Distinction artisansissue by Shea Alvis

THE SIGN PAINTER /// THE FARMER /// THE CHAIR MAKERS /// THE GEARHEAD T H E P R I N T E R S / / / T H E J E W E L E R / / / T H E B AG M A N / / / T H E WO O DWO R K E R / / / A N D M O R E

SPRING 2015

DISTINCTIONHR.COM

THE ARTISANS ISSUE

$5.95

VOL.26

DISPLAY UNTIL MAY 16, 2015

LeAnn Amory- Deborah Wallace Baisden 332-0991 404-6020

Patti Tonie FrankFrankenfield O’Gorman 650-6255 718-8100

Ivana Basnight 403-7676

Glenda Battle 729-0296

Neil Bennett 449-4587

Linda Berryman 532-7749

Casey Bushey 241-1262

Jeanette Canady 804-815-0331

Margaret Cody 287-3079

Ruby Conn 291-4744

Jennifer Cool 739-5859

Jon Decker 560-1676

Sondra Deibler 879-0001

Janine DeMello 681-0414

Kimberly Denton 323-0115

Harriet Doub 620-5478

Adrienne Downing 499-0124

Mary Ross Ellsworth 288-8822

Pamela Frohman 478-1091

Kevin Gallagher 372-2980

Jennifer Gartell 438-2750

Mary Miller Gentry 328-5412

Harriet Goodove 754-3902

Charlee Gowin 434-5859

Darcy Guethlein 478-4756

Fred Helm 404-8188

CJ Frank Hughes Kim Howell & Bill Clarke Johnson 647-3481 876-8346 639-4968

Laverne Jones 409-6773

Diane Keeley 477-8577

Sherry Kletzly 897-2976

Shauna Lane 478-3454

Barbara Levine 810-8624

©2015 BHH Affiliates, LLC. An independently owned and operated franchisee of BHH Affiliates, LLC. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices symbol are registered service marks of HomeServices of America, Inc. ® Equal Housing Opportunity. Information not verified or guaranteed. If your home is currently listed with a Broker, this is not intended as a solicitation.

Claudia Liebig 408-7222

Tony London 489-0101

Kathleen Losey 552-7680

Donna Magoon 876-1168

Carl Master 621-0022

Pixie Russell 617-9941

John Savino 217-1688

Tom Seddon 406-0036

Sona Shah 630-2068

Rolla Talia 408-7882

Caroline Jack & Julia McCartney McNulty 681-1681 291-6464

Joe Terrell 342-6202

Siobhan Miller 406-3473

Gayle Sherri Upchurch Visser 377-6688 254-702-9041

Betty Moritz 651-1399

Cheri Mulhare 719-4112

Lori Navarro 277-5585

John Neal 270-4138

Kippe O’Neil 897-8656

Melissa Welsted 617-1718

Bethany White 773-6503

Jennifer Williamson 575-6580

Kathy Worthen 536-9513

Cheri Bass Wozniak 754-3400

www.LuxuryCollectionVA.com • (757) 575-7839

Peggy O’Neill 995-5004

Josh Parnell 469-5674

Susan Pender 552-2073

Stacie Suzanne House Powell Roscher 377-1712 617-5656

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POIS MOI COLLECTION

P RE V I E W S LUXURY HOMES IN HAMPTON ROADS

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Virginia Beach $1,990,000 Brenda Holster 757-714-2618

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COLLEGE TERRACE

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Williamsburg, $1,000,000 Chris Hannan 757-719-6916

Virginia Beach, $1,695,000 Jack Steele 757-646-0765

KILMAMOCK AREA Northumberland County, $2,350,000 Chris Hannan 757-719-6916

NORTH END Virginia Beach, $2,750,000 Kay Flohre 757-718-1752

COLDWELL BANKER PROFESSIONAL, REALTORS®

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Dedicated to Luxury Real Estate® AFRICA NORTH AMERICA CENTRAL AMERICA SOUTH AMERICA ASIA AUSTRALIA CARIBBEAN EUROPE MIDDLE EAST SOUTH PACIFIC ©2015 Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. A Realogy Company. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC fully supports the principles of the FairHousing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each office Is Independently Owned and Operated. Coldwell Banker ®, the Coldwell Banker Logo, Coldwell Banker Previews International ®, the Previews International Logo, and “Dedicated to Luxury Real EstateSM” are registered and unregistered service marks to Coldwell Banker LLC.

PROFESSIONAL, REALTORS®

HOMES OF DISTINCTION

Bay Island Offered at $5.5M

GROUP

(757) 217-1688 Linkhorn Park ~ Offered at $2,995,000

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Leopold’s Chair Made in America by Hand

The Leopold’s Chair is an L.& L.G. Stickley classic from the 1930’s and has been Stickley’s most popular chair since it was reissued in 1996. The arm of this exceptional chair was said to be one of Leopold Stickley’s favorite design elements. The universally comfortable Leopold’s Chair requires over one half of a day of careful hand tufting by our most skilled artisans. Available in fabric and 23 leather choices. BEDDING • CARPET • RUGS • WINDOW TREATMENTS

757-340-2112 • 4220 VIRGINIA BEACH BOULEVARD • MON-FRI 10 A.M. TO 6 P.M., SAT 10 A.M. TO 5:30 P.M., SUN 1 TO 5:30 P.M. www.willisfurniture.com

Hugs corners. Cuts none. There are no shortcuts to greatness. Which is why we refused to settle on a single millimeter of the all-new Audi A3. An unrivaled interior available with leading-edge MMI® touch and 4G LTE technology means staying connected is no longer a luxury. And the A3 stands apart from other cars in its class, with available signature Audi features like revolutionary LED headlamp technology and legendary quattro® all-wheel drive. Because why settle for the middle ground, when you can boldly power over it?

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2865 Virginia Beach Boulevard , Virginia Beach, VA 23452 866-490-FLAG (3524) audivirginiabeach.com *Starting MSRP for a 2015 Audi A3 1.8T Premium. Limited availability, available for factory order. Model shown is a 2015 Audi A3 2.0T Prestige, 19” wheels (delayed availability) and Sport pkg., starting MSRP $43,050. Prices exclude destination, taxes, title, other options and dealer charges. Dealer sets actual price. “Audi,” “MMI,” “quattro,” “Truth in Engineering,” all model names, and the four rings logo are registered trademarks of AUDI AG. ©2015 Audi of America, Inc.

COASTAL VIRGINIA Island Peninsula ~ Alanton Virginia Beach This very private waterfront estate on a 3-plus-acre island peninsula is surrounded by a wide expanse of Linkhorn Bay, which connects to the Chesapeake Bay. The 2-story brick main house has 6,556 square feet of living space with 4 bedrooms, 5 full baths, and a guest suite above the 2-car detached garage. The grounds have numerous garden areas and walking paths with a brick-walled pergola garden. A private yacht and golf club is just 5 minutes away by water. This exclusive property contains one residential home and is designed for privacy, gorgeous panoramic water views, and is located in a beautiful section of Virginia Beach. $6,000,000.

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VIEW THE FINEST LUXURY HOMES IN HAMPTON ROADS AT WWW.CAROLINEMCCARTNEY.COM CCA 757.681.1681 | CAROLINEMCCARTNEY@COX.NET ©2015 BHH Affiliates LLC. An independently owned and operated broker member of BHH Affiliates LLC.

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features Spring 2015, Vol. 26

Custom Moto A Second Life, on Two Wheels

60 Chair Makers 79 Phoebus Anew

On the Shore, a Comfortable Place

Artists and Foodies Build on History

110 A Virginia Retreat

Hearing the Turkeyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Call at Primland

A Sustainable Life At New Earth Farm, Up From the Dirt 14

SPRING 2015

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Vehicle images are for representational purposes only. Prices are subject to change based on model and package level. Dealer inventory varies. Tax, title, tags and $599.99 processing fee are additional. See dealer for details.

Distinction uncovers the very best of what our region has to offer. John E. Fall PUBLISHER Judy Le EDITOR Jennifer Fenner CREATIVE DIRECTOR EJ Toudt CREATIVE DIRECTOR Erica Smith COPY EDITOR Arjen Rumpel ADVERTISING DESIGNER CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Teresa Annas, Dianna Cahn Kathy Hieatt, Mike Hixenbaugh Joanne Kimberlin, Sandy Lang Janine Latus, Jim Raper Kim O’Brien Root, Michelle Washington Denise M. Watson, Mary Architzel Westbrook

100

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Peter Frank Edwards, Adam Ewing Rich-Joseph Facun Keith Lanpher; Kerry Cesil, assistant Eric Lusher, Jessica Shea Roberto Westbrook, Todd Wright Igor Acord, contributing illustrator Hyunsoo Léo Kim, contributing videographer

CREATIVE CONSULTANT Mike McMahon

SECTION COORDINATORS Deirdre Freeman, Laura Hess

ONLINE DEPARTMENT James Bull, James Grimes, EJ Toudt

PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT Shea Alvis, Carlos Coleman, Rhiannon Hastings, Mike Jeter

52 98

departments Spring 2015, Vol. 26

SPECIAL THANKS Denis Finley, Pat Richardson, Kelly Till

Distinction is published by The Virginian-Pilot, a Pilot Media company.

Share it for free. THE SIGN PAINTER /// THE FARMER /// THE CHAIR MAKERS /// THE GEAR HEAD T H E P R I N T E R S / / / T H E J E W E L E R / / / T H E B AG M A N / / / T H E WO O DWO R K E R / / / A N D M O R E

SPRING 2015

DISTINCTIONHR.COM

THE ARTISANS ISSUE

18 Editor’s Letter 20 Calendar 22 On the Scene 28 A Chat With /// Ed Snyder, Checkered Flag 44 Proﬁle /// Igor and His Freehand Lines 50 Tools /// For the Bottle, Bar None 52 Proﬁle /// A Jeweler’s Currency 56 Essay /// Knowing Dad 16

SPRING 2015

68 Tools /// Gadgets for Gardeners 94 In Style /// Bagged at the Beach 98 My Favorite Place /// Skye Zentz 100 Proﬁle /// Two Buddies’ Prime Eats 106 Perfect Pairings /// At Vintage Kitchen 120 Raising the Bar /// Samuels Porch 122 Parting Shot

$5.95

VOL.26

DISPLAY UNTIL MAY 16, 2015

See everything S thi iin thi this iissue, shop the items, watch related videos, share with your friends.

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EDITOR’S LETTER

Hello, friends. Welcome to our first edition of 2015. It kicks off Distinction’s eighth year of bringing you the best of Tidewater and its environs. In this issue we highlight the wonderful community of artisans here – people making and doing, in the old way. Part of the wonder of living here in 2015 is that this group always seems to be growing. We take you to Kurt and Sally Lewin’s workshop on the Eastern Shore, where together the couple craft beautiful Windsor chairs, destined to be cherished. In Pungo, we explore New Earth Farm, and its evolution into so much more than what its name reveals. In Richmond, we highlight Classified Moto, whose custom motorcycles have won national renown. And in Norfolk we take a look at jeweler Anna Lorich Akers’ work, which has previously graced our gift guide. We get up close, too, to Igor Acord – known by most as Igor – a sign painter who has built a national reputation for doing everything by hand, without a net. It’s Igor who painted the beautiful art to introduce the artisans we feature this issue. And we explore historic Phoebus, where the eatery Six, The American Theatre and Prince Ink are all part of the neighborhood’s revitalization.

We take you out to the sprawling, luxurious Primland resort near Danville for a turkey hunt. While travel writer Sandy Lang is there, she takes in a lot more. Also in this issue we introduce a regular wine pairing feature. For February, wine expert Jim Raper writes about the truffle macaroni and cheese at Vintage Kitchen, an entree joined companionably by a Malmsey Madeira. In each issue I thank you, the readers, for bringing us into your homes. I mean it each time; I’m struck by how welcoming you all have been to us. But this time is bittersweet for me; it’s my last issue with the magazine. I’m incredibly grateful for the four years I have edited Distinction. It’s been an amazing time of growth for us as a publication and for me as an editor; I’m ready now for my next adventure. At press time, my successor had not yet been named, but I know the new editor will bring their own unique perspective to telling the stories Distinction loves to tell. I can’t wait to see how the magazine grows in the next eight years! Thank you, as always, for reading.

judy @ distinctionhr.com

SPRING 2015

john @ distinctionhr.com

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SPRING 2015

LEONARDO DA VINCI and the Idea of Beauty

Two years ago, a landmark Michelangelo show. Now, Leonardo – a show devoted to his fascination with the beautiful and the ugly. Just opened in Williamsburg is what its host, the Muscarelle Museum of Art, has called the biggest exhibit of Leonardo’s works since a 2003 show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This new show encourages us to explore the roots of the Renaissance genius’ philosophy of beauty, through drawings loaned from the Uffizi museum in Florence and the Biblioteca Reale in Turin. For comparison, the Muscarelle is showing them with eight original drawings by his rival, Michelangelo, selected from the Casa Buonarroti in Florence. Beauty was a singular concern of the Italian Renaissance, and these two artists took opposite positions: Michelangelo was an idealist, but Leonardo found beauty in even the most homely. The Leonardo works also feature the first showing of a newly discovered self-portrait of the artist

at 53; it’s contained in his renowned Codex on the Flight of Birds. Other works, among the more than 25 featured, include his Study for the Head of an Angel – on which The Virgin of the Rocks, at the Louvre, is based. As with the Michelangelo show, this one travels only to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. It’ll be there April 15 – Leonardo’s birthday – through June 14. THROUGH APRIL 5 Where: Muscarelle Museum of Art, 603 Jamestown Road, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg. Parking is limited; see website. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, and Thursdays through Sundays. 10 to 9 Wednesdays. Closed Mondays. Regular docent tours at 6 on Wednesdays and 1 on weekends; by reservation. Tickets: $15 in advance at Muscarelle.org. Details: 757.221.2700 or Muscarelle.org.

THOSE WHO BUY WELL SLEEP WELL

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THE NEXT CLASSICS VIRGINIA BEACH 4677 COLUMBUS STREET 757.422.2242 MON.–SAT. 10AM–6PM SUN. 1PM–5PM Exclusions apply. Visit the Design Center or ethanallen.com for details. Sale ends February 28, 2015. ©2015 Ethan Allen Global, Inc.

