Country Zest & Style Fall 2022 Edition

WIND FIELDS FARM

MIDDLEBURG, VIRGINIA

OUT WEST

WARRENTON, VIRGINIA

Gracious home with impressive renovated kitchen Hardwood floors, substantial millwork and fine finishes and 4 fireplaces | Perfectly sited to enjoy the views of surrounding farmland | 5 bedrooms, home office, large family room, newly resurfaced tennis court, wonderful pool with cabana and 4 bedroom guest house with workshop/3 stall stable | Large field for turn out, 1 paddock and lovely hay field

acres in

MacMahon

recorded

MARSHALL, VIRGINIA

BELLE VIEW FARM

WATERFORD, VIRGINIA

acres

homes,

sweeping views,

condition

House”

Grove” - Stone and frame construction,

wood floors “Tenant House” - Frame construction,

UPPERVILLE, VIRGINIA

44.55 acres of which 15 acres are producing grapes

MIDDLEBURG, VIRGINIA

| Historic stone Quaker barn completely restored, 12 stalls,

more

MacMahon

1

TOURNAMENT ROAD

WARRENTON, VIRGINIA

Custom

helen MacMahon

8.5 acres of Chambourcin, Traminette on 4.3 acres and Vidal Blanc on 2.1 acres | Vineyard infrastructure includes fencing, irrigation system and computerized well | Perc site for 4 bedroom home

Property is in conservation easement |

can be converted to Residential

Paul MacMahon

MacMahon

JOHN MARSHALL HIGHWAY

MARKHAM,

OH BABY!

PHOTOS BY Vicky Moon and friends

Paragon Philharmonia

Sunday, October 2, 2022, 5:00 pm

Autumn Hues

Britten Simple Symphony

Copland ‘Quiet City’ for English Horn, Trumpet and Strings

Haydn Symphony No. 44 in E Minor, “Trauer”

Grace Church Concert Series

Sunday, October 16, 2022, 5:00 pm

VOCES8

There is for us something inherently comforting about the sound of unaccompanied voices in harmony, and if this program shows one thing, it is that composers across the ages have felt the same way.

Paragon Philharmonia

Sunday, November 6, 2022, 5:00 pm

Brahms Piano Quintet Featuring Tanya Gabrielian

Mozart String Quartet in B-flat major “The Hunt” (Movement I) Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor

Grace Church Concert Series

Saturday, November 19, 2022, 5:00 pm

Washington National Opera’s CAFRITZ YOUNG ARTISTS

We welcome some of America’s most talented rising stars of the stage and explore the whole gamut of emotions with high-flying showstoppers, powerful ensembles, and tender melodies from opera and musical theatre’s most beloved titles.

For tickets please visit: http://artsintheplains.org/

Just like dad, matching Vans checkerboard slip-ons.

Berend has supper at the Buchanan Hall Farmers Market.

This one is the hot dog princess. Do we think Hannah Fitzgerald loves this pony?

Dorothy Adelaide Swain is named for her great-grandmother, Dorothy Smithwick.

Lola stopped at the Upper Crust for ice cream.

e

le

Country

ZEST & Style

Personalities, Celebrations and Sporting Pursuits

© 2022 Country ZEST & Style, LLC.

Published six times a year

Distributed and mailed throughout the Virginia countryside and in Washington and at key Sporting Pursuits and Celebrations

MAILING ADDRESS:

P.O. Box 798

Middleburg, Virginia 20118

PHONE: 410-570-8447

Editor: Leonard Shapiro badgerlen@aol.com

Art Director Meredith Hancock Hancock Media

Contributing Photographers: Doug Gehlsen

Crowell Hadden

Sarah Huntington

Missy Janes

Douglas Lees Karen Monroe

Tiffany Dillon Keen Donna Strama

Contributing Writers:

