N icole March was burnt out. After 20-plus years as a registered nurse, the 46-year-old caregiver felt she had nothing left to give, quit her job, and wondered what to do next.
“ I was pretty low at that point,” says March, a Pittsfield native and mother of one.“ A friend told me about this place called HomeFarm where they do equine therapy. I had no idea what that was, but I went on their website and read about what they do. I can honestly tell you it changed my life.”
Equine therapy is an experiential treatment that leverages the highly intuitive sensitivity of horses to human emotions and nonverbal cues. Practiced around the world( and locally at venues like Berkshire HorseWorks in Richmond), it uses horses to promote physical, occupational, and emotional growth in individuals. It has been found to be particularly effective in helping people to process and change negative behaviours. What March didn’ t know as she pulled into the driveway of HomeFarm at Undermountain, a one-of-a-kind 100-acre farm in Lenox, is that Executive Director Lori Pestana is set out to make it a premier equine therapy facility in New England.
The Farm That Almost Wasn’ t
The land itself has history. Built in 1902 as a gentleman’ s farm, it fell into disrepair in the 2000s. By 2021, when Pestana started boarding her horse at the farm, the buildings were on the brink of collapse, and the farm owed upwards of $ 100,000 in back property taxes. Engineers warned that the main barn
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MAGAZINE August Fall 2025 2025