Warm up a room with a cool look. Alustra® Solera® Window Shadings

4 Duette® Honeycomb Shades (plus $25 rebate each additional unit) 4 Solera® Soft Shades (plus $25 rebate each additional unit) 2 Silhouette® Window Shadings (plus $50 rebate each additional unit) 2 Vignette® Modern Roman Shades (plus $50 rebate each additional unit)

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*Manufacturer’s mail-in rebate offer valid for qualifying purchases made 2/1/15 – 4/25/15 from participating dealers in the U.S. only. Rebate will be issued in the form of a prepaid reward card and mailed within 6 weeks of rebate claim receipt. Funds do not expire. Subject to applicable law, a $2.00 monthly fee will be assessed against card balance 7 months after card issuance and each month thereafter. Additional limitations may apply. Ask participating dealer for details and rebate form. © 2015 Hunter Douglas. All rights reserved. All trademarks used herein are the property of Hunter Douglas.

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NO MOTOR, MORE FUN

FLY FISHING TRIP

SPRING 2015

Winners Trent (above) and Dana Fallin joined Cory Routh of Ruthless Outdoor Adventures on a half-day ďŹ&#x201A;y ďŹ shing trip in November. After launching out of First Landing State Park, they pedaled kayaks to the mouth of Long Creek in search of spotted trout. There they cast for about 2Â˝ hours, landing several beautiful ďŹ sh. In addition to the trip and instruction from Ruthless, the winners received performance shirts and hats from Fly Fishing Clothing Co., and Temple Fork OutďŹ tters

NXT ďŹ&#x201A;y rods and reels from Wild River OutďŹ tters, which also provided a kayak for the trip. THIS PAGE: Dana Fallin, Cory Routh and Trent Fallin. OPPOSITE PAGE: Trent Fallin shows off a spotted trout he caught on Long Creek; Cory Routh shows a lure he made by hand; a catch. photography by ROBERTO WESTBROOK

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ARRIVING SOON ON THE HAMPTON ROADS SOCIAL SCENE Alfa Romeo - FIAT of Norfolk | 2747 N Military Hwy 888-694-3641

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VIRGINIA WINE & BRINE KEY BENEFITS Efficiency, because Climatemaster ÂŽ Geothermal Systems can return up to four dollars of heat for every one dollar of electricity used. â&#x20AC;˘ Environmental friendliness â&#x20AC;˘ Comfort â&#x20AC;˘ Reliability â&#x20AC;˘ Flexibility

Media people from all over the country converged on the Eastern Shore in November to discover and celebrate its unique terroir and merroir, feasting on local shellďŹ sh and wine. photography by JESSICA SHEA

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MIDDLE ROW, LEFT: Julie Qui, Bernard Herman and Alexis Steinman. RIGHT: Jon and Mills Wehner. BOTTOM ROW, LEFT: Margaret Haymore, Amy Brandt and Todd Haymore. ABOVE: Joshua Boissy, Jane Lear, Pete Terry, Heather Lusk and Krystof Zizka.

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MBVaBeach.com | 757.499.3771 | 4949 Virginia Beach Boulevard | Virginia Beach, VA 23462 Available to qualiﬁed customers. Photos are for visual representation only. Pricing will vary. Speciﬁc vehicles are subject to availability. Prices exclude tax, title, license and $599.99 processing fee. See dealer for details.

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DISTINCTION SIP & SHUCK More than 100 people gathered at Ferguson Bath, Kitchen and Lighting Gallery, Virginia Beach, in October to enjoy an evening of Champagne and riches from the sea from Pleasure House Oysters, Shooting Point Oyster Co. and Lynnhaven Oyster Co. Bluegrass band More Perfect Jones performed. photography by JESSICA SHEA

AT TOP: Tom Gallivan of Shooting Point Oyster Co. SECOND ROW, LEFT: Abby Hinton and Thao Balsamo. RIGHT: Emily Shipe, Matt Shipe, Jeff George and Shantell Nashatka. THIRD ROW, LEFT: Pam Pruden, Jim Spruance and Katie Zarpas. RIGHT: Brenda Cornwell, Tamra Andress and Stacie Allen. BOTTOM ROW, LEFT: Kate Wilson, Chris Ludford of Pleasure House Oysters, Christy Everett, Buffy Barefoot, Jason Barefoot and Jon Decker. CENTER: On guitar and vocals, Bob Smith of More Perfect Jones.

SPRING 2015

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A CHAT WITH …

ED SNYDER GROUP CHAIRMAN, CHECKERED FLAG MOTOR CAR CO.

S by KATHY HIEATT photograph by ERIC LUSHER

Sales is in Ed Snyder’s blood. After studying business at the University of Virginia and New York University, he served about five years in the Air Force, including time as a supply officer in England during the Cold War. He then returned home to Norfolk to help run the L. Snyder’s Department Stores, founded by his grandfather.

When it became clear the stores wouldn’t make it, he decided to give auto sales a try, opening the first Checkered Flag Motor Car Co. in Norfolk in 1964. He started off selling Jaguars and cars by MG and Austin-Healey. In the next half century, the business grew to an empire of 11 locations in Virginia Beach and Norfolk with more than 600 employees. “We have ups and downs like everyone else,” Snyder says. “The main thing is to survive, and we have. It’s amazing that I’m still here 50 years later.” Snyder sat down with Distinction to answer the question, “What is the greatest business lesson you’ve ever learned?” Here’s what he told us: Select the people you work with carefully and take care of them. They will take care of your customers. The most important thing is to take care of the customer because without the customer you don’t exist in retailing. Treat the people who work with you well, expect them to take care of your customers well, and if you take care of your customers well your customers will stay with you and you will do well. … It’s very important to support the community and do what you can for those who are less fortunate than yourself. Basically, it’s take care of people.

SPRING 2015

MAKE IT TRULY YOURS WITH...

Style

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Burned out and laid off, ad man John Ryland kicked a hobby into overdrive – to the thrill of café racer fans (some on the big screen).

by JOANNE KIMBERLIN photography by ADAM EWING 34

SPRING 2015

At his shop in an old Richmond carriage house, John Ryland with his SuperStrata: a Ducati rear, a Honda front and other things.

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PROFILE

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N A VINTAGE BUILDING IN RICHMOND, A MOTORCYCLE PURRS TO LIFE – A BIKE THAT’S AN UNUSUAL PIECE OF WORK BY AN UNUSUAL MAN. LIKE HIM, IT’S A BLEND OF PARTS NOT NORMALLY GRAFTED TOGETHER. KAWASAKI IN THE FRONT. HONDA IN THE MIDDLE. TRIUMPH IN THE REAR. As for its creator, he’s John Ryland. Ingredients: gear head, artist, advertising veteran, connoisseur of the eclectic. “Yeah, that’s me all right,” he says, with a sarcastic grin that crinkles his eyes. “Un-usual.” Classified Moto is this 45-year-old’s baby, a small custom cycle and design shop that’s making a big name for itself. Ryland’s special style of road warriors – urban, gritty, almost Mad Max futuristic – is attracting attention, including in Hollywood. Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica’s Starbuck) and Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead’s Daryl) both own Classified bikes. Anderson Cooper featured the shop on one of his shows (Building Up America). Jay Leno even called Ryland during dinner one night (he dashed out of a restaurant to take the call). Exciting stuff for a boy from Williamsburg who didn’t grow up around wrenches and hadn’t even straddled a bike until seven years ago. “Things like that keep you going,” he says of those heady moments. “They give you energy to go back and think of new cool stuff.” Cool oozes out of this guy. Start with the building he moved into a year ago, just across the James River from the Capitol area. It’s surrounded by an industrial neighborhood now, but back in the 1800s, these walls stabled carriage horses that ferried passengers to and from the nearby train station. The building

is loaded with character – heavy beams, exposed brick, massive doors, rows of high, arched windows that bathe the workshop in natural light. Ryland accents its charm with a decorator’s instinct. A retro refrigerator. Copper sheets tacked up to serve as dry-erase boards. Modern leather couches against a backdrop of seasoned wood. Even the brake rotors that hang on the walls manage to look artsy. In the midst of that ambience are the motorcycles – lots of them, in various stages of progress – and all the staples of the trade. Welders. Tool boxes. Piles of parts. The smell of grease and gas. And the lamps. They’ve helped carry the business through tight times. Fashioned from spare bike parts – fork tubes, shock absorbers, rotors, gears – about 1,000 of them have sold, mostly assembled by Ryland’s wife, Betsy, and priced from $99 to $429. That's where Jay Leno comes in. But we’ll get to that.

Above, Ryland creates the patina on a fuel tank. Working opposite are Betsy Ryland and Danik Herashchanka. The rewards? Delighted fans, including Katee Sackhoff and Norman Reedus, pictured.

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JOHN RYLAND’S STYLE OF ROAD WARRIORS – URBAN, GRITTY, ALMOST MAD MAX FUTURISTIC – IS ATTRACTING ATTENTION, INCLUDING HOLLYWOOD’S.

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JAY LENO TRIED CALLING AGAIN. THIS TIME, RYLAND WAS HAVING DINNER OUT WITH FRIENDS BUT HE RECOGNIZED THE NUMBER AND – WITH AN “OH MY GOD, IT’S JAY LENO!” – RAN OUT OF THE RESTAURANT TO TAKE THE CALL. ong before Classified Moto, Ryland worked as a newspaper writer, then as a graphic designer, then for 11 years in the creative department of a Richmond advertising agency, where he helped produce commercials for everything from beer to B.F. Goodrich. Along the way, he and Betsy had three kids, and he got comfortable under the hood of the family car. But it wasn’t just any car. Most folks enter life’s minivan stage with a sigh. Ryland made his debut in a souped-up, turbocharged 1989 Dodge Caravan. By then, he’d become interested in autocross, stock cars and drag racing. School pickups were run with the seats of the minivan bolted in. Races were run with them ripped out. Motorcycles entered his scene when a friend left a bike with him for a while. Riding it to work at the ad agency became a pleasure. He bought a 1980 Yamaha XS850 and started modifying – stripping off big fenders, tailoring down clunky lights, gauges, handlebars, swapping traditional front forks for modern, inverted versions. “I like putting different pieces together – taking something that’s decidedly uncool and making 40

SPRING 2015

people do a double-take. I’m not interested in restoring a classic. The ugly duckling is more satisfying for me.” Colleagues started asking if he’d build them one. “The deal was I’d do it for free if they bought the parts,” he says. While he labored in his garage at home, word got around on Facebook, which led to his first sale: a customer from North Carolina who paid $11,000. By the time Ryland finished that bike – they can take a year – layoffs at the ad agency had axed his day job. That was March 2010, a “real crossroads,” he says. “Suddenly, Daddy had no paycheck, and I couldn’t bear the thought of knocking on doors, looking for another advertising job. I loved the creative part, but I never really liked the ‘pitch’ part. You must ‘believe,’ and I didn’t anymore. Sometimes, I felt like I needed a shower.” He had some money, “severance and a 401(k) I could raid – but I was freaking out. I wanted to start my business, but it didn’t feel like the responsible thing to do.” He leaped, largely inspired by a book called Shop Class as Soulcraft – which laments the lost art of

working with one’s hands. He contacted its author, Matt Crawford of Richmond, and they hit it off. Crawford connected him with Anderson Cooper, who was doing a series about people chasing their dreams in a bad economy. The Hail Mary, thrown in hard times. The show didn’t spark a lot of bike sales, but “we got tons of lamp orders.” hich brings us – at least in part – to Jay Leno, a well-known motor freak with a legendary collection of cars and bikes. Surely a guy like that would dig a lamp made of gears. Hoping to land a celebrity endorsement, Ryland and his crew made one for Leno, mailing it to his office in California. Leno himself called to say thanks, but Ryland did what many of us do when an unfamiliar number rings through: Ignore it, and wait for the voice mail. “When I listened to it, and I heard ‘Hey guys, this is Jay Leno. Thanks for much for the lamp…’ I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me! I missed a chance to talk to Leno?’ ”

Previous spread: Ryland on a bike like the one that put him on the map, a Yamaha XS650. He has an entire line named for actor Katee Sackhoff, who owns one of his bikes. The KT675 above is a variation of hers.

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To his credit, Leno tried again. This time, Ryland was having dinner out with friends but he recognized the number and – with an “Oh my God, it’s Jay Leno!” – ran out of the restaurant to take the call. “I couldn’t believe he took the time to call back,” Ryland says. “He invited us to come by and see him if we were ever out that way.” Ryland went back to work, knuckling down on social media to draw attention to his budding brand. His background came in handy, guiding him to pair clever posts with beautiful, professional photos of his creations. Motorcycle blogs were drawn in. Niche publications followed – Top Gear, Inked, Popular Mechanics, even Playboy’s gift guide. Articles surfaced in magazines from Europe, where hybrid bikes have long been popular. Lean and low, slick and compact, they’re known as Café Racers. An entire series devoted to them airs on Discovery’s Velocity channel – and Ryland got himself on it. He’d noticed that actress Sackhoff – a bike rider – was following him on Twitter. He brokered a deal with her and Café Racer: We’ll build Katee a bike – at cost – and she’ll loan her star power to a Café Racer episode that films it being made. An unexpected bonus: The chance to take Leno up on his offer. “We were out there delivering Katee’s bike,” Ryland says, “so we got ahold of Leno’s assistant, who got us tickets to The Tonight Show. We rode her bike over, sat in the audience, and afterwards, Leno came outside to meet us. Café Racer shot it – him sitting on Katee’s bike. Man, that was awesome.” Orders materialized after the Café Racer episode, which aired a little over a year ago. Demand for replicas of Sackhoff’s bikes – Ryland wound up building two – caused a backlog at the shop. Nice problem to finally have. Worries have also eased since Ryland took on a partner, Alex Martin, who helps steer the shop’s finances. But Ryland still lies awake at night, mind cranking. “When you work for yourself, the to-do list just keeps getting longer,” he says. “You’re constantly trying to figure out how to make something work.” Prices on Classified Moto bikes now range from $12,000 to $30,000, but they take so long to hammer out that the shop has managed to deliver only about 55 so far. “I have no delusions we’ll ever get rich,” Ryland says. “I just want to build my brand. Something people recognize as a Classified.” It was the bright idea to make lamps of motorcycle parts – and to send one to Jay Leno – that got the shop even wider attention. Here, Ricky Henry works on one.