Emma Boyce

Sean Clancy

Kerry Dale

Philip Dudley Mike du Pont

Carina Elgin

Valerie Archibald Embrey

Jimmy Hatcher

M.J. McAteer

Joe Motheral

Jodi Nash

Tom Northrup

Ali Patusky

Melissa Phipps

Pat Reilly

Linda Roberts

Eugene Scheel Anita Sherman

John Sherman

Peyton Tochterman

John Toler

Leslie VanSant

Jimmy Wofford Louisa Woodville

For advertising inquiries, contact: Leonard Shapiro at badgerlen@aol.com or 410-570-8447

ON THE COVER

This month’s cover is actually an action shot. Not necessarily a sports action photograph, but our co-subject, River, like many young autistic children in new situations, can be easily distracted. When taking pictures of kids and pets, I usually have to take a lot of images to get a few keepers. The cover of this issue was incredibly easy thanks to Molly Mosher, who teaches autistic youngsters, and River’s mother, Tiffany Dillon Keen, who perfectly captured River’s attention and kept him focused on taking the pictures. The steamer trunk is a family heirloom.

/ Country Zest and Style / @countryzestandstyle

@countryzestand1 www.countryzestandstyle.com

of NOTE

BE ON THE LOOKOUT through this issue of

ZECountry ZEST & Style Country

for the hummingbird.

Country

ZEST & Style

He appears in two ads and the first two readers to find him (one each) will receive a gift from THE RED TRUCK Rural Bakery, with locations in Warrenton and Marshall. Send your reply to badgerlen@aol.com

FILLING A NEED

Our

cover headline—“Special Needs, Very Special People”—surely applies to a wide variety of stories in this issue of Country ZEST.

That’s Molly Mosher pictured on the cover. She’s a dedicated teacher in the Loudoun County school system who specializes in working with autistic children. The precious little boy with the beaming smile in the photo is River Keen, the six-year-old son of ZEST photographer Tiffany Dillon Keen.

Molly and River, diagnosed with autism as a toddler, only met for the first time on the day of the photo shoot at photographer Doug Gehlsen’s studio off the St. Louis Road. But clearly it was a perfect match, as the final result from Doug’s camera will attest. On the inside, Vicky Moon completes the picture with an illuminating story on Molly’s remarkable career.

We have an intriguing piece on the innovative Middleburg Community Charter School by Linda Roberts, and that faculty has two gifted special needs teachers, as well—Anne Barlow and Kelsey Smith.

Middleburg’s A Place to Be helps its clients navigate and overcome life’s challenges using clinically based practices of music therapy. There’s a new executive director, Judy Hanley, and writer Peyton Tochterman, a fine musician and gifted Hill School teacher, has contributed a profile. And the Community Music School of the Piedmont also offers music therapy.

Lori Daly, a longtime Middleburg resident and president of Diversifi Consulting Group, recently held a workshop for local businesses on how to best serve disabled clients. Writer Carina Elgin attended and reported on the informative session.

Check out first-time contributor CatiAdele Slater’s piece on raising a puppy for a year of training to become a service dog. It’s under the auspices of Canine Companion for Independence (CCI), a nonprofit organization that breeds, trains, and pairs dogs with people living with disabilities, helping them lead a life of greater independence.

Humans have special needs, and so do horses. In this issue, we’ve profiled seven local equine veterinarians who care for a wide variety of patients, many of them athletes involved in racing, show jumping, eventing and fox chasing.

And we’re especially delighted to report on the return of our great friend, Dr. Norris Adams, a long-time and widely-regarded equine surgeon, to Virginia Tech’s Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg.

There’s plenty more to savor, including John Toler’s nostalgic look back at a sadly long-gone Warrenton institution, Ben & Mary’s restaurant. And John Sherman has another delightful Letter from Paris, (Virginia, of course) on his life as a serial gardener and ground hog warrior.

And so, as we bid adieu to a long, hot summer and welcome a far more refreshing fall, sit back and add a little ZEST to your reading pleasure, air conditioning not necessary.

