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Sunday, December 28, 2008

Pinto Ranch

Pinto Ranch's opening at NorthPark offers Western glamour

11:59 AM CST on Friday, November 16, 2007
By MARIA HALKIAS / The Dallas Morning News
mhalkias@dallasnews.com

If Fort Worth is Cowtown, maybe Dallas should start calling itself Horsetown.

REX C. CURRY/Special Contributor

The luxury lifestyle here increasingly involves equine pursuits,and to cater to that crowd, an upscale Western store from Houston has brought its down-home glitz to NorthPark Center.

Pinto Ranch opened Thursday on the mall's second level, in 9,000 square feet between Neiman Marcus and Barneys New York. The store bills itself as one of the nation's largest collections of luxury and custom-crafted Western apparel, including jewelry,
boots, accessories and saddles.

Another equine chain, Dover Saddlery, opened its first Texas store at Campbell and Coit roads in Far North Dallas in September. The chain caters to the needs of English riders and was founded in 1975 by members of the U.S. equestrian team.

The retailers are attracted to North Texas by several converging trends.

To the north, Denton County says it has the highest horse population in the state, and the town of Aubrey calls itself the quarter horse capital of the world.

"There are horse trailers up and down Highway 377 24 hours a day," said Fern Bugg, owner of the Whispering Oaks Farm in Pilot Point. "We have an amazing concentration of horse farms here."

To the south, the 500-acre Texas Horse Park is expected to open in 2010 in the Great Trinity Forest, just 8 miles from downtown Dallas, off Interstate 45 and Loop 12. The park will have miles of riding trails and facilities capable of hosting national and international equestrian competitions.

In Irving, the Las Colinas Equestrian Center is becoming one of the major horse show facilities in the Southwest.

Dallas money is mounting up. Some men have taken to collecting custom boots the way their wives harbor handbags.

People with means are buying 50-acre weekend "ranchettes," spending $1,000 a month for English riding lessons for their children, and boarding horses at a growing number of facilities, such as Showtime Farms in Southlake.

More people "want their children to learn to ride horses. It keeps them out of trouble," said Dayle Binder, owner of Showtime Farms.

Conducive climate

Texas' geography is helping drive the trend. "The people who are putting up these stores aren't doing it on a whim," said Eddie Baggs, Denton County Agricultural Extension agent. "Equine is a fast-growing part of the economy in this state. The climate and the soil condition are very conducive to horse breeding and training."

Weather is a factor, agreed Janet Nittmann, spokeswoman for Massachusetts-based Dover Saddlery. "Our competition season is closed down now in the Northeast."

Stephen Day, president and chief executive of Dover Saddlery, said the registers at the Dallas store ran at the rate of $10,000 per hour during an opening-day reception for the company's best catalog customers. The almost 6,000-square-foot store is in the former Newmarket Saddlery store, which Dover refurbished.

"The trend is growing," said Herb Weitzman, chairman and chief executive of real estate firm the Weitzman Group. He has friends, from CEOs to airline pilots, who live in the Park Cities during the week and escape to their horse ranches on the
weekends.

The Weitzman Group handled Pinto Ranch's lease negotiations with NorthPark Center.

"Western was a void in the mix at NorthPark," Mr. Weitzman said. "Besides, out of town visitors expect to find this kind of merchandise in Dallas, not just at Leddy's in Fort Worth."

'Back to their roots'

Pinto Ranch was founded in 2004 by Walter Pye, whose family was in the Houston specialty apparel business for more than 60 years. In 1997, he sold a chain of low-margin, high-volume men's stores called Walter Pye's National Apparel Limited to the Men's Wearhouse.

At Houston's Galleria, the Pinto Ranch store has annual sales of more than $4 million, from customers including former President George H.W. Bush, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lyle Lovett, Clint Black, Terrence Howard and members of ZZ Top and the Houston Astros.

"Nobody is doing what we're bringing to Dallas," Mr. Pye said. "We're catering to a trend of people going back to their roots.

"What's more American than a Texas cowboy? When you wear a Western-cut shirt, jeans and boots and your favorite buckle on your belt, you feel part of America's past."

The NorthPark store is the company's second. Visitors said Thursday they were impressed with the selection, service and ambience.

Milton Waldoff, a consultant from Hattiesburg, Miss., has been a Pinto Ranch shopper since the Houston store opened.

"I appreciate going into a store with real customer service," he said. "This store reminds me of Nordstrom."

On Thursday afternoon, he bought a pair of $135 Jack of Spade jeans that needed to be altered, and he was told they'd be ready the next day. But he countered that he needed to catch a flight,so the jeans were promised - and produced - Thursday evening.

'So Texas'

Belt buckles that range in price from $250 to $5,000 are displayed in fine jewelry cases. A saddle craftsman practices his trade in full view. The gift department feels homey with a fireplace.

"This is so Texas for me," said Karin Strobbe, a tourist from Belgium who's visiting Dallas for the first time.

She has a collection of Western boots and was wearing a snakeskin pair she'd bought in Italy. She planned to buy a pair of Lucchese boots she'd spotted.

"It's the kind of store I would expect to find in a mall like this in Dallas, Texas. The wooden rafters, the hats and boots - there's only a bull missing."
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Labels: Cowboy Boots, Cowgirl Boots, Western Fashion

by: Tim's Boots

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