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IGOR ACORD DIPS HIS BRUSH INTO A CUP OF AQUA PAINT, WIPES IT JUST SO ON HIS PALETTE, THEN STEADIES HIMSELF FOR A FEAT AKIN TO TIGHTROPE-WALKING. SEATED, HIS BROW RUMPLED IN CONCENTRATION, HE DRAGS THE PINSTRIPING BRUSH DOWN THE LENGTH OF THE WOODEN SHOP SIGN, THEN LEANS BACK TO ASSESS. WITHOUT A RULER OR OUTLINE TO GUIDE HIM, HIS LINE IS THIN AND PRECISE. Quietly pinstriping in his studio at the Oceanfront, Igor looks as low-key as an engineer at a drafting table. Ratso, his Boston terrier, watches intently, his forepaws on Igor’s thigh. He’s used to having eyes on him; at conventions featuring motorcycles or hot rods or tattoo artists, his freehand pinstriping makes for a riveting sideshow. Crowds gather to marvel at his steady hand and the designs he creates on the spot, painting without a net. Those onlookers 44

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will often hire him to pinstripe and letter their vintage bikes, souped-up roadsters, and the walls and windows of their tattoo shops. The crowds don’t wreck his focus, he says: “I feed on it.” Well, there was one time they got to him. A biker had asked him to paint “Boneshaker” on his chopper’s gas tank, but when he returned Igor had painted “Bonehead.” His face turned red when he Lettering and pinstriping freehand: Igor Acord’s calling. Most others use computers. Developing the skill took decades; as a young man, he lacked the patience. The artwork above is his.

realized his mistake. Since his oil-based paint doesn’t set up for about 45 minutes, he was able to wipe it off and start again. tt’s been 10 years since Igor – hardly anyone uses or even knows his surname – went full u ttime with his lifelong passion, and he’s gottten busier and more widely known each year. He just passes out his business card, and rides around Hampton Roads in a pinstriped 1957 black Ford pickup with “Igor’s” and “Hand Painted! Pinstriping & Signs” painted on it. “That’s the only advertising I do,” he says. His rep reverberates far beyond his driving radius. A fellow pinstriper who also writes about the art form, Carol Mittelsdorf of Staten Island, N.Y., says Igor, 46, is one of just a handful of third-generation modern pinstripers – out of thousands of American practitioners in their 30s and 40s – who hold to the hand-brushed tradition. He ranks high for the quality of his work, too, she says. “He could stand side by side with any of the masters who are still living.” But it’s more than just the work; he’s one of very few pinstripers who show up at gatherings as a costumed character, the way pinstriping pioneer Ed “Big Daddy” Roth did half a century ago. “The showmanship,” she says. “Igor’s got it.” 46

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Typically, pinstriping – also called striping – refers to long, slim lines painted to enhance the contours of a vehicle. Many practitioners trace its origins to ancient Roman chariots, and to Andrew Mack, who pinstriped carriages in the mid-19th century and invented the long-bristled Mack brush that stripers still use.

“THESE

WERE ALL THE PEOPLE I’VE LOOKED UP TO FOR YEARS. THE BIG NAMES IN THE BUSINESS. AND THEY’RE DRESSED UP LIKE ME.” – IGOR ACORD

Many stripers say the modern era began with Kenneth Howard, aka Von Dutch, who started out in the early 1950s painting curved lines over a bad paint job. He created the new look when he expanded on that decorative fix with additional swoopy, spiky lines. His often-symmetrical designs looked abstract but frequently disguised figures, just as striping on the hood of Igor’s truck hides a monster face. Igor sees himself as a sign painter, which he says incorporates striping. Within a mile of the studio he shares with two other artists at 17th and Mediterranean are at least eight examples of his handiwork, from the coffee cup-shaped sign for Zeke’s Beans & Bowls to the metallic-looking letters on Hudson’s Igor got interested in pinstriping at car shows he attended as a boy. At industry gatherings now, his skill and costuming – he’s “The Ice Cream Man” – have helped make him a cult figure.

Luxury Building Boutique, painted in reverse on the shop window. A few miles farther is Ghost Ship Tattoo, which is getting Igored inside and out. “He’s really transformed our shop,” says the shop’s manager, Ian Oliver. “It’s gone from bland to grand.” Local tattoo artists admire and hire Igor because they share his appreciation for hand-drawn, often retro, imagery. “Igor’s a beast,” Oliver says. “Everybody in the tattoo industry knows about him.” gor g sees his calling as a combination of his h mother’s artistic inclinations and his father’s love of hot rods. He grew up in a f small town in Delaware, transfixed by the s pinstriping he saw at car shows with his dad. He attempted twice to teach himself to stripe as a young man, but the tricky process tried his patience. An avid surfer, he moved from Ocean City, Md., to Virginia Beach 20 years ago to design store displays for a surf shop. Fifteen years ago he tried striping once more, determined to stick it out. He spent three years laying stripes “on everything but the dog,” and taking workshops from striping masters before he starting selling his services. Two years later, he jumped all the way in. Now he has a loyal customer base. Chuck Harders started hiring Igor for vintage-looking signage 48

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work on his collectibles about six years ago, when he lived in Norfolk. Despite moving to Florida and then to Philadelphia, Harders has kept sending items to Virginia Beach. “I don’t use anyone but Igor,” he says. “He’s just got a really cool style. He’s as good or better than anyone I’ve seen.” Ever the student, Igor doesn’t act like someone who knows he’s on the top rung. “There are so many amazing pinstripers out there, it’d have to be a pretty wide rung for me to sit on it,” he says. Mittelsdorf pranked him two years ago in a way that must have made him consider that possibility. Igor wears white slacks and shirt, bowtie and suspenders at shows, earning him the moniker “The Ice Cream Man.” Mittelsdorf procured several dozen white lab coats, screen-printed “Igor’s” on the back of each, and adhered a duct-tape bowtie. At a Milwaukee gathering of nationally respected pinstripers, she handed these out to stripers who all donned them simultaneously. “Igor started freaking out,” she says. He was put on stage, where he watched the stripers bow to him comically, as if he was their cult hero. “These were all the people I’ve looked up to for years,” Igor says. “The big names in the business. And they’re dressed up like me.” For The Ice Cream Man, it was a sweet moment. Then back to the brush.

Igor’s base is the Oceanfront, and Ghost Ship Tattoo is a client. The manager says: “Igor’s a beast. Everybody in the tattoo industry knows about him.”

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PROFILE

THE JEWELER ANNA AKERS TAKES THE DIME-SIZED SILVER TEARDROP, holds it to the light and gently files its edges. It’s destined to

become an earring, but the mold in which it was cast has left the edges rough. Minutes later, she takes a torch, a short length of silver wire and a dab of solder, and gives it a delicate hook. Later she will begin the meticulous process of setting it with stones. This is where Anna Lorich Akers sees the beauty in her work, in the back office of Lorak Jewelry and Gifts boutique at Norfolk’s Monticello Arcade. The bright showroom in front displays satin-finish gold and silver rings, necklaces and pendants, with the hand-carved flower accents and matte look of the ancient and rare that are her trademark. Two of her gold rings, with rose-cut stones, were featured in 2012 by the World Gold Council. But Akers, 35, sees herself as more than a jeweler. She is creating wearable art that is unique. As a businesswoman, she knows it’s cheaper and easier to order mass-produced settings and plug in stones. “But where’s the fun in that?” she asks.

kers came by her love of metalwork through her parents and happenstance. Her father, Bruce, was an expert in rare English coins and antiquities who wrote for numismatics catalogs. She often wears one of his old denim aprons when she’s working on her jewelry. Her mother, Linda, was a librarian at Penn State, not far from where they lived. Looking back now, it seems to have been destined that Akers would be looking through the bookshelves one day and find, jammed among the books, a postcard about the Cleveland Institute of Art. She has no idea how it got there, but she took it to her mother, who took her for a tour. She loved it. She went in planning to paint but fell in love with enameling and fusing glass to metal. She admired the intricacies of the craft. She also found that the environment was much more nurturing than in painting, which felt more like a solo voyage. After her degree, she went on to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, where she learned to create jewelry. “It opened up a whole new world to me,” she says. Instructors taught with the influences of European craft and studio jewelry, in which creativity and individuality are as prized as the gems and gold that artists work with. Those styles often put a focus on low-cost materials to make the jewelry more accessible. She drew from her childhood, particularly her father’s knack for exquisite ancient coins. After graduation, she moved to New York City to work with Reinstein/Ross Goldsmiths, a firm well known for its crafters who use old-school techniques to design jewelry and make it by hand. She worked in sales, which allowed her to sit with clients and select pieces. Anna Lorich Akers’ route to her shop in Norfolk included parents who loved books and ancient coins, and an education at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design.

by DENISE M. WATSON photography by ERIC LUSHER

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“That’s what I like about jewelry,” she says. “It’s personal. It’s sentimental. It’s intimate. If you have that ring from your grandmother, it’s been worn.” Then she fell in love with a Virginia boy and followed him here in 2008 – during a recession, not the time to start a business dealing in what some see as a luxury good, though Akers sees it as more. So she worked odd jobs – babysitting, cleaning houses – and worked on pieces in her spare time. She created a name for the business that still seemed far off: Lorak, a combination of her maiden name, Lorich, and married name, Akers. But the business, it turned out, was closer than she imagined. She opened a little studio on Fawn Street in Norfolk in 2009, started a website, and slowly started selling lines of her jewelry to small stores and at trunk shows. It was at one of those shows that someone suggested a place for lease downtown. Akers finally had the space to create a unique gallery, like the hidden stores she looks for in her travels. She and her husband designed the Monticello Arcade space to reflect her loves, such as the Scandinavian palette of simple stemmed flowers. The walls are white, her favorite color, with a warm wooden floor, so that the shelves and displays of jewelry pop. She opened in April 2013. “That sense of discovery is what I wish to bring to my shop. I try and bring in small and independent

SPRING 2015

designers who have a unique voice and point of view, designers that are not represented in the area,” she says. “To highlight a designer who is unknown to an audience is exciting.” But being an independent artist has its challenges. Akers and others like her are not being sought out and they don’t have the marketing teams or budgets to push themselves, she says. “I am putting faith in the consumer to see the value in the craftsmanship and idea, not the brand name,” she says. Akers carries about 10 other artists in her shop, including one who has bracelets made in Africa from recycled flip-flops. She also features artists she admires, like Adel Chefridi, who won a prestigious international Niche award in 2014 and whose work is praised for its simplicity and wearability. She looks for items that are tribal and inspired by primitive and ancient vibes. Akers herself hand-carves all of her pieces, and likes the often unfinished look that gives. She loves textiles, and her father’s influences are obvious. A new line features charms and earrings that appear stamped off-center, as many old coins were. She prefers a matte finish, which she finds more understated than flashy. She works in brass, silver, all types of gold, and vermeil, whose thick gold plating over silver makes the pieces more affordable – but still as hard to make. She

loves that, though. “You never stop learning; there are different techniques,” she says. “There’s so much to learn.”

Akers hand-carves her pieces, for the often unﬁnished look that results, and favors an understated feel. She promotes small, independent artists in lieu of big brand names.

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ESSAY

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

by MARY ARCHITZEL WESTBROOK photograph by ROBERTO WESTBROOK 56

SPRING 2015

ESSAY

y earliest memory is of nurses rolling me, about 2 years old, out of an operating room, the world hazy and strange. Then my dad appears and clamps his hand wide over mine. In my memory, if not in fact, everything snaps into focus. A few years later, while we were living in Madrid, Dad and I became separated on a subway platform; for a moment, we’d let go of each other’s hand. “Help,” I whispered, spinning around wildly, looking for him among all those other grownups hurrying home, speaking a language I didn’t know. I found him almost immediately, standing in a train car, holding back the doors, backlit so he looked, to me, just like Superman. As he called my name, I ran toward him, sobbing, and buried my face in his warm, familiar chest. To some degree, Dad has always had that effect on me, of comfort, security and love. Yet I’ve also struggled over the years to understand him – and to make him understand me. This time of year, people talk a lot about romantic love, but familial love can be every bit as complicated. Family centers us. It drives us crazy. In 2012, after a 40-year career, Dad retired from the Navy. During his final change of command, I stood at the back of a hangar, swaying with my son in my arms, and tried to count how many such ceremonies I’d attended over the years – in other hangars, on flight decks, crammed in small offices or comfortably seated in the front row of a fancy reception hall. Afterward, people always extended their good wishes: “You must be proud … ” and “I guess I don’t have to tell you how special your dad is. …” The polite thing to do is nod and say thank you, but I’ve been tempted to grab their arm and say: “Wait. Tell me more.” Occasionally, the praise is even higher: “Your dad changed my life.” “He helped me find my faith.” It can be unnerving, all these strangers who seem to know Dad so well, so much better than I do. I spent a lot of my growing-up years missing Dad and struggling to comprehend him and why he wasn’t around. When I was 9, I gathered a bunch of his aviation awards and asked to display them in my latest new room in our latest new house. Mom wisely nudged me toward a New Kids on the Block poster instead. I’m embarrassed to think back on that time, a fourth-grader begging to hang a Tailhook award on her wall. But I was

like a lot of kids who don’t see enough of a parent: desperate to know him, hungry to understand what he loved. Here’s what I can tell you about my dad. My siblings and I agree that he’s kind, smart, fair and good. When he was deployed, he mailed us storybooks and wrote us poems. Back home, he built us tree forts, snow igloos and towering birthday cakes. In his career, he commanded an aviation squadron, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Eventually he headed the influential Naval Air Systems Command, and for a period he was among the Navy’s longest-serving aviators (“oldest,” as my family teased him). To this day he picks up hobbies and masters skills with breathtaking speed – gardening, model trains, the construction of exquisite gingerbread houses (and aircraft carriers). His mind is always busy, on to the next thing, and