Leonard Shapiro Editor Badgerlen@aol.com

Doug Gehlsen and Karen Monroe of Middleburg Photo

Middleburg Country Estate

30 acres $5,900,000

Spectacular Country Estate with manicured lawns, lush woodlands and towering trees. Superbly built in a classic Tuscan style architecture, it includes 5 bedrooms 8 1/2 baths, 8 fireplaces and wood, stone and marble floors.

Jim McGowan | 703-927-0233

Aldie Commercial

.5 acres

$1,050,000

Extraordinary opportunity to own an income producing property on John Mosby Highway in Aldie. Ideally located with great visibility, excellent parking and commercially zoned. A fantastic investment opportunity in this charming historic village!

Brian McGowan | 703-927-4070

18+ acres

Eagle Rest Aldie Residential

$3,095,000

Exquisite estate on a picturesque country road minutes from Middleburg! 7 BR / 8 BA, 10,000 SF of spectacular living space for a gracious & luxurious life style. Sweeping lawns & brilliant gardens, plus a free form heated pool & spa – all in a magical setting!

Jim McGowan | 703-927-0233

1 acre $1,290,000

Beautiful and completely renovated 4 BR, 4.5 bath historic residence with over 3000 SF of charm and superior quality! All new systems, Anderson windows, silestone counters, plus a one BR apartment above, with separate entrance. 2 bay garage.

Brian McGowan | 703-927-4070

Bloomfield Estate

95+ acres $2,100,000

Spectacular parcel ideally located just north of Middleburg outside of the historic village of Unison. Private and secluded, with views of both the Blue Ridge and Bull Run Mountains. Open fields, lush pastures and beautiful woodlands.

Jim McGowan | 703-927-0233

44 acres

$1,995,000

Ideally located on a quiet country road just east of historic Middleburg. Gracious Cape Cod home is completely renovated and available immediately. Center hall floorplan, light filled rooms, huge gourmet kitchen, six car attached garage.

Brian McGowan | 703-927-4070

10+ acres $1,700,000

Stunning custom built colonial in pristine condition. Over 5000 sq. ft. with a fabulous open floor plan, 4/5 BRs, 5.5 BAs, granite counter tops, refinished HW floors, new carpeting and freshly painted. 2400 sq.ft. stable, 2 fenced paddocks, automatic waterers.

Brian McGowan

acres $1,450,000

Upperville – Exquisite 4 BR

21180 St. Louis

10 acres $1,395,000

Middleburg – Charming property includes all the amenities for a turn key equestrian’s dream. 3 BRs, 3 full and 2 half baths, with a luxurious new primary BR and BA. Riding ring, board fenced paddocks, 5 stall stable with heated tack room.

Brian McGowan | 703-927-4070

.63 acres

Wayside

$1,275,000

Upperville – Historic residence in lovely setting. Beautifully updated, high ceilings, 2 kitchens, a conservancy w/brick floors, walled in terrace w/gardens. Ideal for gracious entertaining. Guest cottage w/front porch, comfortable rooms and mountain views.

Mary Ann McGowan | 540-270-1124

acres

703-927-4070

N. Jay Street

gorgeous three level Town Home

wonderfully located in prestigious

Run, in the charming village of historic Middleburg.

luxurious country living and a carefree lifestyle in a lovely, sought-after community.

Brian McGowan

Back to a Virginia Future for Dr. Adams

By Leonard Shapiro

Veterinary surgeon Dr. Norris Adams would like to think he’s back where he belongs, living and working in surroundings he and his wife Chris, also a highly-skilled equine veterinarian, have always adored.

On Oct. 1, he returned to Virginia Tech’s Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg after a year of practicing in Unionville, Pennsylvania. He’s listed there as a clinical associate professor of equine surgery, and the chance to focus virtually exclusively on elective surgery at the Virginia facility where he had previously spent 13 years was simply too good to pass up.

