two horses in a stable a short walk from their bedroom.

"Horse heaven" is how she described her five-month stay. "I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. When we weren't riding, we were meeting new people all the time, either on nature walks or at the Friday night get-togethers. I felt like we were living on another planet in another era. It was wonderful, so good for the soul."

The resort is also home to the nonprofit Equine Heritage Institute, an educational outreach that partners with schools, community groups, disability organizations and the public to teach about the 6,000-year relationship between man and horse that has shaped civilizations and changed lives. Austin believes fervently in preserving the history and culture of the horse, fearing that younger generations will lose interest, as immersed as they are in technology.

"The social history of the horse is so intertwined with our own, and yet we don't teach it," she says. "That's become my mission." She hosts seminars and field trips, helps develop teaching curriculums, runs day camps for kids and "Horsin' Around" programs for adults. Anything to promote equine knowledge and hands-on experience.

'The Center Of Nowhere'

Austin, 66, never really planned this. It started with her interest in carriages. Yes, those pre-automobile vehicles that served as a major mode of transportation hundreds of years before Henry Ford came along. When she turned 40 and started thinking about owning horses again, she wasn't as excited about actually riding.

"It takes a lot longer to recover from a fall at this age," she reasoned.

So she pursued carriage driving and fell in love with the sport. She took lessons, honing her skills with some of the most accomplished drivers in the field, including one who had worked for the Queen of England. Best of all, she could meld her horse passion with her new love.

Austin was still living in New York in the early '80s when she bought one, two, three carriages, and then more. In her travels overseas, she found one-of-a-kind antique buggies and shipped them back home. She also started breeding miniature horses.

A few years later, drawn by the good weather and horse-friendly country, she set her sights on the affordable land in Marion County. She started with 10 acres and kept adding as adjoining properties became available.

"The center of nowhere," she says, laughing. And she likes it that way.

She wanted to create an environment that would remind her of her own rural childhood, minus the cows. She would have carriages and horses.

Her plan was to construct an air-conditioned, dust-free building to store her small collection of carriages. But plans have a way of expanding.

"It's such a novelty," she says of her hobby. Friends started prodding her to show off her finds. And with the value of the American dollar so strong back then overseas, her appetite grew. She scoured estate sales and family farms, seeking everything from road carts to full-state carriages owned by royal families. When she found a broken-down vehicle that needed tender loving care, she had it restored by carefully chosen craftsmen.

Some are too valuable for anything but display. Several of her favorites are used in shows, classes and for tourists who book rides. She loves the idea that she has played a role in reviving interest in a dying art.

A championship driver with scores of trophies and ribbons, Austin still takes up the reins at least two to three times a week. Thanks to ballroom dancing, her other passionate pursuit, the twice-divorced grandmother of six is still toned and agile. That helps when she settles in the carriage seat, dons leather gloves and a colorful hat, and takes a meandering drive through her countryside.

Yes, this is a celestial experience, divine in every sense of the word.

"It helps you slow your contemporary life down," she says. "When you travel at 8 mph instead of 50, it's amazing what you can see. And no better companion to explore this whole new world with than a horse."

IF YOU GO

Florida Carriage Museum & Resort

WHERE: 3000 Marion County Road, Weirsdale (five minutes from The Villages Retirement Community)

HOURS: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; noon to 4 p.m. Sunday; closed Monday

ADMISSION: $10 for museum. Overnight rates range from $110 to $500, depending on size of cottage and number of guests. Stall rentals extra; guests with horse trailers, $15 per day use fee for riding on property.

COMING EVENTS: Florida Horse Festival and Carriage Show, Feb. 20-22 and the Southern Ride & Drive on April 24-26. Also, "Horses, High Tea and Music," the third Thursday of each month through March, $44.50 per person.

INFORMATION: (352) 750-5500; www.fcmr.org

Reporter Michelle Bearden can be reached at (813) 259-7613. Keyword: Carriage, for a video tour with Gloria Austin of the Florida Carriage Museum and Resort and the resort's Web site.

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