AFTER I FINALLY WRESTED THIS STORY FROM DAD I FELT … DISAPPOINTED. THIS WAS THE MEMORY THAT SENT HIM TO THE FLOOR WEEPING? MAYBE THERE WAS MORE TO IT … when he’s interested in something he often becomes so deeply absorbed in a task that the outside world fades away. This quality served him well in the Navy, but it makes it challenging to be his kid, especially when you want his attention. Even now when Dad is around – physically present and standing in front of me – he can be hard to reach. I’ve had extended conversations with him about foreign policy, politics, Bruce Springsteen, the history of aviation and the best Yankees of all time, but when I move the conversation toward a feeling or memory, he becomes quiet. As he returns to his latest project in the garage or garden, I feel like an

unwelcome reporter, hounding him with questions. Because I want to understand him more, I look for clues about his inner life, analyzing him. When I was 15, I accidentally ripped a print of a learnedlooking vagabond sitting in a rocking chair, blond dog at his feet. It was careless: I was angry with my parents that day for moving our family from the center of the Cox High School district to its farthest edge. Feeling isolated and resentful, I tore through moving boxes until I heard that solemn rip. When Dad discovered the damage, he sank to the floor and wept, only the second time in my life I’d seen him cry. Ever since, that print has been a curiosity to me. I sneak in questions about it, trying to tease out its larger meaning. In two decades, I’ve learned that my dad inherited it from his grandmother, my namesake, who died during one of his early deployments. At her house in upstate New York, Dad used to cook with her and ask her question after question. When she reached the end of her patience, she would tease him and say he reminded her of the character in the print: inquisitive, happy, funny. After I finally wrested this story from Dad I felt … disappointed. This was the memory that sent him to the floor weeping? Maybe there was more to it, I pressed: Did he feel a particular connection to his grandmother – maybe she favored him above the other grandchildren? Dad demurred. She loved all of them equally, the print simply hung in her house. “It’s just a print,” he said, growing tired of my questions. “I always liked it.” We ask a lot of our parents. I ask a lot of Dad. I want him to be wise and strong – Superman holding back the subway doors – but I also want him to be some real-life version of a ’90s sitcom dad, sitting me down at the kitchen table for a soulful talk, sharing his own feelings. Above all, I want him to be knowable, without mystery. Because, of course, when I ask Dad questions about himself, I’m really asking about myself: Who am I? Where do I come from? What’s my story? These are big questions to ask – too big, really, for any person to answer. But I keep asking, looking for clues, as Dad works and tinkers, taking on projects with the energy of a much younger man. He can seem stubborn and unreachable but he is still inquisitive, happy and funny. Most important, through the years, each time we’ve dropped the other’s hand, we’ve found our way back. That’s luck and also love. Watching him putter and play, I think: This is Dad. I hope he stays like this forever. I want to remember him this way, always.

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FEATURE

THE On the Eastern Shore, the Lewins carve, bend and paint so folks can sit in comfort

AMERICAN by JANINE LATUS photography by KEITH LANPHER

WINDSOR

FEATURE

KURT LEWIN PULLS THE DRAWKNIFE TOWARD HIMSELF, and oak shavings fall to the floor. He alters the angle and pulls again. Thousands of times a day he will do this. Draw and adjust, draw and adjust. Loosen the clamp, rotate the wood, begin again, shaving each hard oak spindle down to a tapered three-quarter inch and then tossing it onto the radiator to dry. Nine spindles per chair, two chairs per week, 14 years so far. He knows this wood. He’s watched it grow, helped take it down, loaded it onto his portable sawmill and cut it into planks. He stored it in stacks in the wallless shed next to the stone barn out on the family’s 500 acres, 15 minutes of whitecaps and swamp and open farmland up the Eastern Shore from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Here there are piles of walnut, pine and hickory, of cedar with clinging bark, and Kurt knows how each will split under his hatchet and carve under his chisels, how the wood will steam and bend or accept the hard oak staves of the Windsor chair he’s about to make. It’s what he was born to do, to turn a piece of wood from a fallen log into something a family will cherish. “It’s just wow,” he says, “to take material from the woods, shape it and turn it and carve it into chairs. As soon as we learned how, it became a passion. I just had to do it.”

SPRING 2015

Finding it, that thing you’re born to do, that tool that feels so right in your hands, and to have the luck of a person who will work alongside you, learning and laughing and loving – that’s how you build a life. For Kurt, that person is his wife, Sally Lewin, who was a freckled 15-year-old he recruited to work in his family’s Long Island farm stand back when he was a senior in high school. They married and had two sons before moving with their families to a farm on the Eastern Shore. They bought a big farmhouse but then didn’t have the furniture to fill it up. The Windsor chairs they wanted were beyond their budget. So in 2000 they traveled to a small town north of Toronto to take a chair-making class from a man named John Robinson. “It’s something Kurt was made to do,” says Robinson, who says he has taught thousands of people. “He’s a natural with his tools, very skilled and artistic. He sees what he wants to make; then the rest of it comes naturally.” Since then, Kurt, 51, has made nearly a thousand chairs, sold first out of a workshop at home, mostly to friends who had come for supper and marveled at their comfort. The couple traveled to art shows, too, until their sons got old enough to need to stay in town for school. In 2003 they opened Windsor House near Cape Charles, where they sell antiques Sally finds,

whimsical signs she paints and the work of other Eastern Shore artists, along with Kurt’s chairs and tables, to tourists on their way from New England to the Outer Banks or vice versa. On the back porch of the 1907 house, staves of red oak steam inside an old irrigation pipe hooked to a gas tank full of boiling water. They’ll stay out there half an hour, until their fibers are softened enough that Kurt can bend them around a form and hold them in place with clamps he devised of baling straps and chunks of wood. The work is hard and physical – bending wood around wood and strapping it in place. He shapes one piece for the chair’s arms and another for the crested bow, his hands sure and his wife telling a story about their kids or their friends or their dogs as she paints and rubs and scrapes, finishing his chairs to make them look new or old or worn – whatever the customer wants. “We have witty conversations,” she says, “and then we go home and have some more.” As the curved wood cools into its new shape, Kurt lays a 1¾-inch-thick, manhole-sized square of bass wood on his workbench and traces a pattern onto it, marking the shape of the chair seat and the placement of the holes. He saws it out and then lays it on the floor, wedging it in place between his work boots as he chops away at it with an adze, digging a

Walnut, pine, hickory, cedar, cherry. All fall under Kurt Lewin’s watchful eye and into his sawmill. He cuts the wood, carves it, steams it, wrestles it into classic forms that become heirlooms.

FEATURE

deep saddle. He could use a router or a grinder, but the primitive tool works, and it’s quiet. He scrapes with a compass plane, runs his hand over the surface, scrapes more. Then he switches to a travisher, pushing it along the grain to peel off more fibers. Again he checks with his hand, again he scrapes. Rarely will he use sandpaper – the chairs are intended to look handmade – and his skill with the more crude tools creates a seat comfortable enough for long dinners with family and friends over bottles of good wine. “So many little things about these chairs, that give them the comfort, that make them look right,” he says. “I didn’t know what was right at the beginning, but after you make hundreds of pieces you feel it, you know how it’s supposed to be. It’s in you after a while.” In racks behind him are hundreds of chisels, clamps and saws. All of them are nicked, their handles damaged or replaced. He wraps 220-grit sandpaper around a stick and uses that to sharpen each blade. There are duplicates of everything, for the chairmaking classes he teaches to customers whose eyes light up at the prospect of making their own. He demonstrates, then works on one to sell. In the week it will take them to craft a chair he will have built two, plus parts for more. Lewin and his wife, Sally, have worked for years to become expert in making furniture – and making it look old. Their high chairs, designed in a late 18th century style, are bought by grandparents for the ﬁrst grandchild.

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FEATURE

His hands know how to turn a log on a lathe into a balanced and beautiful leg, and how to use a brace and bit to drill holes in the seat that will hold tight to those legs, in summer and winter, heat and humidity and dryness, as the different woods expand and contract. He drills smaller holes through the curved arm and slips the spindles through, then taps each one into the seat, their faceted ends digging into the softer wood of the seat and forming a connection so tight you’d have to break the spindle to get it out. Next he slips the curved bow into the two angled holes in the arms, then stands on a step stool and sights down each spindle to guide the brace and bit as he drills holes in the bow, into which he’ll work the end of each spindle. There are measurements for arm height, for its slope, for the tilt of the seat. There are other styles, too, of crest and hand rest and foot. For an art show at a beer festival the Lewins designed a drinking stool patterned after a photo of a medieval drinking chair. It’s designed to be straddled, with a flat spot for your beer and a comfortable rail for resting your arms. The legs are carved to simulate a horse’s leg, a style called a hock foot. Sometimes Sally adds a little burn mark on the rail to make it look like someone

was having a smoke. She uses milk paint, a talcum-fine powder she mixes with water and brushes on, layer after layer, red and green and black. “Some people want it to look brand new, so I’ll layer colors so that as their family uses it, it will wear the way it should,” she says. “They don’t have to know that there’s red and green underneath the black, but it’s there, because I want it to look more and more beautiful as time goes on.” The paint initially looks chalky, so she rubs it – with fabric and steel wool and sometimes sandpaper, especially where someone would have been sitting or kicking. It doesn’t happen quickly, but eventually the colors get warmer and warmer. She’s taken torches to chairs before, and once tethered one to a tree and threw it into a pond, turning it throughout the winter to see what it would do to the paint, to the grain. “It raised the grain a little, and turned the paint gross and beautiful,” she says. “We’ve done it all. Kurt gets nervous when I’m out there playing. It has taken years of mistakes to learn how to make a chair look like it has been around for a while.” Their earliest chairs are at their home. There are the four Sally, now 49, made when they were starting

The Lewins built a life, laughing and working together since they were teenagers at his family’s farm stand on Long Island. Today this 1907 Cape Charles home is their workshop and store.

out, one with a leg that juts at an odd angle. There are tall backs and sack backs, comb backs and fans. All are heavily used. “At our house we’ve had boys and bands and parties, and our chairs are worn and they look beautiful,” she says. “You couldn’t make them look like that.” They’ve had a lot of boys and bands and parties. The sign in their music room says “Play.” On another wall hang mandolins and fiddles and guitars. Beneath them is a piano. Sally and Kurt never told their sons to practice; they just asked if they’d played, and now one performs on the Eastern Shore and across the Bay. In the next room is a long plank table that Kurt planed and sanded and finished, the wood grain glowing. Around it are 10 hand-made chairs, home to friends and family and near strangers. The living room has more tables and chairs, and dozens of duck decoys and bird carvings bartered from neighbors. The Lewins have built this life, this oasis. “It’s not about the money,” Kurt says. “Because sometimes you’re doing great and sometimes you’re not. It’s about doing what you want to do, the passion to do it, to take the risk whether you make it or not. That’s the American way, in my view. You get the itch to do something, you gotta do it.” DISTINCTIONHR.COM

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FEATURE

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FEATURE

Risk&Renewal by MIKE HIXENBAUGH

ohn Wilson stepped out of his green Ford pickup and surveyed his new 21-acre science experiment. It was the spring of 2010. Patchy white clouds drifted across blue sky. Navy fighter jets roared overhead. He felt a strange mix of excitement and fear. “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” he thought. And then, “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this. What was I thinking?” Wilson had driven straight over after signing the mortgage documents. He and the bank had just purchased this plot of overgrown earth near Pungo. At a year shy of 50, here he was, finally taking a real stab at his dream. He knew turning this land into a sustainable farm was going to be hard work. Other than the uninhabitable house standing haphazardly near the road – a ghost from the land’s former life decades before, back when farmers lived where they worked – the property was vacant. No barn. No farm equipment. No electricity. No running water. But for Wilson, a carpenter and builder by trade, those issues would be relatively easy to fix. A bigger and more complicated problem was hidden beneath his feet. After decades of conventional corn, soy and wheat farming – till, seed, spray, harvest, repeat – the soil here wasn’t suitable for what Wilson had in mind. He knew it would take years to restore what had been stripped away by chemical pesticides and fertilizers and the constant churning of soil. But he didn’t have years. He grabbed a shovel that day and got to work. But to do this right – if New Earth Farm was going to thrive – he knew he would need some help.

ohn Wilson’s love affair with dirt had started more than 25 years before. He’d staked out a decent living as a carpenter and homebuilder, but he always had an interest in gardening. He got that from his grandfather, a World

photography by TODD WRIGHT

War II victory gardener and a charter subscriber to Organic Gardening magazine. Wilson liked to maintain a small vegetable garden and was fascinated by compost. His journey from backyard hobbyist to fullblown, salt-of-the-earth farmer with a pickup truck and a straw hat was incremental. He had gone to

school to learn how to install solar panels back in the 1980s, and while there he sampled a couple introductory agriculture courses, including a few on organic farming, which was less popular then. He quickly learned that soil – and the invisible microbes within – was the key to a thriving garden. Nothing else mattered if the soil was bad. “The classes were small-time, but the principles

In the beginning, John Wilson didn’t have dirt. Good dirt. He’d bought 21 acres in Pungo and the soil was poor. But he had his composting, he had his commitment, and he had a neighbor, Kevin Jamison.