A native of upstate New York and known to one and all as “Norrie,” Dr. Adams earned a bachelor of science degree from Cornell University in 1988, and a doctor of veterinary medicine in 1992 from Mississippi State University.

After receiving his DVM, he completed an internship at the Alamo Pintado Equine Medical Center in Los Olivos, California. He then entered private equine practice and spent a year in Saratoga Springs, New York, and a year in western Pennsylvania, before completing a residency in large animal surgery at the University of Minnesota in 1998. He achieved Diplomate status through the American College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1999.

In Leesburg, Dr. Adams, 56, will be working with horses involved in all manner of athletic pursuits.

"It takes time to build up the expertise for this kind of elective surgery, especially bone and joint issues, correcting conformational flaws,” he said. “The surgery I’ll be doing will have a real impact on the quality of their lives, and that’s very rewarding.

“I do a lot of young animals in development, removing bone chips associated with growth and assuring their life as an athlete later on. It’s racehorses, show horses, Three-Day Eventers, a lot of fox hunters. Virginia has such a diverse population of equine athletes, and that’s pretty darned exciting.”

BY THE NUMBERS

Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center Leesburg, Virginia

The affable Dr. Adams has always had a faithful following, so much so that many of his clients in Virginia transported their horses to Pennsylvania so that he could continue treating them there.

“That just didn’t seem right to me,” he said of another reason to return to the Commonwealth. “Coming back allows me to see so many loyal clients more efficiently. Half of my practice in Pennsylvania were people coming from Virginia.”

He and Chris have moved back to the Aldie area on a far different property than their last Virginia residence in Waterford, where they had a farm and raised cattle and sheep.

Their son, 21-year-old Darby, now a senior at Penn State studying mining engineering, also helped out on the farm, but the family has now moved to a mostly wooded property.

“Moving to Pennsylvania was partly a desire to downsize,” he said, adding that he’s now thinking about getting a sawmill, “and that should keep me

So

By Leonard Shapiro

what’s a fellow with an English degree from William & Mary doing in a place like the Piedmont Equine Practice (PEP) between Marshall and The Plains.

Dr. Joe Davis is doing exactly what he’s always loved since his mother put him on a pony at the age of six. Now in his fourth decade as an equine veterinarian, he specializes in sports medicine and treating lameness as one of four partners in the practice he joined in 1997.

Two of his partners, John Nolan and Paul Anikis, were his classmates when all three were in vet school together at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech, graduating in the class of 1991. The fourth, Sean Bowman, also graduated from the same school in 1995.

And why did Dr. Davis abandon English in favor of dealing primarily with horses fitted with English saddles?

“Actually I wanted to be a vet when I was in high school,” he said, adding that after college, “I thought to myself that at some point I was going to have to make a living.”

Horses have always played a significant role in his life. The son of a Navy man, Davis and his family moved to Warrenton before he began ninth grade at Fauquier High School. He likes to say he was probably the only kid on his team picked up after

Photo © by Leonard Shapiro Dr. Joe Davis

football practice and taken to a riding lesson.

Over the years, he’s competed in dressage and other equine disciplines, fox hunted and been a pony club dad for his two adult children. He also admitted that as a young fox chaser, he wasn’t especially enamored with going tally ho because it wasn’t particularly competitive and far too social.

These days, he and his wife, Pam, a vet in Piedmont’s small animal practice, are hunting with

Old Dominion twice a week. “I like it now because it is non-competitive and social,” he said. “I don’t need the stress of being competitive.”

He deals daily with hugely competitive four-legged athletes at Piedmont’s six-acre facility. Treating the lameness of horses competing in three-day eventing, show jumping, steeplechase and flat racing and all those fox chasers is a huge part of his practice.

The facility has a variety of surfaces on its six acres to judge a horse’s gait, including asphalt, grass, packed blue stone, and arena footing. There are 14 stalls for overnight stays and two isolation stalls to assure that ill horses will be kept away from the general population.

