If you hear a buzz around town that there’s a new queen bee on the rise, your mind might first jump to gossip. But for the Kellers, it’s just another Monday on the farm.
“We had a new queen bee arise this week,” Paula Keller says while describing her day. “They decided to swarm, so we have a lady who is a beekeeper. She had to come in and add in another home for them. It was just crazy.”
Paula and her husband Frank own a three-acre lot off Southlake Boulevard – alongside Watermere, for reference – that they share with the property’s chickens, horses, dogs, a donkey and now honeybees.
It might not be the most common conversation happening in the area, but the Kellers are not alone. While their business, Alpha & Omega Mounted Patrol, makes them distinct, there are an array of farm owners in Southlake who get to take advantage of all the area has to offer. Southlake presents locals with a different take on suburban living. Locals interested in building their own rural spaces can do it in the confines of a city environment.
Southlake Farm Living
According to the City of Southlake Tourism Master Plan, this city has four times the U.S. average of organized retail per capita on a square foot basis. So it’s no question that Southlake boasts metropolitan amenities. But less than five miles down the road from Southlake Town Square sits the Kellers’ farm.
Sure, other cities in the Metroplex have multi-acre lots full of vegetable gardens and chicken coops, but there are not many places in the area that can claim to provide the finest qualities of urban and rural spaces.
Frank and Paula are just one of the many farm owners in Southlake, and while they permanently dwell in Keller, they are grateful they have been able to see Southlake rise up and offer more to its residents. Frank’s father purchased the farm back in the ’80s before Southlake’s current shape started to take form.
“This property was sort of one of the first ranches in this whole area,” Frank says. “When my father bought it, there was very little. There was nothing on 1709 – even that was just a two-lane road. Southlake Town Square was a farm where I bought hay.”
But both Frank and Paula grew up with a love for agriculture. Paula grew up watching her grandfather care for bees on his farm while Frank spent his formative years out with equine.
“I was raised in agriculture even though I was raised in an urban environment,” Frank explains. “My first job when I was 12 was working in a public riding stable. I fell in love with horses then.”
Frank then went on to study wildlife science and agriculture economics in school, but he knew he always wanted to venture out and create his own business.
“I had an entrepreneurial spirit, and I knew I wanted to build something,” Frank says. “And I did it with horses: my hobby and my love.”
Professional Ponies
A few years after they moved to Texas, Frank started Alpha & Omega, an entertainment venture using their horses. Their humble steeds would do everything from lead horse-drawn hayrides to give Santa a lift to his appearances at nearby malls. After building up an inventory of stunning Clydesdales, he wanted to expand. Drawing from his late father’s experience in law enforcement, Alpha & Omega set out to become the first privately owned mounted patrol company for shopping malls.
Dallas’ Valley View Mall became Alpha & Omega’s first client in 1990. Shortly after, Frank met with a large mall development company who wanted to expand his business on a national scale. That experience led him to need horses everywhere from Houston to California.
“All I could think was, ‘How are we going to do this?’” Frank says.
But he expanded to another location in The Woodlands and got to work to bring his highly trained horses across the country. After championing that industry, Frank wanted to do more. As shopping centers started to fizzle in the mid ’90s, he and his horses needed to think bigger. At the time, Frank had up to 50 horses on the property in Southlake. They would spend their days roaming and grazing before being packed up and transported to work.
So Frank wanted to join another passion with a new revenue stream for Alpha & Omega Mounted Patrol: music.
“I have always been a music lover,” Frank says. “And we were given the opportunity to take our business into that space with Woodstock ’94.”
Alpha & Omega provided horses for the 25th anniversary of the original Woodstock festival and soon saw how indispensable their patrol was for these events. They quickly started booking troopers out for concerts, amphitheater events and music festivals.
“From there, it just spanned out.”
If you’ve ventured out to any of the big festivals of late, or seen the thousands of pictures that flood social media afterward, you’ve probably seen a few of the Alpha & Omega horses. They have a presence at everything from Bonnaroo to Coachella to Stagecoach.
Because these events were spread throughout the country, it quickly became evident that Frank couldn’t transport all of these horses every time there was an event. He needed to build his patrol force up and out.
“We just determined there’s no way we can provide horses to do this type of work,” Frank explains.
He decided that instead of bringing his horses to events, he would find horses in the areas he wanted to serve. With the help of his extensive training program, riders and their animals could apply to become mounted patrol troopers and gain the skills to go out and protect people in their own communities. Plus, the patrol pair would already have a close bond.
“A rider has a bond with a horse more so than you just jumping on a horse and doing security,” Frank explains. “At the end of the day, it’s kind of like having a dog. You and your dog have a bond; it’s the same with the horse.”
Not only is Frank living out his dream but also he is creating jobs for horse owners throughout the country – all from his quaint farm deep in the heart of Southlake.
Back On The Farm
While Alpha & Omega keeps Frank busy, he’s still looking for new opportunities. He started a festival security consulting company, Kel Executive Services, out of a fascination with the effort it takes to build up a music festival.
“You are literally building a city with a lot of these music festivals,” Frank says. “Whether it is providing law enforcement or private security, there are logistics that are mind-boggling. These ‘cities’ are produced by these phenomenal people, and we just come in and provide a safe environment for them.”
He’s also interested in seeing how else his farm can impact the local community. Frank says he is looking to sell his chicken’s eggs to nearby restaurants interested in providing locally sourced, fresh ingredients to their customers. And, with the bees producing honey, there’s an opportunity to batch that as well.
When they aren’t working away, Frank and Paula see their horse farm as a haven – a place to get away from it all. Their days can be spent getting back to their roots and spending quality time with one another.
“We say it’s our little bit of country,” Paula says. “It’s our retreat.”
That’s the beauty of Southlake. Whether you want to take advantage of the town’s amenities or enjoy the area’s rolling pastures (or both), it’s all available within city limits.