I learned stuck with me,” Wilson says. “They are principles that have never changed. It was amazing; I would read books written in the 1930s on farming that were about tried-and-true techniques, which we as a society have largely moved away from. But now, decades later, those techniques are supported by science.” “It was interesting,” he says, “but not a career.” That changed, somewhat abruptly, in 1994. He by then had mastered the art of backyard composting, and was telling a friend about the process of taking waste from his kitchen and transforming it into a soil supplement. His passion for the subject must have showed. The friend interrupted him: “So John, when are you starting your compost business?” A year later, Wilson borrowed $100,000, bought a tractor, bought a compost turner and leased a few acres off Indian River Road in southern Virginia Beach. Into the ground out front he pounded a homemade sign: New Earth Farm. He pledged to give it three years before deciding whether he would stick with it. He didn’t need that long. “It was a success right off the bat,” he says. He found a receptive market for his organic compost among backyard gardeners. But none of the area’s farmers had any use for it. The conventional wisdom back then: Farmers can’t make a living – and populations can’t be fed – using natural farming techniques. Wilson didn’t believe that, but what could he do to change anyone’s mind? Then, a decade after starting his small operation, he attended an organic agriculture conference that would change everything. The keynote speaker challenged the crowd of farmers: “For the organic movement to go forward, we should consider 50 percent of our job description to be education,” Wilson says, recalling the lecture. “I thought at the time, ‘Is he nuts? Fifty percent of

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what? There’s nothing left!’ ” But the message stayed with him. For years, the words nagged at him. Half my job is education. Those words were on his mind that day five years ago, when he stepped out of his truck for the first time at the new and expanded home of New Earth Farm. Buying the land and quadrupling the size of his little business was a big risk, especially at his age. For this to work, Wilson knew he would need to teach people why his way was worth all the hard work. But he wasn’t sure how.

round the time John Wilson closed on his new property, Kevin Jamison was looking for a fresh start. At 30, he had spent years in New York, where he had worked with the United Nations, started his own relief organization based in Haiti and helped cultivate urban gardens to fight child hunger. And now, after getting laid off from St. John’s University and burning through his savings, he was moving in with his parents in Virginia Beach. Wilson’s old farm was next door. Jamison stopped by one day to ask if he needed help. 72

SPRING 2015

Stupid question. Before long, Jamison and Wilson were working together at Wilson’s new property. To restore the soil and get it suitable for growing nutrient-rich produce, they planted cover crops – mostly grains and legumes – that could then be rolled back into the soil and allowed to decompose. It’s a labor-intensive technique for spurring microbial activity and restoring degraded soil. They worked long days – just the two of them and nothing to do but work and talk. Wilson and Jamison soon realized they shared a passion for sustainable agriculture. And Jamison, having made numerous trips to Haiti before and after the devastating earthquake of 2010, had a background in helping people understand why growing and eating organic produce was important. The two agreed to team up. “It was kind of a natural evolution from there,” Wilson says. “After Kevin came on board, the process of turning this into an educational farm sort of took off.” While they worked to put up a barn and greenhouses and to plant the first crops, Jamison reached out to schools and universities, offering to host field

trips and to set up internships for biology and environmental science students who wanted to study what a real sustainable food system looks like. It wasn’t long before he and Wilson had plenty of help. They needed it. Wilson was amazed by the demand for organic, locally sourced produce. The market had changed dramatically since he first started farming nearly two decades earlier. They began selling their harvest to restaurants and farm markets and directly to those who visited the farm or signed up for its new Community Supported Agriculture program, which asks local residents to buy a seasonal stake in the farm in return for a share of the harvest. “There’s a growing understanding that food grown through sustainable means is better for you,” Wilson says. “But that message hasn’t reached everyone. Not by a long shot.” To help spread the word, Jamison and Wilson decided to put up a small building on the farm to host classes. A Norfolk architecture firm, Work Program Architects, volunteered to draw up some plans, and Jamison got to work securing grant funding and donations. The learning center opened last year and is surrounded by a small garden where Wilson began

John Wilson, opposite, and Kevin Jamison turned the place into a teaching farm – organic, sustainable. Seasonal workers like Nate, opposite top, help. Above, the learning center, a kitchen at its core.

FEATURE

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teaching people how to cultivate soil and make compost. Inside, Jamison started teaching food preservation courses. The two invited other groups to come in and teach lessons on beekeeping and foraging. Those half-day courses are popular. But none of them topped Jamison’s next idea. “We figured out that we need to teach people that local organic food isn’t just healthier, but it tastes better, too,” he says. He set out to prove it.

ou guys are in for a treat tonight,” Jamison tells a dozen people gathered around a table inside the learning center on a chilly fall night. “We started this really cool class called Farm Table, and the purpose is to get people excited about local produce. It’s to teach them how to use it, why we should be using it and to show you that it can be used to make really great, gourmet food.” With that, Jamison steps aside. Ross Riddle, a local chef who has gained fame for serving fine cuisine out the side of a truck, steps forward. On a table behind him is an assortment of freshly picked root vegetables and greens. Sweet potatoes. Kale. Watermelon radishes. Turnips. Riddle, who plans to move his Hashi food truck

SPRING 2015

into a storefront eventually, explains his love for food – especially local food. He invites the group to the prep table, and puts them to work cutting up veggies and mixing ingredients. Nearly every weekend, a similar scene unfolds here. Jamison persuaded many of the most popular local chefs to participate in Farm Table. A week before each class, he reveals what produce the farm will be providing and challenges the chef for that session to prepare a meal centered on those ingredients. Any additional ingredients must be locally sourced and organic. After the first round of classes last year, a

strange thing happened, Jamison says: “The chefs ended up learning more than the people taking the classes, and some of them have started using more local produce in their restaurants.” Even at $50 per person, every class sells out weeks ahead of time. This night’s three-course meal consists of miso-cured rockfish, kale salad and sliced radishes; fire-braised goat shoulder, baked masa with goat cheese and roasted root vegetables; and gourmet s’mores of sorghum molasses ice cream with homemade whole wheat graham crackers and bourbon marshmallows. The success of the classes sparked an idea:

Most weekends, the farm hosts Farm Table classes: A local chef prepares a meal sourced from the farm. Now chefs are spreading the “local” gospel, and Jamison himself is cooking. Above, vegetables fermenting.

FEATURE

Jamison plans to open a restaurant of his own at the Oceanfront this spring. Commune Crepes, he says, will rely almost exclusively on locally sourced ingredients. “I want to prove that you can run a restaurant without a Sysco truck pulling up once a week. We can live off what we grow and make locally.” Between the first and second course on the night of Riddle’s lesson, two women who have taken several cooking classes together around town but had never been to the farm wave Jamison down. They want to know what else happens there. He lists more than a dozen classes and programs, in addition to the regular business operations.

“My goodness,” one of the women interrupts. “What don’t you do?” There’s more, Jamison says. He invites them to visit the farm when the sun is still up.

gentle drizzle is falling as John Wilson and Kevin Jamison walk alongside fields filled with green plants and busy workers, some of them volunteers, some paid. Wilson points and rattles off the names of crops as he walks. “We have sun chokes, potatoes, sweet potatoes. …” The farm appears to be living up to its name. No

No farm is complete without a cat; that’s Spirit, above. Five years after Wilson bought the land, the soil is returning to health and people are coming, even from overseas, to learn about sustainable agriculture.

one would recognize this property compared to the way Wilson found it five years ago. “Over there are some herbs. We’ve got collards, fennel, lettuce …” The soil still hasn’t been totally restored, Wilson says, but they’re getting there. The former-carpenterturned-farmer has an analogy he likes to use: Most farmland in America is like a drug addict. It has no life of its own, other than when you re-inject it with new chemicals. It takes years to flush the system. “Arugula, mustard greens, kale. Over there I see a bluebird, indicating the health of the farm. …” Wilson stops and points toward a worker kneeled down, harvesting turnips. “There’s my buddy Gibson,” he says. This is the part of the story Wilson never imagined. He knew he wanted to teach the community about sustainable agriculture. But he didn’t expect his little farm would ever have global reach. This was the second year Gibson Catalis had traveled from his home in Haiti to study at New Earth Farm. The 31-year-old won a grant to come here and learn about sustainable farming practices that he can take back to his community, where such skills could help feed a starving population and spur economic development. On this day, he’s working alongside a student from Christopher Newport University. In a few days, he’ll return home to one of the poorest countries in the world and help local farmers change the way they work. Catalis struggles to summarize, concisely, his time at John Wilson’s farm. “I learn a lot here,” he says. “Too much to say.”

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Phoebus feels like a small town tucked inside a big town. A stroll down the sidewalk on Mellen Street offers plenty of neat spots to duck into: antique shops, boutiques, cozy places to eat. A waterfront park joins the amenities. Residents rely on a post office and a school. New businesses grow on sturdy foundations: The American Theatre anchors the neighborhood, and Fort Monroe roots it in history. An afternoon trip can last into evening. It’s a sweet little getaway, right here at home.

stories by MICHELLE WASHINGTON KIM O’BRIEN ROOT DIANNA CAHN photography by KEITH LANPHER

SUMMER 2014

Before last fall, Patrick Ryan didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how to weld. By late winter, he was welding the stools for Back Bay Brewing. In his design, growlers become light ďŹ xtures and, previous page, metal from a barn in Creeds is a wall in the tasting room.

PHOEBUS

by MICHELLE WASHINGTON

ometimes on Monday nights, sometimes a couple nights a week, a regular customer who drove to Norfolk from Hampton to eat at Crackers wooed the owner, Chris Glover. Why don’t you come over my way? Phoebus verged on up-and-coming status, he said. The reopening of The American Theatre in 2000 provided a jolt to the neighborhood, a historic area near Fort Monroe. Seasoned shops provided stability, and new businesses had begun to find a foothold. Crackers’ style and aesthetic would fit nicely. And then all the folks who lived in Hampton or Newport News, the wooer included, could delight in staying on their side of the tunnel for tapas and cocktails. Still, Chris hesitated. He had taken over Crackers in its original location in Norfolk’s Ghent, and soon expanded with a second tapas bar, Empire, downtown. That regular customer, Mark Hollingsworth, finally persuaded Chris to take a look at a property he owned in Phoebus: the Walker Building, constructed in 1918 and situated at 6 E. Mellen St., just blocks from the theater. “Look, what’s it going to take?” Mark asked. “A really good deal on rent,” Chris said. They struck a bargain.

photography by KEITH LANPHER

In August 2006, Six opened with six tables. Chris built on the success he had already found at Crackers and Empire, eventually buying the building, along with the one next door. He sought, as always, to join the neighborhood as a neighborhood restaurant. “I wanted a laid-back place that has really good food,” he says. “Not too pretentious. I wanted a local hangout.”

hris got his start in the restaurant business at the age of 14 at Chick’s Oyster Bar, where he washed dishes and sometimes worked as a dock boy to take food to boat owners who’d stopped at the pier to refuel. So he had a decade of experience when, at 24, he and a partner opened 5150 on Shore Drive in Virginia Beach. It was the first restaurant in which he had ownership, but the place didn’t feel like his own. It had loud music, TV sets and plenty of cheap beer, he said, the trappings and success of sports bars everywhere. He didn’t like TVs in his place. He didn’t like cheap beer. He didn’t like the aggression and mess that cheap beer can cause. “I was working way too much, stressing way too much,” he says. He sold his portion of the business to his partner

Chris Glover heeded a customer’s call: Open a place like Crackers in Hampton. Now, Six repeats his earlier success with Crackers, Empire and Paciﬁca; it’s relaxed, a bit sassy, and seasonal and local in its fare.

and found another job tending bar at the Taphouse in Virginia Beach. That’s where he met Karl Dornemann, another guy with plenty of experience in the restaurant field. In the late ’90s, about a year and a half after selling his share of 5150, Chris used the little money he had left and, along with his father and Karl, bought Crackers, then on 21st Street. They signed the papers on a Thursday and opened on a Friday, Chris says. He forged the concepts at Crackers – cramped, bustling Crackers – that he later expanded to his other restaurants, including Six. Crackers opened at 5 p.m. to avoid interfering with the daytime customers of the business that shared its parking lot. Chris expanded the hours past the previous 10 p.m. close to serve food until 1:30 a.m. “Our goal was to be the industry restaurant, where others came when they got off work,” he says. “They’re usually the best tippers, the best customers. And it made for great word of mouth – that helped us.” Next, he expanded the menu from 15 varieties of tapas to 40 or so, half hot, half cold. That all required plenty of fresh produce and protein – but Crackers was so small it didn’t have a walk-in refrigerator. He could not buy in bulk, because he had no

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DINING

place to store it. He sought small, local purveyors willing to sell him manageable quantities. Whatever he bought had to be used within a day or so. “It was like cooking on a boat,” he says. All that forced him to engineer a method of farm-to-table cooking before farm-to-table cooking was a thing. He bought produce from Dave and Dee’s in Sedley, selections changing with the seasons. He bought fish and other proteins from Waterside Fish and Produce in Norfolk. “I could call them and order one lemon,” he says. For specialty cheeses and dried goods like flour and spices, he turned to International Gourmet Foods in Springfield. Sixteen years later, he serves as editor for the chefs at each of his restaurants. In late fall, he texted them a two-weeks heads up on their offerings for the winter menu. He asks questions about their rough drafts: How will the chef plate the item? How many steps from product to plate? Do raspberries and crabmeat really make a good combination over angel hair pasta? If Chris spikes a menu idea, he offers the chef a consolation prize: Run it as a special. Crabmeat and raspberries turned out tasty, he says. The menu at Six mirrors the eclectic offerings found in each of Chris’ restaurants, including a fourth, Pacifica in Virginia Beach. Small plates encourage ordering a few for the table to share. Menus feature some fixtures: bread and a house butter du jour, sometimes sweet, sometimes savory. Six’s manager, Adele Smith, said pork potstickers have been 82

SPRING 2015

on the menu “as long as I can remember. We can’t take them off. People would have pitchforks and a line out the door.” Plates with cheeses, olives and roasted peppers give everyone finger foods to nosh on until more-complex dishes arrive – wait staff deliver tapas to table as they are ready, Spanish style. Fall menus offered butternut squash “fries” bathed in tarragon gravy and sprinkled with mozzarella, a gourmet Southern rendition of the Northern favorite poutine. A fall harvest slaw of fennel and apple played cool, crunchy contrast to crab cakes with fiery Creole remoulade. Earthy, roasted golden beets married nicely with seared sea scallops; a peppery bite of arugula provided counterpoint. Chewy, healthy quinoa, however, stole the spotlight from that more decadent fare: Mixed with wakame salad, topped with cucumber, onion pickled in-house and ginger, the hearty salad balanced tartness and zing with the slightly sweet seaweed, and played the heft of the seed against the light, piquant crunch of vinegar-soaked onion. Inventive cocktails and martinis populate a bar menu with a bit of cheek. A Sidecar includes Remy VSOP and Cointreau with a sugared rim: “a little scary but so much fun.” Water comes free, with a “strained smile.” Attentive service and comfortable ambience complete the experience. Custom-designed lanterns with red shades hang above each table and bathe the room in a warm glow. A long bar faces a mural that once occupied an entire wall in Empire’s original

Granby Street location. Sit close and see a large big toe attached to a long, narrow foot. Step back and see that it’s attached to a long, narrow man. Chris’ dad, Bob, eats at the restaurants often, chatting up the customers and pushing his son to refine the wine list. They butt heads on that, Chris says – he wants to keep all the wines on the menu available by the glass, which gets harder to do as the cost of the bottle rises. Father and son now are the sole business partners, having split amicably with Karl several years ago. (Karl and partner Eric Stevens now own several restaurants, including Supper in Norfolk; see Page 100.) Chris stops in at each restaurant to check produce, go over the books, write checks, ensure that the techniques he honed in his first tiny kitchen continue. When someone calls in sick or takes a vacation, he steps in. In the fall he subbed in the kitchen, turning out dishes from tiny pans on a tiny stove, just like he used to do. “I don’t like to tell people I’m the owner,” he says. “I feel like customers would tell me the truth if they think I’m the bartender.” He and Mark Hollingsworth, who wooed him to this spot, still see each other every once in a while. They both admire The American Theatre and its eclectic offerings. They both dream of a more active Phoebus and point to the potential that Fort Monroe holds to bring residents and tourists. And they can both lay claim to creating a neighborhood place with good food and cocktails.