In addition to the four partners, PEP also has four associate vets, two surgeons and four interns to deal with just about any equine problem, including emergencies. They also are very much into using regenerative medicine, treating horses with stem cell and platelet rich plasma among other cutting edge techniques.

“Many times were dealing with professional athletes,” Dr. Davis said. “They get aches and pains and sometimes worse from the demands of their sports—joint inflammation, soft tissue issues.

“This part of Virginia is an eclectic area as far as horses are concerned. You go to Kentucky or Florida and it’s pretty much all Thoroughbred. We get a much bigger variety here, and that always makes it interesting.”

By Pat Reilly

K

atie Fitzgerald comes from a family of veterinarians—mother, father, brother, uncle, sister-inlaw and even a cousin. She’s the only one in the family, though, who works exclusively with horses.

“I resisted it at first because it’s what my parents did, but now I can’t picture myself doing anything else,” she said. “Horses are amazing animals. I’m in awe of how beautiful, strong, and yet, trusting they are.”

Fitzgerald grew up riding and training horses in central Pennsylvania, and knew early on that she wanted to spend her life working with them. That took her to the University of Pennsylvania, where she graduated in 2010, followed by an internship at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Much as she credits the hospital with her expertise, she said, she missed the East Coast, where she did her undergraduate degree at Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Though she first came to the Piedmont in 2015, Fitzgerald didn’t get the polo bug until a couple of years ago. Now she plays in the newly formed Piedmont Ladies League once a week.

Like many equine veterinarians, Fitzgerald has an ambulatory practice. She specializes in breeding and sales preparation for yearlings, but that’s only a quarter of her business. The rest is general care, sport and herd health and emergencies.

Julie Coles had a new pony for her grandchildren with a very thick mane and used an electric clipper for a bridle patch. “It created a spot that seemed as if it was hurting him,” Coles said. She called Dr. Fitzgerald in near panic and she told Coles what to do on the phone and everything was fine.

On her farmette at English Chase in Marshall, where she has a three-stall barn, she has two pregnant mares in the field at the moment. She named the farm Southbelle after her Pennsylvania home.

“I’m so lucky to call this home,” she said, adding that she was welcomed to ride a hunt and sends her two-year-old daughter Hannah to a local Montessori School. “I love the community and the sense of community this area has.” Hannah already has the horse bug.

“We were at a polo game and she was riding around on one of the horses,” she said. “She’s too comfortable on horses.”

And as a rider herself, Fitzgerald said, “I understand what my clients are asking. I’ve also been in the Thoroughbred business and own horses myself.”

Julie Coles had a sweet, new pony for her grandchildren with a very thick, Shetland-like mane. “He had so much forelock that he couldn’t see. So, for starters, I held up a one-inch piece of it to make a bridle path and began by taking a whack with a pair of scissors. I thought, wow, this is some strong mane and wondered why I had to push so hard to get the job done,” Coles said.

“Then I SCREAMED as I saw the gaping, silver-dollar sized hole of flesh I’d just created in the poor pony’s neck! I was absolutely freaking out as I called and texted a picture of it to Katie. The pony just stood there like a champ. It was surreal.” Coles explained how Dr. Fitzgerald calmed her down and in a very reassuring voice stated what to put on it, how often to do so and said that it was all going to be ok. “She made me feel not quite so stupid and that this brave, little pony would be fine, which he was very quickly. Katie’s demeanor is typically kind and relaxed. She’s very smart with unwavering integrity. It’s no surprise that she’s also become a close friend. We trust her.”

