Santa Fe New Mexican
6 Aug 2024 ·
By Kylie Garcia kgarcia@sfnewmexican.com
Boot store celebrates years of trailblazing as a woman-owned business
Boots are made for walking and, at Back at the Ranch boot store, trailblazing. The custom cowboy boots and Western fashion store is celebrating 35 years of business, prompting owner Wendy Henry to reflect on where it all started and the store’s success in a male-dominated market.
Henry, 74, originally from Miami, was a fashion designer and owned a women’s clothing store in New York City in the 1980s, but she always had a desire to explore the West.
That desire came to fruition with a visit to Santa Fe, which inspired her work upon her return to New York. She started designing broomstick skirts and vests made from old blankets. The pieces were a massive hit in the Big Apple.
“People absolutely loved it. I think in the first year I sold like 500 skirts,” Henry said in an interview.
Despite success in the Northeast, the West was still calling Henry’s name.
“One day I decided that I was finished with New York, and I moved to Santa Fe, and I started this 35 years ago,” Henry said.
Back at the Ranch’s original store opened on Don Gaspar Avenue in 1990 with a focus on vintage Western fashion, including cowboy boots and blue jeans. It wasn’t always easy.
“There was a lot of days where I couldn’t pay my rent,” Henry said. To this day, she wears a belt buckle she bought 30-some years ago as a reminder of those times. She kept the price tag on it, hidden behind the buckle, in case she ever needed to sell it for rent money. Fortunately for Henry, that day never came.
Henry also faced challenges as a woman in a business that was very male-dominated at the time.
“The leather industry was 100% male. They were terrible to deal with. They pretty much closed the door in my face, and now they’re very happy to see me come because I’m a huge leather buyer,” Henry said. “I’ve just been in this business longer than a lot of the people who sell boots and they were really, really anti-women.”
Located on Marcy Street since 2000, Back at the Ranch is a widely sought luxury boot business that fulfills custom orders for people all around the world, delivering boots as far as Australia and Poland. The store sells about 600 boots per year; according to Henry, last year was their biggest year to date and this year is on track to be a little better.
Henry partly attributes this success to the factory she owns in El Paso, where three generations of a family of artisans create the boots by hand.
“They’re unbelievable,” Henry said. “The attention to detail and the care they have is incredible. I am blessed. I couldn’t be surrounded by better people.”
Henry said for a businesswoman to own a factory with such a personal touch is rare in the small business and fashion store world.
“My boots are not factory-made,” Henry said. “It’s not production. We only can make somewhere between nine and 13, 14 pairs of boots a week.”
This level of craftsmanship and limited production is reflected in the price, with boots starting at about $1,500. Henry said the prices also reflect the custom designs they are able to produce — the more custom, the more expensive.
Henry said she recently had a customer who bought a bright blue Rolls Royce with a pink interior and wanted boots to match the vehicle. Henry said they could do that.
If a customer wants a particular leather skin dyed a particular color to match their dress for an event, Henry said they can do that.
“They can design whatever they want,” Henry said. “The sky’s the limit.”
The wait time for custom orders is four to six months, but Henry said they carry about 600 boots in store and try to be flexible with customers that have boot emergencies or need a different size at no extra charge.
“We’re very conscious of customer service . ... We never sell a boot that’s small. If the boot’s too small, we do not sell it to you because we want you to walkout of the store with a boot that’s comfortable from the beginning,” Henry said.
The store’s size policy as well as its wide variety of vibrant and colorful designs have also disrupted gender norms in a market not only male-dominated but male-oriented.
“When I started getting into cowboy boots, all the boots were black and brown and nothing really fit,” said Henry, who sought to create boots that would fit both men and women and stray from the typical design.
“Our store isn’t for everybody, but every single person that walks in the store is treated equally,” Henry said.
In addition to support for women, Henry is also proud of the way Back at the Ranch has supported and bonded generations of families — from the family of bootmakers in El Paso to the four generations of a family of loyal customers to Henry’s own family.
Henry’s granddaughter, Jackie Hopper Daru, 36, currently operates the store’s Instagram account and will soon be taking on a larger role in the business. Daru, a fifth-generation Texan, has been visiting Santa Fe for 30 years and will move here at the beginning of September to learn the ropes and inherit the business in a couple of years.
“It’s a privilege to carry forward the legacy my grandmother has built and to continue the tradition of creating bespoke cowboy boots that resonate with our customers,” Daru said in a news release.
Henry said she will still be involved. Going forward, she hopes the store continues to represent what she loves most about the West: the freedom that comes with wide open spaces, clear blue skies, fresh air and timeless style.
“It doesn’t even feel that it could be real that I created this, but I love it. I do. I’m so excited to have Jackie come, so I can teach this to somebody rather than just sell it and have it keep going,” Henry said. “I believe that the store could go forever.”