Popular at Six are the goat cheese and olive tapenade with baguette; the Sidecar (“a little scary but so much fun”); and – above all – the pork potstickers.

DINING

The tools on Guslerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s workbench are a mix of hand-made and modern-made. The planes and mallet are from a dogwood that was dying in his yard; he put corncob handles on other tools to remind him of Appalachia, his home.

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DINING

SPRING 2015

Custom lanterns and window art help create a warm welcome. Small plates encourage sharing, the menu mixes healthy and not-so-much, and the wait staff delivers tapas as theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re ready.

We are pleased to introduce Dr. Christopher S. Garran as the Head of Cape Henry Collegiate effective July 1, 2015. A teacher and administrator with an impressive track record of over twenty years in education, Dr. Garran possesses the rare combination of personality, skills and vision required to lead our School into the future. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Garran and his family to Cape Henry Collegiate and the Hampton Roads community.

SUMMER 2014

PHOEBUS

by KIM O’BRIEN ROOT

s legend has it, Loretta Lynn – on her way to perform at The American Theatre in the early 1960s – stood on the sidewalk outside and argued with her husband about a pair of uncomfortable new shoes. As concert-goers watched, Lynn finally stomped inside and started her show, only to stop the band part way through the first song and kick off the offending footwear. She spent the next three hours performing – as part of a tour to promote her hit Honky Tonk Girl – shoeless. It’s one of the many memories of Phoebus’ historic theater, where showbiz greats such as Ben Vereen, Marcel Marceau, Wynton Marsalis and Bea Arthur have performed. Over the years, The American Theatre has gone through numerous – sometimes colorful – changes, at one point operating as an adultsonly theater; another time, as a pizza-and-beer joint. But for nearly 15 years, since an intensive remodeling, the stately theater has served as a focal point for performing arts in Hampton Roads, drawing arts enthusiasts from all over to this historic community on the Chesapeake Bay. The theater dates back to 1908, when it opened as a vaudeville and motion picture house. A fire caused it to be rebuilt almost as soon as it opened, but the American quickly became popular and known for its

photography by KEITH LANPHER

10-cent Saturday movies. But as Phoebus – a town that consolidated with the city of Hampton in the 1950s – changed, so did the theater. Like many of the old-timey theaters, victim to sparkling multiplexes, it fell into decline and closed in the 1990s. In 1997, the Hampton Arts Foundation – the nonprofit fund-raising arm of the Hampton Commission on the Arts – bought the old theater as part of a plan to bring a performing arts space to the city. Nearly $3 million later, The American Theatre came back to life, reopening in June 2000. A second renovation was completed a decade later, adding upgrades and an education wing with an art studio and a dance studio. Today the cozy, brick-walled theater seats nearly 400 people in red velvet seats. Though modernized, it retains some of its old-fashioned charm, with heavy curtains that can still be moved with ropes and weights. The overall effect creates a close setting between performer and audience; even the farthest seats are only 75 feet from the stage. “In our house, you can pretty much lock eyes with the performer,” says Jeff Stern, who became the American’s artistic director in 2013, following on the heels of longtime artistic director Michael Curry. “It’s a very personal, very natural experience.” Norfolk musician Phillip Roebuck performed on

The American has survived multiple odd uses, and its closing in the 1990s, to become a regional hot spot. The intimacy of seating and stage helps: “You can pretty much lock eyes with the performer,” says the artistic director.

stage for the first time in November and came away surprised that he had never been there before. “I was so impressed with the theater,” says Roebuck, a banjo player once hired by director Spike Lee to perform in a commercial about being a street musician. “It was so beautiful. I thought it was a real treasure to our area.” Though not a small venue, the theater has an intimate feel with extraordinary acoustics, he says, because of the exposed brick and covered seats. “I’ve played in warehouses with brick walls and concrete floors – the sound just bounces around. They have it figured out. There was a lot of energy. Such a nice focused room to play in.” The American is more than just for performances, however. Over the past few decades, it’s become a place where the community is welcomed in to experience the arts firsthand. There’s a dance studio, for classes and workshops, and the lobby, with its ceiling full of lighted stars, has become a place for artists to sign autographs and meet their fans. Even the walls are full of artwork, all from Hampton Arts’ 350-piece permanent collection. “It offers,” Stern says, a “unique snapshot of the people who represent arts in this area.” Stern, who grew up in Winchester, studied theatrical design and production at Virginia Common-

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wealth University and spent time working in the film industry in Los Angeles. He was attracted, in part, by the sense of community in Phoebus. As artistic director, he has a keen interest in developing local talent. His new Lighthouse series focuses on the regional arts community, in the hopes that new works will go from premiering at the American to beyond Hampton Roads. The free First Sundays – a collaboration with Norfolk’s Venue on 35th – include staged script readings, workshops and full productions of new full-length, one-act and 10-minute plays. Stern would even like to see a home-grown theater festival right in Hampton one day. Stern “has got this wonderful desire to bring the local theater to life,” says Nancy Lawson Allen,

SPRING 2015

president of the Hampton Arts Foundation. “That’s so important. We’re trying to keep the sense of community open, and involve the community in our theater here.” That’s not to say the big names are being left out. The Vienna Boys’ Choir performed in December, with Judy Collins, and Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary scheduled for the spring. Stern’s lineup features an eclectic mix of folk, dance, theater, classical, jazz, world music and more – he wants, he says, to reach out to everyone. “We have a responsibility to the community,” he says. “We have to be relevant. There’s a ton of competition from a ton of places. You have to figure out what matters. In Hampton, that means letting those who live and work here know we’re here for them.” Two renovations preserved the 1908 metalwork on the 400 seats, and the staff and supporters have made the place one not only for out-of-town artists but also for the community’s visual and performing arts.

SPRING 2015

PHOEBUS

by DIANNA CAHN

n their screen printing shop along Phoebus’ main street, it is easy to imagine the Wallace brothers in black and white. There’s a hand-crank printing press in the front window, music plays on an old record player – when they can get it to work – and everything on display feels like it comes from an era passed. Matthew, at 29, is tossing a football from hand to hand. He’s moving, busy, eagerly talking about the heyday of American craftsmanship. Dustin, 34, is leaning back, engaged but quieter. They complement each other, these two siblings from Hampton. Matt’s the entrepreneur with an eye for good design and a demanding standard. Dustin, the artist, is just as meticulous but happier at the back of the shop, playing with color and creating something fresh. But tell them that they seem like a natural fit, and they laugh. Those first few years before they opened The Prince Ink Co. were incredibly rough, Matt says. They were two brothers going against the grain, figuring it out one mistake at a time.

att and Dustin like to call themselves the youngest old people you’ll ever meet. They enjoy getting their hands dirty when they work, doing old-time screen printing with care and precision. They collaborate with artists and designers to print exclusive posters and Tshirts and they channel the guiding principle of 20th century architecture master Mies van der Rohe: God is in the details. If Matt could have his way, they would conduct their entire business by bartering rather than with the easy cash commerce of the modern world. They

photography by KEITH LANPHER

would print stationery by hand and deliver it by bicycle. They know it’s a gamble. In this time of automated machinery and mass production, Prince Ink harkens back to an old-time America, when work was slow and measured and tactile. “I feel like history repeats itself, which is why we are clinging to the part of history that was really good back then,” Matt says. “If we base our business model on what worked back then, it has to work again.” The shop has a 1940s vibe. Their vintage-inspired tees boast messages in a scrolling antique script with sayings like the J.R.R. Tolkien line “Not all who wander are lost.” They are displayed on shelves made of reclaimed wood and from hanging rods made of repurposed iron piping and cleats normally used to hitch boats. The brothers show off cardboard cartons imprinted with the store’s logo. Waste of time, they were told by a more experienced printer in the area. No money in it. But they are used to that. “We are kind of perfectionists,” Matt says. “And we are selftaught on everything.”

rowing up, Matt dabbled in computer graphics but always knew that someday he would own his own business. Dustin, five years older, was always drawing and playing musical instruments. Dustin joined the Air Force out of high school, becoming an electrical engineer on A-10 jets, while Matt spent his high school years stenciling on tees and selling them to friends for $20 apiece. Matt took his profits and bought new equipment. After he graduated, he worked in restaurants and delivered

Brothers Dustin, left, and Matthew Wallace – here with a letterpress – navigated start-up stresses in focusing on the precision and pace of hand craftsmanship. Rocky greets everyone with a wag.

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beer, selling shirts on the side. Eventually, Matt rented his first shop, a small, windowless warehouse at the back of a building where he spent weekends printing his own line of nautical-themed shirts. In 2009 he approached his brother about joining him. Dustin was three years out of the Air Force and was making hip-hop beats that he sold to rappers on the Internet. Collaborating made sense. Dustin brought the same vintage style to his music as Matt did to his shirts. But it wasn’t easy. In fact, says Matt, it was incredibly tough. “I think it was a little bit of pride,” Dustin says. “He’s very particular in the way he was printing and I kind of wanted to do it my way.” Matt stood over Dustin’s shoulder as he printed, and the two frequently clashed. “He was like, ‘Get away from me – I can do this,’ and I am like, ‘Well, prove it to me,’ ” Matt says. “It took a while until I could walk away.” Soon, Dustin got better than his brother – able

SPRING 2015

to mix colors by eye and instinct, better than what the charts could do. Even Matt was satisfied. But the brothers struggled to make the business work. They’d built their company as a one-stop shop – offering both design and printing so companies could have them create a logo and then print their business cards, signs and other products. The Wallace men worked night and day just to stay afloat. Overworked, stressed and barely making a profit, they reached a breaking point in 2011. In a leap of faith – or possibly inspiration – they closed down their business, gave up the tiny shop and launched themselves anew as a straight-up screen printing shop with an eye toward quality craftsmanship, no longer offering their own design services. By walking away from designing, they could focus on their best work and collaborate with designers they admire. The name Prince Ink plays on royalty to invoke a high-end sensibility as well as the more literal wordplay: They are a company that prints ink. They scoured the region for a new shop and found their spot on a street of legend – including

The brothers now print other designers’ work, having decided to focus solely on printing. At work above: Matt, Dustin at a six-color screen press, and Christopher Gundry.

PHOEBUS

the rumor that Al Capone once hid out there. Antiques dealers lined the road to Fort Monroe, and the brothers were excited by their large space. They printed their name on the big plate-glass window, decorated the shop with found materials and focused their talents on what they like best: doing cool things with a silk-screen in their family operation. Dustin will still stand for hours over a shirt, making sure he lines up the colors just right. The brothers prefer, too, using water-based inks that actually dye the fabric rather than the newer, more commonplace plastisol that sits on top and will eventually crack. The techniques for water-based inks, particularly the more-toxic bleaching process for dark fabrics, are more expensive and more difficult to work with because you can’t see what the color will look like until

it is cured. Matt and Dustin have tossed out entire batches of shirts, dissatisfied with the results. Still, they like it better. Matt walks over to a shirt hanging on display. Feel how soft, he urges. Like a pair of old jeans. A sign hanging nearby boasts that the brothers can print bags, pancakes, coasters, koozies, towels and more. Yep, pancakes, Matt says. Anything liquid enough to pass through a screen. The more interesting, the better, he adds. They both smile. The Wallace brothers are having fun. “We say all the time: He can go work for another shop and I can go find another screen printer,” Matt says. “But in reality, he’s not going to work at a better shop and I am not going to have a better screen printer. We both realize what we have.”

LIKE FRED & BETTY World War II Navy veteran Fred Ward died in 2011 at age 92 – years after his wife Betty, who had loved teaching English at Virginia Beach’s Princess Anne High School. Thanks to Fred’s community foundation bequest that honored his wife with a scholarship fund, the Wards will always help Virginia Beach Public School students go to college. It’s easy to be like Fred and Betty... helping others forever through philanthropy.

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SPRING 2015

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WHERE THE WILD THINGS GROW: Skye Zentz and her Narnia Skye Zentz is a singer-songwriter from Norfolk. Her latest album, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bird Heart,â&#x20AC;? includes sounds from the Weyanoke nature sanctuary in West Ghent.