Photo by Candace Boissy

Dr. Katie Fitzgerald with daughter Hannah and Stella

You’ve

the race…

Safety First for Veteran Vet Willie McCormick

By Emma Boyce

The annual Internation al Gold Cup races in The Plains will draw thousands to Great Meadow on Oct. 22 to witness a horse sport tradition spanning nearly a century. In addition to all those champagne-laden tailgates and derby-worthy fancy hats, Middleburg’s veteran veterinari an Dr. William (Willie) McCor mick of the Middleburg Equine Clinic will be on hand to make certain that all equine athletes are fit to run.

RIVERDEE STABLE & CLANCY BLOODSTOCK

In recent decades, the prerace vet check has become the standard in equine sports. In steeplechase, this practice includes observing the horse jogging for lameness caused by palpating tendons and suspensory ligaments, thereby avoiding further injury and potential tragedy on the field.

“The safety [of the horses] depends on professional horsemen accepting that what they think might be a minor injury should be examined more closely,” said McCormick, who specializes in sports medicine. “By the time a vet comes to the paddock and sees the horse jog lame, you know that horse should have been taken care of long ago.”

A Middleburg native, McCormick is no stranger to horse sports. Before attending vet school at the University of Pennsylvania, he competed in show jumping competitions, fox hunted, and captained the 1967-68 University of Virginia polo team. He also rode for several notable trainers, including Tommy Fields and Don Yovanovich.

Over the course of a few years, McCormick went from riding horses to working on them.

In 1974, after a year-long internship with the Delaware Equine Clinic in Pennsylvania, McCormick returned to Middleburg to practice. Back then, prerace veterinary oversight didn’t exist in the steeplechase world. An appointed veterinarian usually stood by during races with the grim understanding that they should be on the ready to euthanize an animal in the event of a career-ending injury sustained out on the course.

Not until the early 1990s did the Virginia Steeplechase Association adopt the practice of vetting horses before competition. That year, the racing committee reached out to McCormick to see if he would serve as the on-site, race-day veterinarian. He agreed on one condition: implementing some type of vet check to avoid preventable injuries.

“That was a big weakness [in steeplechase races],” said McCormick. “There was grumpiness about it, and then the [then] chair of the racing committee, Lewis Wiley said, ‘Well, we don’t want any lame horses running,’ so we had permission and a bunch of us got a protocol together.”

That marked the beginning of a new age in steeplechase safety. Despite initial rumblings in the steeplechase community, a quarter of a century later, the vet check is mandatory.

“If anybody, heaven forbid, was not ready to run, then we would scratch those horses. It’s pretty standard procedure,” McCormick said. In the 25 years, the fatalities have gone down dramatically.

McCormick added that similar safety advances have occurred in the flat racing community thanks to vigilant veterinarians and new technology.

These days, the National Steeplechase Association has a committee dedicated to assuring the well-being of both horse and jockey. On that cool Saturday morning in October when International Gold Cup race day arrives and all those tailgates are overflowing with joy and bubbly, equestrians and non-equestrians alike can relax knowing that the horses are definitely in good hands.

Photo by Douglas Lees Willie McCormick

Farm Thanksgiving Turkeys

It’s About the Joy of Horses for Dr. Joyce

By Ali Patusky

When you think about an equine veterinarian, you might be sur prised to know that Dr. Jay Joyce once prepared for his future profession by aiming darts at Cape Buffalo while hanging from a helicopter.

Dr. Joyce, who owns Total Equine Veterinary Associates and the Nova Fitness Center, equine rehab facility fits that picture perfectly.

After graduating from the Naval Academy and spending the 1990s in the Navy, Joyce decided to change careers.

“The military was a great place to be, but very predictable,” he said. “I was like ‘I want more than that.’”

While stationed in Washington, D.C., he found his new direction at a friend’s small animal clinic, where he spent his free weekends. “I held dogs for x-rays and procedures,” he said. “There was no part of me that thought I’d be a vet at first.”

Nevertheless, he was captivated enough to spend two years taking night classes at the University of Maryland just to complete the requirements for veterinary school.

