Value Added: This well-compensated architect designs for the horse, of course

You know you live in a wealthy country when someone earns a comfortable living as an architect for horse barns.

John Blackburn, 66, is that guy. He is also a productive businessman who loves being his own boss.

Blackburn runs a six-person staff in a 3,000-square-foot office near Washington’s Dupont Circle that grosses between $1 and $2 million a year designing barns across Virginia horse country and the world.

His client list includes regular folks as well as successful horse lovers such as Under Armour mogul Kevin Plank, Washington Wizards/Capitals co-owner Fredrick D. Schaufeld and two big philanthropists: the late billionaire John Kluge and the late real estate scion Robert H. Smith. He designs homes as well, and the jobs include notable clients such as the Shriver family and local businessman Mitchell Rales.

His barns usually cost between $1 to $3 million to build, depending on the number of stalls and how fancy the client wants to get with materials. Slate roofs, brick floors and oak paneling tend to raise costs. Pine is cheaper.

“My whole shtick is designing for the health of horses,” Blackburn said. “For horses, in particular thoroughbreds . . . you want to design barns to ventilate naturally.

“As soon as you take a horse out of nature and put it in a barn or paddock, you are asking for trouble. Your barn is functioning as Mother Nature, and you control the environment and health of that animal. If you don’t do it properly, you run the risk of hurting your horse.”

So Blackburn, who has a coffee-table book in the works titled “Healthy Stables by Design” (Plank is writing the forward), designs his barns to approximate the outside weather while still protecting the horse.

“You tend to design the barns to retain a little bit of the heat that horses give off. You don’t want a horse in a draft. You want the temperature within six to 10 degrees of the outside temperature. If it’s 30 outside, you would like it to be 40 in the barn. Horses can take cold, but they can’t take heat.”

Most of Blackburn’s barns have a lot of skylights, which heat up and create a chimney effect by pulling the heat from the floor of the barn. The rising heat creates natural ventilation, keeping the horses comfortable.

His southern horse barns tend to be built with concrete blocks because the material stays cooler and keeps termites away. In northern climes, he uses more wood because it is less costly and there is less mildew and rot than in the steamy South.

Blackburn lives in the Chevy Chase neighborhood of D.C. and has five architects and a bookkeeper at his firm. Everyone gets health care and bonuses, even if the bonuses shrink in the lean years.

The company, Blackburn Architects, works in 30 states but concentrates on the East and West coasts. It collects a fee that is 8 to 10 percent of the total cost of the project. So a $2 million horse barn may yield his business $200,000.

Blackburn draws a six-figure salary; the amount depends on how strong business is that year.

“I always wanted to own my own business,” Blackburn said. Working without a safety net keeps him motivated.