As told to Mary Architzel Westbrook photograph by RICH-JOSEPH FACUN I first came here around 2004 with a friend. Back then we would enter through a â&#x20AC;&#x153;secretâ&#x20AC;? entrance, a huge, portal-sized hole in the metal fence along the side. It felt like we were leaping into a woodland Narnia. I kept expecting Mr. Tumnus to turn up and invite us to tea. Sometimes we did encounter people. This one guy used to refer to himself as Jeeves of the Trees. Once we saw him dragging a limb shaped like a hammer. It was 7 feet long and frightening but also fantastical in a Game of Thrones way. I only come once or twice a season, and sometimes I skip a season. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t like to spend 15 minutes here. I like to take my time. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tree cover to every area so you get beams of light coming from all directions, depending on where the sun is. In the middle of the day it can feel like 6 oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock at night, and then suddenly itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bright again. You forget youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re surrounded by a city; really, the trains are the only city sound you hear. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen raccoons here. Crazyhuge spiders. Egrets. A mad-looking cat by the old secret entrance. I often want to be a more outdoorsy person than I am, and this is one place that I feel like I am that person. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s part of why I have such a great appreciation for the people who tend to it. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all kind of Where the Wild Things Are, but thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so much work that goes into keeping it the way it is â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the paths, the plants. When Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m here, I feel less focused on my own insecurities or phobia of the moment. Those feel less important. The breeze is important. That sound is important. 98

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PROFILE

SPRING 2015

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by JANINE LATUS photography by TODD WRIGHT

he NASCAR satay at Bardo Edibles & Elixirs is a corn dog, elegantly presented. The one-dollar chicken dinner is a hard-boiled egg. Even though the restaurant is known for delicacies like tuna carpaccio with shiitake dust, and massaman curry vegetable sauté, it also hosts quarterly Bizarre Foods dinners with items like wasabi-flavored whole crickets, house-made python and rattlesnake bratwurst, and ground llama and alpaca lettuce wraps with hoisin and hot pickled pepper slaw. Everything is served on small plates and intended to be shared. It’s how owners Karl Dornemann and Eric Stevens like to eat. If there are four people at their table they order four appetizers and an entrée to split. “We want to taste everything,” Stevens says. “Otherwise your palate gets bored,” Dornemann says. Everything about their five restaurants expresses the pair’s own preferences and personalities. The employees-must-wash-hands signs in the restrooms are so witty they’re used in English classes – one at a high school and one at a college – as examples of writing with a distinctive voice. The Health Department insists that we post the sign: Prime Eats’ Eric Stevens and Karl Dornemann co-own five hit restaurants. Supper, in Norfolk, is the latest. Bardo, their first, was life-changing for both; hence it’s named for a Buddhist state. Birth, life, death, bardo, rebirth.

Employees must wash hands before returning to work. Of course, to be in full compliance, we do so. However, we think it’s an ignorant and borderline offensive idea for the following reasons: 1. If you think we hire employees that are so thick that they need a sign to remind them to wash their hands, why are you even here? 2. If the government thinks a sign will ensure that people are doing what they’re supposed to do, we’d like them to focus their energies on enforcing these signs: A. Please turn off your cell phone before the movie starts.

he signs are stolen often. The voice is that of the owners, although Dornemann is the jester of the two, his voice inherited from his Episcopalian preacher parents and honed over three decades working behind various bars. He and Stevens met 14 years ago over small plates at Crackers, where Dornemann was both bartender and part owner and Stevens was a frequent customer. They liked the same music, the same whiskeys, the same food. They became fast friends. “His former wife used to joke that if he passed

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THE IDEA FOR SUPPER WAS YEARS IN THE MAKING. THE EXECUTIVE CHEF AT BARDO, EDWARD STOREY, HAD SPENT THREE YEARS WORKING UP A MENU FOR A SOUTHERN FOODS RESTAURANT, HIS RECIPES BASED ON THOSE OF HIS GEORGIA GRANDMOTHER. away I was his replacement,” Dornemann says. “I’d just step right in, she could even call me Eric. We’re the same. Same CD collection, same clothes, ‘I have two of you now,’ she said.” People think they’re brothers, with their jeans and sweaters and wild socks sporting polka dots and plaids and inexplicable turkey legs. Together, under the business name Prime Eats, they own Bardo and The Public House in Ghent, Still Worldly Eclectic Tapas and Gosport Tavern in Portsmouth, and most recently Supper Southern Morsels, home to Norfolk’s first rooftop patio, just two blocks up the street from Bardo. Dornemann started in food service when he was 15, washing dishes at an ice cream parlor. He was chasing a girl whose brother managed the place, so he asked the brother for the job. “Go home and shave off that mohawk,” the brother said, so Dornemann did and came back and said, “So, about that job?” He worked his way up to serving screaming kids at the counter, some of whom were cute girls. “It was like the kid version of being behind a 102

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bar,” he says now. Since then he’s done everything in restaurants, and in 1995 he moved to Norfolk to open Taphouse Grill with partners. That was followed by Crackers and Empire. Stevens, meanwhile, was raising money for Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters when he got a phone call. Dornemann had the chance to be bought out of the Crackers empire and he was going to roll his money into a new restaurant. Did Stevens want in? “For the people I grew up with in Buffalo, where you associate because of which church you go to and which bar you drink at it, it’s a dream to own a restaurant,” Stevens says. “Assuming you can do it and still keep your house.” They traveled around studying restaurants, and settled on a concept of small plates of Asian-influenced food. They then toured buildings, looking for a space that said, “Put Bardo here.” They chose a pair of connected buildings on 21st Street in Norfolk, one of them a former ice cream factory with concrete walls and pillars. There was no room for a

walk-in refrigerator, so everything has to be delivered and served on the same day. When they opened in 2002, Dornemann worked the bar four or five nights a week; Stevens worked his day job but served on the floor every weekend. Slowly the night job took over the day job, and Stevens had to decide whether to go head-first into the restaurant game and open multiple spots or get out. The duo chose the former, working up concepts, collaborating with chefs and visiting potential spaces. In 2006 someone in Portsmouth called and asked if they’d look at an old building there. The entrance was off a side street and the first step was a 4-foot drop to dirt. The owner was talking about turning it into an oyster bar with video games, but that wasn’t what the space wanted to be. “We instantly knew what we had to do there,” Stevens says. “We said, ‘This is a speakeasy if I ever saw one,’” Dornemann says. “Why would you try to force a concept into a space that is clearly telling you not to do that?”

The men met at Crackers when Dornemann was an owner. Now, patrons at Bardo, The Public House, Still, Gosport Tavern and Supper (above), know their fare and wit.

PROFILE

Among the surprises, the company they hired to remove the floor jackhammered through a 2-inch layer of concrete only to uncover a massive bed of outsized oyster shells, laid down in the 1800s. Workers had to pick them up by hand and cart them out in wheelbarrows. The restaurant – Still – is a dark man-cave drinking hole, with low ceilings, half-exposed brick, a broad array of whiskeys, leather couches, and a painting of a goat in a Nehru jacket over the fireplace. The menu includes seared sea scallops with bourbon peach chutney and bacon crème fraiche, and smoked duck breast with crispy polenta and corn salsa. The drinks are designed by Dornemann, who is listed as the bar chef. On Bardo’s menu he’s called the Spirit Whisperer.

rime Eats has had failures, most notably Locks Pointe, a Chesapeake restaurant that had been around for 17 years but was failing when they took it over. It survived for three more years before dying in the burst of the real estate bubble. But their mistakes are part of what qualifies them as consultants to other restaurateurs, who hire them to fix food costs, reorganize workflow in kitchens, or to go the whole enchilada and create a full design and then run a new restaurant. Thus their third success – Public House – is 90 percent owned by Keith Newby, a cardiologist and investor in Norfolk. “It’s not the amount of money we’re going to make for you,” Stevens tells investors, “it’s the amount we’re going to save you, because we’ve made so many mistakes we will save you that mistake money.” Newby had hired them to open a jazz club in the Fort Norfolk Tower, across Brambleton from Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. But after eight or nine months of work, Dornemann and Stevens could tell the market just wasn’t there. “We told him that we don’t think this concept can survive at this location. So he said, ‘All right, smart guy, what should I do?’ ” The duo always have at least 10 concepts in their back pockets, and Magnolia Steak & Seafood had just closed on the corner of Colley and West Princess Anne. The building, a former drugstore, was in horrendous shape, Dornemann says, but it fit their concept for a neighborhood gastro pub, with pool tables and a smoking room, and high-quality bar food. “We pitched it to him and he said OK,” Dornemann says. “He called our bluff.” They moved the entryway to the corner, which is a classic design for bars on corner lots, put the bar where the drugstore counter had been, and laid down a hardwood floor over the original tile, installed so that the tile can be easily exposed by future owners. They created a menu of artfully created cheese sticks rolled by hand and chicken tenders cut fresh. The sausage is made in-house, as is the mac and cheese that’s topped with panko and “baked to a lovely golden brown mess.” “So it’s still bar food,” Stevens says, “but it’s damn good bar food.” The restaurant opened in July 2011 and became Prime Eats’ most profitable. It was followed by Gosport Tavern, a brightly lit neighborhood pub on High Street in Portsmouth with a concrete bar and photos of the port lining the walls. Next door is a single-story building sturdy enough to bear a rooftop patio like the one at their most recent opening, Supper Southern Morsels. The idea for Supper was years in the making. The executive chef at Bardo, Edward Storey, had spent three years working up a menu for a Southern foods restaurant, his recipes based on those of his Georgia grandmother. Stevens and Dornemann liked the idea, and they also wanted to capture some of the patio business so popular along Colley, and they knew they had to appeal to women to make that work. “You know who’s going to be more vocal about sitting outside? Maybe it’s

Supper’s décor is more feminine than Prime Eats’ other restaurants, since women are more likely to favor its rooftop dining.

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just the guys I hang out with, but it’s always the wife of someone who wants to sit outside,” Dornemann says. “I’m never with a bunch of guys and they say, ‘Hey, can we go sit on a patio somewhere?’ Just doesn’t happen.” Stevens laughs. “Knowing that was kind of our demographic,” Dornemann continues, “we wanted to make sure that what they walked into down here was soft enough that when they can’t sit on the patio they still want to come here.” Thus the aesthetic at Supper is deliberately more feminine than in their winter drinking dens. A crystal chandelier hangs in the entryway, although Stevens could stand to go only so feminine, so he encased it in a manly globe of steel bars. The back of the bar is white tile, although the beer pulls are old hand drills, their chucks intact. Blue soda siphons serve as lights over the bar, and barrette-shaped sconces glow against white brick walls. The pair make their own bitters and ginger beers, and a version of Southern Comfort they call Supper Comfort that’s made of Wild Turkey 101 infused with peach, orange, cherry and honey, and served from a glass jar on the back of the bar. Upstairs is a patio that seats 110 under rectan104

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gular awnings weighted with 220-pound concrete blocks so they won’t become airborne in a hurricane. The floor rests on a slanted roof on structures of PVC piping and footers that are individually calibrated to keep each paver level. The feel is more Southern city, perhaps Charleston or Savannah, or D.C.’s Adams-Morgan. The restaurant opened in midAugust and was promptly packed, burning through more than 1,200 pounds of Southern fried chicken each week. For the cold months next season they’re planning to install gas lamps or radiant heat and fire pits to keep the patio comfortable. It took three years for Public House to have the company’s most profitable month ever; Supper passed that mark within the first 30 days. “When that patio is open, sales are astronomically high,” Stevens says. “To have a restaurant that doubles in size when it’s sunny makes planning tough. We’re constantly checking the weather.” Even after all these years and all their success, each opening is terrifying. “I don’t get panicked about money as much,” Dornemann says, “because Eric handles it, so I let him lose sleep over it. For me the scarier thing is that there’s so much of us exposed. In terms of the idea, as an artist you’re kind of laying yourself out there.

My fear is that you come up with this idea you think is really neat, but what if nobody else likes it? That’s my panic. We build them and for two weeks before we open I pace around and panic. What if it’s a really dumb idea? Whatever we build together is us kind of out there.” Despite the panic there are other ideas. Portsmouth has offered the two a church in which to open a brewery and distillery. There are concepts they’ve seen in their travels that they’d love to share with their home community. They don’t want to conquer the Beach; they don’t want to own a dozen restaurants. “We’re going to do this as long as it’s fun,” Dornemann says. “When it’s not fun we’re going to do something else. I don’t know what that’s going to be; I don’t have other skills. I dropped out of philosophy school in my third year. Eric has all of these other skills, I think he even has a retirement, so he’s golden. I’m going to be slinging drinks until I’m 100, assuming I make it that long.” And they’re not going to take on a restaurant that’s easy, if there is such a thing. “We like to find a building with a lot of flaws and have fun with it,” Stevens says. “We like it to be like a haiku. We want to take all the limitations a building has to offer and make it great. That’s fun.”

Supper’s setup creates challenges. Stevens says: “To have a restaurant that doubles in size when it’s sunny makes planning tough. We’re constantly checking the weather.”

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Mac & Madeira by JIM RAPER photograph by ROBERTO WESTBROOK

Red wines go with red meats and cheeses, and white wines go with white meats and fish. Every wine drinker has heard this basic rule about wine and food pairings. Every wine drinker probably has also heard exceptions to this rule. That is as it should be. No simplistic rule can cover all of the exceptional combinations that are possible. With this issue of Distinction we begin a feature, Perfect Pairings, that showcases standout wine-with-food choices of culinary professionals in our region. Jim Raper, who has homes in Norfolk and Port Vendres, France, writes about wine, food and travel. His wine column, The Humble Steward, appears in The Virginian-Pilot.

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decade ago, when Phillip Craig Thomason opened Vintage Kitchen in Dominion Tower on the downtown Norfolk waterfront, one of the dishes on his debut menu was a creamy version of truffle-flavored macaroni and cheese. The wine he recommends with this decadent bowl of pasta is Blandyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 10-YearOld Malmsey Madeira, the sweetest version of the wine named for the Portuguese island where it is made. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t say the pairing is an easy sell, but people try it and like it and ask for it again,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There have been weeks when weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve served 100 of these combinations.â&#x20AC;? Why pair the pasta with the Malmsey Madeira? First you must consider the dish, Thomason says. For the sauce, a bit of Madeira goes into the

pan ďŹ rst and is reduced to a syrup. Then comes the cream, grated cheeses (cheddar mostly, but also blue cheese and parmigiano), nutmeg, chives, shaved black trufďŹ&#x201A;e from the PĂŠrigord, and cracked black pepper before the sauce is ďŹ nished with white trufďŹ&#x201A;e oil. The salt in the dish, together with the pungent trufďŹ&#x201A;e and the velvety cheese, builds an eclectic power that can send most wines running for cover. But Malmsey Madeira, with its ďŹ&#x201A;avor proďŹ le of caramel, nuts and refreshing acidity, mates well with the dish. The pairing works because of its exceptional parts. The Blandyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Malmsey 10 Year retails for about $35 for a 0.5-liter bottle and is far more balanced and nuanced than Madeira costing half that. And the top-tier cheese, cream and actual French trufďŹ&#x201A;es make the Vintage Kitchenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mac and cheese dance on the palate.

