Anchor and Hope Farm Rebuild After Fire

The day it happened, Aug. 12, 2019, Louis Merryman didn't know what to expect, only that the next several months would not be easy ones. The main barn at his Anchor and Hope Farm had burned to the ground, and the list of problems seemed to stretch on forever. The only thing that he knew for sure was that this was not the end of his farm.

“I look around and think that a small group of us have accomplished an awful lot in the last several months,” he said. “It was out of necessity; we didn't have much choice. We had to rebuild and it wasn't like we had unlimited finds to get rebuilt. That meant we had to do whatever we could. I'm pretty proud of all of us”

Less than six months after the fire, Anchor and Hope is fully functional. The barn has largely been rebuilt, there's a new sire on the farm and this year they will be able to take their yearlings to the sales.

“It's kind of been a blur,” said Merryman, who runs the farm with his wife, Grace.

Neither of the Merrymans were at the farm when the fire broke out and engulfed a large L-shaped barn that was 2 ½ stories high. Barn forewoman Heather Cellinesi was there and she managed to free all of the horses. In recognition of her efforts, Cellinesi received the 2019 Joe Kelly Maryland Million Unsung Hero Award, presented by the Board of Directors of the Maryland Million Ltd

“It sounds crazy to say, but there are a lot of things that went right that day,” Grace Merryman said. “No one was hurt and Heather was here and the horses got out. What we lost we can fix.”

Things would get worse before they would get better.

One of the first priorities was selling the yearlings. Ten were scheduled to go to the sales, but that was no longer feasible in the aftermath of the fire. Instead, the Merrymans sought to sell each one privately. It didn't go well.

“That cost us a lot,” Louis Merryman said. “I only sold three and that was a real bummer to us. The market for regional-bred horses is very modest anyway. But going in to sales season, I thought we were going to gross $150,00, $170,000, that is if we just got average sales price for them. I think we added up netting less than $30,000. It definitely hurt.”

The squeeze put on the farm by the poor return they got on the yearlings was one of several financial blows. The Merrymans had insurance on the barn, but not enough to cover the costs of starting all over with a new barn.

“The fire was a big blow,” Grace Merryman said. “We are a small operation and it's just ourselves. We don't have huge funding or capital behind us. We are working people. We had a little bit of money set aside for other projects that we had in mind. We had to put all of that toward building the barn.”

To save money, they took care of all the rubble removal themselves, even enlisting Merryman's septuagenarian mother to help with the task. Then, a key player in the rebuild passed away. Louis Merryman's uncle was the former steeplechase jockey Doug Small, who became an architect after retiring. He maneuvered his way through all the red tape that is involved when seeking permits to build something and began the design phase for the new barn. Two months after the fire, he passed away.

“He accomplished a task that I don't even know how to put a value on it, between the time involved and what I would have had to pay somebody else to do so far as architectural drawings,” Louis Merryman said. “I couldn't have been more appreciative of what he was doing for us and then he passed away.”

Despite the setbacks, there was no choice but to move forward.

“What else were we going to do? This farm is our whole life and we watched our whole life burn down last summer,” Grace Merryman said.

With each passing day, things got better. The rubble was removed. The horses were moved to a temporary barn. A builder was brought in. The new barn, which would sit on the footprint of the old one, started to take shape.

“It's been pretty stressful for us,” Louis Merryman said. “We've been in a dead sprint since the day of the fire.”

With things starting to return to normal, the Merrymans welcomed a new stallion to their farm. T. K. Kuegler's Wasabi Ventures Stables had acquired Force the Pass (Speightstown), whose biggest victory came in the GI Belmont Derby. Kuegler chose Anchor and Hope when looking for a place to stand the horse. He is one of five stallions on the farm. (Read Katie Ritz's 'Wasabi Ventures Into Stallions' from the edition of Feb. 6, 2019).

“He's a super cool horse,” Louis Merryman said. “I love everything about this horse. I have really tried to hold the line and stay away from stallions who, in my opinion, weren't sound. I fully understand there are fantastic horses out there that had bad luck or had an injury that isn't indicative of genetic unsoundness. But we've really tried to stay with horses that exhibited speed, talent and soundness. I am really happy with this addition.”

It's relatively rare that a horse who won a Grade I stakes in North America winds up standing at stud in Maryland, but Hope and Anchor now has two. The other is Imagining (Giant's Causeway), the winner of the GI Man o'War S. in 2014.

There is still work to be done, including putting some final touches on the new barn. But they have navigated through the major problems and can now look ahead, no longer worrying about their future.

“I can't wait until everything is done,” Grace Merryman said. “This place is going to be beautiful.”