Despite the outcry from Keep Missouri Heights Rural (KMHR), a citizens group opposing the Twin Acres Riding Stable and Boarding Stable on the Eagle County side of Missouri Heights, some residents would rather see horses than houses.
“I’m more in favor of keeping Twin Acres,” said Felix Tornare, owner of Milagro Ranch. “Because, in my humble opinion, if you let [KMHR] control the county commissioners and get rid of Twin Acres, which is a viable ranch, then we are all in trouble as ranchers.”
Tornare and his wife, Sarah, bought their Missouri Heights ranch in 1998 when it was just ranchland. They’ve built the ranch and the business, a successful cow/calf and regenerative agriculture operation, from the ground up.
“When we first moved here 25 years ago, we never saw a house in our view. And now we look out and there’s nothing but homes and lights,” he told The Sopris Sun. “It’s a matter of time for all of us before those very subdivisions complain to the county commissioners that we shouldn’t be here because our cattle smell, our horses smell, we’re riding through their property, and they don’t want us here anymore.”
The Twin Acres equestrian center proposes a commercial operation with a new 7,860-square-foot, 25-stall boarding stable and a 20,000-square-foot covered riding stable on 20 acres of a 101-acre established ranch, now under a conservation easement. Up to 50 horses could eventually be housed on the property.
Residents of the surrounding subdivisions are worried about flies, noise, lights and how manure from 50 horses could ruin the local air quality. Other concerns include water supply, traffic and wildfire risk.
But, for Tornare and his neighbors, Gay Lewis, Glen Sloop and Kat Rich, who live in the Garfield County portion of Missouri Heights, it’s more of a values thing. Their biggest fear is losing the easy-going, rural Colorado lifestyle, which they say is already on its way out. And, it’s not just land use changes; it’s also an attitude shift from neighborly to, at times, acrimonious.
Tornare used to move his cows down County Road 100 to leased pastures off Highway 82. He doesn’t do that anymore because it’s dangerous. “People [used to] stop and help,” he explained. “They’d be patient, they would take videos, they would be a part of it, everybody wanted to be a part of it.”
Now, it’s a different story. Drivers are impatient and rude. “They give us the finger when we go slow,” he said. “They would honk and not pull over or try to go [around] the herds.”
Lewis misses the freedom to ride horses across the landscape. “There’s nowhere to ride now,” she explained. “Everybody’s shut their gates, locked their gates, no trespassing. Nobody welcomes you on their property anymore.”
The definition of “rural” is quite the bone of contention on Missouri Heights these days, which is a patchwork of at least 14 subdivisions and crisscrossed with roads. Many of those opposed to Twin Acres shut down the proposed Ascendigo Autism Services camp in 2021 for fear of losing Missouri Heights’ rural character.
But, in a June letter to the Eagle County Commissioners, Sarah Tornare pointed out the irony of their complaints. “It’s ludicrous that all these people in subdivisions are protesting on the basis of Missouri Heights no longer being ‘rural,’” she wrote, adding that developments inherently chase away the rural character that those homeowners are trying to protect. “It seems they never really wanted to live in a ‘rural’ area; they just wanted to live in a nice, neat housing development that had the views and quiet we all moved here to enjoy.”
Rich agrees. “They want to say they live in a ranching community. They want to eat the fresh produce. They want to go to the farmers market. They want to do all of these things,” she said. “But when it comes down to what actually produces those things, they want nothing to do with it because they don’t want to look at it. They don’t want to smell it. They don’t want to hear it.”
Tornare remembers how the community united in 2018 to face the Lake Christine Fire, and would like to see that camaraderie return. “This can all be worked out and put together so we can live together and not be angry all the time,” he said. “But compromise is a two-way street.”
Eagle County Commissioners will meet on Tuesday, July 23 to discuss and possibly decide the fate of Twin Acres. Sloop, who has lived with Lewis in one of the old Fender family ranch houses since 1998, said it would be helpful if homeowners knew the history of Missouri Heights. “This was ranching and potato farms,” he said. “I understand that the world changes. We’re just asking that those of us that want to be rural and ranching have that opportunity.”