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the TURKEY CALLS

At Primland, a hunter is game for what nature and man provide.

by SANDY LANG photography by PETER FRANK EDWARDS

FEATURE

IT’S A SUNNY APRIL SUNDAY and the Blue Ridge countryside is in a spring mix — trees with still-bare branches line the roadside, along with the first green grasses and budding leaves. We’re driving into the southwest corner of Virginia, five hours due west of Norfolk. This territory is remote, a true getaway. Closer to the Blue Ridge Parkway than to I-77, and two hours southwest of Roanoke, our destination is deep in an uncrowded region of farms and small towns, the closest being Meadows of Dan (population 1,971) along the famous-for-trout Dan River. Besides the farmhouses, horses and silos, what’s stealing the scene here and there are tall dogwoods still clinging to ivory flowers and the occasional row of spindly redbuds, their blooms a bright pink-purple flurry like Easter baskets. This early spring landscape is a welcome view after the erratic weather of winter, and I’m looking forward to walks in the woods and hunts for wild turkey. The massive retreat named Primland will be our private hunting ground. We’re joining one of the guided hunts for gobblers that are offered each April and May. Formerly managed for timber, wooded Primland is known to have a healthy population of the native game birds with their black, brown and white feathers and appetite for acorns. Through the windshield, at the edge of a pasture, we see the dark shapes of a few of the birds stepping slowly, long necks stretched tall. Maybe it’s a good sign for what’s ahead. This chance sighting is a just a handful of miles before we pass through Primland’s gates.

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e’re definitely going to need a map. After a few minutes of following roads that wind through the rocky, red-dirt terrain, I realize that Primland feels as large as a state park or even a national park—the tract, purchased by the French-Swiss billionaire Didier Primat in the 1970s, is nearly the size of Bermuda. Its 12,000 acres include eight mountain peaks; some 90 miles of backwoods dirt roads and trails (including a 6-mile stretch of the Old Appalachian Trail); along with rivers, creeks, ponds and streams. It’s a good thing photographer Peter Frank Edwards and I will be meeting a guide to show us around. Enter Rusty Greenwood, who looks even younger than his 22 years, and grew up within a few miles of Primland. He meets us at the Orvis shop near the south gate, at a desk beside a stuffed Eastern wild turkey with a broad chest. When he sees me studying the taxidermy, he tells me that they’ve been seeing even larger birds around Primland this year. I’ve been on dove and quail hunts in South Carolina, but I’ve never hunted wild turkey – which unlike a dove is measured in pounds, not ounces. Greenwood confirms that spring gobblers – mature, Tom turkeys with long “beards” and a chalk-blue color to their heads – can weigh in at close to 20 pounds. We won’t go out looking for them until the morning, so this afternoon is a good time to test the 12-gauge shotgun and the shooter (me) by aiming at some

In far southwestern Virginia is Primland, whose 26-room lodge won a coveted LEED certiﬁcation, helped by its extensive use of reclaimed wood and local materials. A silo holds an observatory.

FEATURE

paper targets at the Primland range. After five or six practice shots, I’m consistently hitting high and to the left, so Greenwood advises that when I’m in the field, I should “aim for midneck” and then adjust low and to the right. He shows me the lifelike turkey decoy that we’ll be using; it moves in the breeze. He’s also got a sizable collection of turkey calls out for testing, and he demonstrates how he can create a sound similar to a turkey with each – often by scratching a slate or metal surface with wood or chalk. He tells me he’ll scout for the birds before dark tonight to figure out the stand of trees where they’ll be nesting; if all goes well, we’ll be in the right place at dawn and he’ll entice a gobbler into view using the calls. (Only gobblers, not hens, are hunted during this spring courtship season.) I’ve got my Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries license in hand. The department estimates there are some 180,000 wild turkeys throughout the state. Apparently, the birds are all around us. Greenwood says he’ll barely sleep, thinking about where they’ll be in the morning. We agree to meet at 5 a.m. to make sure we’re in place by sunrise. Suddenly, all of this is becoming very real to me – the splendid bird in a vast territory, and my small but real chance to succeed in taking it.

ince we won’t hunt until the morning, we continue exploring and follow the parkway road to other reaches of Primland, including some of the elegant built additions to the landscape. At Treehouse Lane, we stop to see some of the overnight accommodations, a trio of newly added “treehouses” with rounded decks that wrap around trees and overlook gorges, perched at nearly 2,000 feet above Roaring Creek and the Dan River. It’s a mini-Grand-Canyon view, and when I stand a few minutes to take it all in, I notice hawks soaring and swooping on the air currents above the river. Nearby, the road rises to a broad plateau to the lodge, with its modern chaletstyle architecture, flanked by a steel silo at one end and edged by the greens of the 18-hole Highland Course. Although it didn’t open until 2009, the design and features of the 26-room centerpiece lodging were definitely part of Didier Primat’s vision, according to Primland’s vice president, Steve Helms. (Primat died in 2008, and his family is still actively involved.) The silo is one of the most unusual features; Helms says it’s something Didier wanted to include, inspired by the silos of nearby farms. When we drive up, I wonder where all the cars are, and then realize that the valets take them out of view to parking underground. Inside, I’m impressed by all of the wood: Solid beams and planks line the walls and lift the ceilings. Helms explains that reclaimed wood and local materials were used throughout the building, helping to earn the lodge a coveted LEED certification for its green features. Some of the American chestnut was reclaimed from nearby barns, and solid oak was recovered from an old factory in the Shenandoah Valley. Leather upholstery, stone floors and fireplaces, original art, and a library of oversized books of photography give the lodge the feel of a grand but comfortable inn, blended with a fine sportsmen’s club. No one is roughing it at the lodge, that’s for sure, though guests may spend days knee-deep in fly-fishing creeks, or hunting, hiking, playing golf or tennis, riding horses or mountain bikes, or getting dusty on the ATV trails. By lunchtime or later, they’re having meals or drinks at the casual 19th Pub or in the handsome Elements, a dinner-jacket-required dining room lined with tall windows and yet another fireplace – this one with its rectangular wooden flume suspended from the ceiling in the center of the room. We sit beside it, and to shore up for our early day of hunting, order some of the Virginia and Southern specialties, including pheasant with hen-of-the-woods mushrooms and Carolina Gold rice; and fried quail with sweet potato, pecans and sorghum. The sommelier matches everything and we try a couple desserts when we hear that the pastry chef has made a butElements is the formal restaurant, with its dominant ﬁreplace. The rack of lamb is from nearby Border Springs Farm.

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On the day we arrive, we hit the range with Rusty Greenwood – who’s brought several types of turkey calls – to test shotgun and shooter on paper targets. I’ve hunted before, but not wild turkey. Rusty advises some adjustments to my aim.

On our hunting days, we’re in full camouﬂage. We start well before sunrise; we must be in place, sitting silent, before the turkeys awaken. They’re wary – and they have excellent vision. Here Rusty has a female decoy.

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A place to rest after a day of hunting, dining, stargazing. The lodge is augmented by cottages, “tree houses” and “mountain homes”; this is a room in one of them.

FEATURE

termilk cake with lemon sorbet and a 1970s-throwback Marjolaine cake – this version layered with hazelnut, caramel gelato, and biscotti crumbs. After dinner, I’m eager to follow the spiral stairs to the top of the silo. The observatory fills the round fourth floor and is outfitted with computer screens, a 70x zoom telescope to see deep into space, and a rotating roof that opens to allow pinpointing of specific stars and constellations. Astronomy-savvy guides lead stargazing shows when weather permits. When we stop in, one of the guides flips a switch, causing the entire roof to spin slowly and open a slot to the sky, reminding me of a scene in the movie Austin Powers. This is high-tech cool, and I understand why the observatory is popular with guests who sign up nightly for a chance to see stars that are light years away from this Virginia hilltop.

’m looking at a dark sky again at 5 a.m. when Greenwood comes to pick us up at the Bobcat, one of Primland’s mountain homes. We’re ready to go, wearing camouflage-patterned gear from head to toe. Turkeys have excellent vision. “They can see a gnat on your neck,” Greenwood tells us. We drive a few miles and park at the bottom of a hill, quietly getting out of the truck without slamming doors. Everyone is moving carefully – speaking only in whispers and trying not to step on twigs. An overnight cold snap has temperatures in the mid30s with no wind. The sun hasn’t come up yet when we get to a hilltop where the woods open to a small field, and Greenwood points to a pine tree at the field’s edge for me to sit against. He sets up the female turkey decoy in the opening, several yards away. We all sit, then wait. I’ve got camo netting over my face, and a camo-marked shotgun on my lap. The morning’s first light is slowly coming on. Timing is essential to our plan. We are in place and sitting still before the turkeys are even awake. Greenwood is listening intently to hear them come down from the trees. I don’t know if I’d detect that, but I’m listening hard, too. So much so that when two crows fly past just overhead, I hear the pounding beat of their wings. Several minutes go by. The whippoorwills are calling. It’s a beautiful, clear-sky morning. Something rustles the grass to my right, and I’ve got my gun raised now, aimed near the decoy. We think that’s where the turkey will go. “Take the safety off,” Greenwood whispers. “Aim and squeeze when you’re ready.” Daylight is coming in fast and my heart is racing. We’ve been sitting a while and my fingers are cold. I hope I’ll be able to move them. “Low and to the right, low and to the right,” I keep repeating, silently. Then there’s a commotion. And wings. And, what’s that? Out of the grass flies something smaller, a flurry of gold and white. It’s no turkey, but a pheasant. On other days here, that would be a good thing. Primland also offers guided hunts for upland birds – pheasant, quail and the Chukar partridge, a native of Eurasia that, introduced here for hunting, fares well in the rugged terrain. But we’re here for native wild turkey. And we don’t give up. Greenwood is using his calls and he moves us to three locations that morning around the vast resort. We walk long, hilly trails, and we sit very still for spells of 20 minutes or more. His calls get responses from gobblers at all three. We hear their warbled, stuttering calls and the chatter of hens, and we see several turkeys in the distance – out of shooting range and always with hens. We spend the next pre-dawn and full morning the same way and with the same result. I never get a shot at a turkey. Later, I talk again with Steve Helms, who grew up in nearby Meadows of Dan and is a sportsman himself. He knows well that wild game hunting is a fair chase with no guarantees: “That’s why they call it hunting and not shooting.” I tip my borrowed camo ballcap to the turkeys. They outsmart many a hunter, I’m told. Besides, we had a couple of terrific days and nights at Primland, for a taste of spring in the Virginia mountains – delicious meals and starry nights – and a glimpse into the wile and wildness of birds.

One of the joys at Primland: The tree house lodgings are built around trees and perched high above river and gorge. Hawks and river and stars, all visible.

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3 THINGS THAT DESCRIBE CAM TEMPLETON Ca Cam’s success is achieved through a tremendous amount of discipline, dedication and hard work. She has taken her reputation to heights that de ar are unimaginable, as she celebrates her three plus decades in the Real Es Estate Profession. This Energetic Megastar has sold millions in volume. C Cam’s numerous awards include HRRA 1988 Salesperson of the Year, Virginia Association of Realtors’ Honor Society, Lifetime Chairman’s V Hall of Fame, Who’s Who in Residential Real Estate in North America H aand since 1976 previous - Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Pearl, Diamond aand Emerald Awards.

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VOL.26

Some keep their heavy hitters in the cellar. We keep ours in the kitchen.

ood and wine are more than menu items at Atlantic Shores, they are a passion. And our residents are the beneficiaries. Let’s start in the kitchen. Our Executive Chef, Eric Doarnberger, skillfully assisted by 25 trained chefs, has created inventive menus filled with dishes made of the freshest and finest ingredients. Like any fine dining restaurant, we offer signatures dishes such as Honey Crusted Chicken and Grilled Rosemary Salmon Skewers with Tarragon Rice Pilaf. But we also tempt with specialty dishes like Boursin Crusted Filet Mignon with Fire Roasted Prawns, Braised Duck Breast, Lobster and Tarragon Bisque, and much more. As a showcase, we also host premier dinners three times every month. Residents have three daily restaurant options, from casual to fine. We also accommodate dietary needs, and offer delivery service. Did someone say wine? Of course we offer a wide range of wine selections for dining, but we pay special attention to the social aspect of the noble grape, as well. We arrange wine tastings on the last Thursday of every month, often led by a wine expert or vintner. We also organize multiple wine festivals every year, while residents are welcome to attend a happy hour every afternoon. And, every Friday, we host TGIF events with live entertainment. We invite you to learn more about the amazing food, wine and social aspects of Atlantic Shores. Just arrange a visit today, or soon. It will give us the chance to show you plenty more reasons why life at Atlantic Shores is the area’s most desirable retirement community. Simply call 757.716.3000 or go online today.

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RAISING THE BAR

SAMUELS PORCH Bourbon, the hearty American spirit favored by Southern gentlemen and cigar-smoking power brokers, is generally not for the faint of heart. Bob Gallagher wanted to change that perception when he concocted the Samuels Porch for Gosport Tavern in Portsmouth, where he was general manager. His goal: a cocktail to please bourbon aficionados and novices alike. For this inventive take on the Old Fashioned, he started with fresh ginger grated over a pewter julep cup. Next he added a few drops of cherry bitters and a quick pour of St-Germain elderflower liqueur. He topped it all with a generous portion of Maker’s 46 – a longer-aged Maker’s Mark bourbon – and ice. He strained the ginger pulp from the completed cocktail, poured it over fresh ice and ran an orange rind over the rim of the chilled cup before twisting it into a decorative spiral. The Maker’s 46 offers a bold, smooth bourbon flavor tempered by the gentle sweetness and floral aroma of the liqueur, the smoky tartness of the cherry bitters and the crisp, citrusy finish of the orange and ginger. The result is a light, complex cocktail, a perfect slow sip. Its namesake? Maker’s Mark founder Bill Samuels Sr. and son Bill Jr., with whom Gallagher envisioned drinking the cocktail on a sunny back porch. BY KATHY HIEATT PHOTOGRAPH BY KEITH LANPHER

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613 Virginia Beach Blvd. Virginia Beach, VA 23451 757.453.6644 Office 757.453.6621 Fax www.hudsonsluxury.com

PARTING SHOT “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” We hear it so often. But does it have to be either/ or? Isn’t it both? In our small but growing community of artisans, we ﬁnd people doing what they do well, joining forces with people who do what they do well. Take this electric bike at Phoebus’ Prince Ink. It was hand-lettered by Beach sign painter Igor Acord. It reminds us: We are people, not cogs. Every connection we make is important. PHOTOGRAPH BY KEITH LANPHER