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Colonial Beach • Westmoreland
Volume 39, Number 28
Wednesday, July 8, 2015 50 Cents
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Beach facade program off to a slow start Out of 30 properties located in the downtown revitalization area only eight property owners have submitted an application to take advantage of available facade improvement grant money. The Facade Improvement Program is funded out of the $750,000 Revitalization Grant awarded to the Town of Colonial Beach from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. Approximately $115,000 is slated for facade improvements. Property owners within the downtown project area may take advantage of a forgivable loan. The money provided by the grant must be matched equally by the property owner. However property owners are welcome to add more than half the cost. The loan portion is forgivable, provided the improvements are maintained for five years. During that period, one-fifth of the money owed is forgiven each year. If
Westmoreland man held in stabbing
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Linda Farneth
News
a property owner sells the property before the five-year period ends, the loan portion must be repaid. Northern Neck Planning District Commission Executive Director Jerry Davis hoped to receive more applications before the beginning of the work. Hawthorne Street is slated for upgrades this month. Out of the 30 properties in the project area, five have been identified as significantly blighted. Three of those properties are located on Hawthorne Street. These property owners have not yet submitted applications. The eight applicants who did submit a list of desired work, will receive free architectural plans to carry out their chosen upgrades. The architects may make suggestions but the upgrades are the choice of the applicant. Once all of the applications are submitted, the Facade Committee will work with the architects to determine how many jobs can be funded by the facade money.
The bombs bursting in air...
Of 30 properties in the revitalization area only eight property owners have submitted an application for approximately $115,000 in facade improvement grant money. If any projects have to be cut due to lack of funding, the committee must choose projects in the order of the most improvement for the least amount of money invested. Davis told the Revitalization Committee that in other revitalization projects he has overseen, once improvements began it has a domino effect and other property owners become more motivated to get the work done soon. Any applicants who are not picked for the facade improvement program or choose not to take advantage of the money are entitled to keep the architectural plans free of charge.
Photo by Linda Farneth
Residents of Colonial Beach enjoyed a grand time Saturday night as the town set off fireworks to mark America’s 239 birthday. The show capped off a weekend of activities celebrating freedom and independence.
Art Walk, Market Day mark Fourth Richard Leggitt
Photo Courtesy of Greater Montross Partnership for Revitalization
Montross residents enjoyed live music, a variety of locally made crafts and some great food during the town’s Independence Day celebration held on the town square. On Friday, residents browsed a variety of items during the Art Walk. Market Days followed on Saturday.
The historic town of Montross celebrated the Fourth of July with wine, music, art and a courthouse square collection of crafts, produce, antiques and gifts. “It was a great success,” said Terry Cosgrove, one of the leaders of the Greater Montross Partnership for Revitalization, which sponsored the events. The holiday festivities began on Friday with an Art Walk and Americana music by Resolutions Road and the folk music of D.B. Bowen in the green space downtown on King’s Highway, across from the old Westmoreland Courthouse. The First Friday event included a wine garden set up by The Hague Winery and visits to the art and antique shops and eateries located in downtown Montross.
“I’d estimate more than 300 people turned out to shop for art, antiques and gift items; dine in our restaurants and enjoy live music in the village center,” Cosgrove said. “Our revitalization project was geared toward creating a village atmosphere with locally owned businesses in a pedestrian friendly environment. So for art walk - bringing people into town by creating a family-friendly event that is beneficial for both attendees and business owners alike is our goal.” Hundreds more residents and visitors showed up Saturday for a Montross Market Day, which fell on the Fourth of July. The Montross County Band played on the steps of the old courthouse as guests walked through the gathered booths featuring items from homemade jams and jellies to jewelry.
There were classic cars including a 1967 Chevy Malibu Sports and a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air; peaches, blackberries, blueberries and apricots from the Westmoreland Berry Farm; and delicious baked goods from the Anna Bakery in King George. “Business is good,” said bakery employee, Andrew Strugatsky. “If a by-product of these events is that someone sees our town looking good with a renewed business district and would like to either relocate a business or start a new one here – well, that too would be great,” said Cosgrove. “I’m very proud of how far our revitalization group has come over the last few years. “Our entire revitalization project was geared toward creating a village atmosphere with a pedestrian friendly environment and I think we have a great start.”
Fundraiser planned to save historic Belle Grove outbuildings George Whitehurst
Photo by George Whitehurst
Time and the elements have taken a toll on Belle Grove’s colonial-era summer kitchen and slave quarters.
As America wraps up its celebration of Independence Day, Michelle Darnell is on a mission. Darnell, who co-owns the Belle Grove Bed and Breakfast with her husband, Brett, is striving to save three of the 18th century outbuildings at the the former plantation, birthplace of President James Madison. Time and the elements have battered the buildings, which date from between 1720-50. Indeed, two of them are now slipping off their foundations and will collapse unless preservation and restoration take place. “Every day we’re losing pieces of our history,” Michelle Darnell said. “Those building are patchworks of American history. Once we lose those buildings, we can no longer tell those stories.” And what stories those building
can tell. Built during America’s colonial era, they offer a fascinating glimpse of life on the plantation at the time of James Madison’s birth. The largest of the buildings is a simple two-room structure that served as a summer kitchen and a slave quarters. Despite its conversion into a bath house during the 1930s, the primitive cabin still boasts its original kitchen mantlepiece and ironwork in the chimney. A second, smaller structure served as as a meat smokehouse. A third allbrick building may have functioned as an ice house. After opening the bed and breakfast at Belle Grove, Darnell asked a staffer from Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources to come inspect the crumbling outbuildings. “The first thing she said was, ‘Oh my God, Michelle. You don’t understand what you’ve got here because these [types of] buildings
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just don’t exist anymore,’” Darnell said with a laugh. The two wooden buildings bear the heaviest scars inflicted by the passage of time. Boards are cracked, and in some cases missing, while the foundations have grown unstable. “They’re 294 years old,” Darnell said. “The bases of the buildings are hand-hewn bricks with very old mortar. As time passes and the mortar crumbles , the bricks fall away and the building starts to slide.” She has already lined up an Amish craftsman from Maryland to begin the preservation and repair work once the money is raised. Using See BELLE GROVE, page 8