From there, he was accepted to eleven of them, ending up at the University of CaliforniaDavis. While there, he also spent two summers in South Africa, hanging from helicopters to dart Cape Buffalo for a tuberculosis study and implanting tracking devices in rattlesnakes.

Those experiences, he said, “certainly honed me in on animal handling and safety. You could never let your guard down. It also made me realize the collaborative nature of the profession.”

After earning his degree, he realized the Washington region’s “high density of horses” made it the obvious location to start a practice. He moved to the area in 2003.

“Being in Northern Virginia allows me access to the type of clientele that I’ve always wanted to serve,” he said. “We have people that not only want a super healthy horse, but also a healthy athlete, because the riders are athletes themselves.”

Total Equine Veterinary Associates opened in Leesburg in 2010 with a “total care” approach focusing on nutrition and fitness, in addition to lameness and injuries. The practice is now mobile. His new Aldie based rehab facility is at the Northern Virginia Equestrian Center which he operates. This includes an equine water treadmill and solarium that can be used for rehabilitation, fitness, reconditioning and recovery.

“The favorite part of my days is that I get to mix together all the things that make me happy,” Joyce said. “My sense of service is strong, to the community and the animals and I get to couple that with driving my truck on a dirt road, fixing things, and spending time with the animal I respect the most.”

Joyce also spends several days a month at the racetrack in Charles Town, West Virginia. He works as one of the state’s on-site vets to ensure the safety for all involved if a horse flips, spooks or has some type of lameness that may even lead to scratching from the race.

And for aspiring veterinarians, Joyce said, “Don’t be afraid to think about veterinary school later in life. You can bring something fresh to the profession. And be a large animal vet. There’s a scarcity.”

Photo by Erin Gilmore courtesy. The equine water treadmill and solarium at Dr. Jay Joyce’s Nova Fitness Center near Aldie has an oscillating and vibrating floor |that builds back and core muscles.

A SUMMER TO REMEMBER, AND FORGET

By Sean Clancy

How was your summer?

It’s the easiest, most innocuous icebreaker at each event any September. We ask it. We’re asked it. At Hill School events. At fall races. At sidewalk meetings between the bakery and the post office.

I used to answer it the same way: “Great…fun… too short…” If they wanted more or knew us more, I’d add in details of baseball games, eight weeks putting out a newspaper in Saratoga and maybe a road trip to see my parents. They would share their stories, beach trips and backyard barbecues, trips abroad and dreams achieved.

This year, I hesitate for a moment, stutter for a second and wonder how I should answer it. Do they know? Do they care? My answers depend on each.

The Saratoga Special. August 6.

“Our barn’s on fire...”

Annie’s call at 11:50. Saturday morning.

The centerpiece of our farm, the 1800s bank barn. Green, with white trim, the criss-crossed stall doors, the old one-piece metal roof, the shedrow annex, three stalls, the perfect sidekick. A masterpiece of simplicity. Those beautiful lines, built into the natural slope of our 30-acre farm in Middleburg.

It’s like the barn came first and then God laid the land around it. It’s why we bought the farm. It’s the beacon. We moved the driveway so you would see it first as you visited the farm, drift past, a long, slow admiration, and then to the house. People couldn’t drive too fast up our driveway, off the driveway sure, the barn grabbing them like the first notes of Miles Davis, the first strokes of Munnings.

We bought the farm right after having Miles nearly 13 years ago. Our place for him to grow up, for us to grow old. We didn’t even like the house. We loved the barn…

Our life’s work.

Sure, a working barn, cattle first, the late Duffy Rathbun’s homegrown broodmares and foals and then our horses. Teddy and Border and Blue and Kiss and Eagle Poise and Perfect and White Man and Roy and Apse and Seth and Gameboy and Courage and Lemonade and all our other beautiful friends over all our beautiful years.

“The horses are out. The cat’s out. The goat’s out. Annie and Miles are out…”

That’s how our neighbor, Steven Putnam, broke the seven minutes of silence from when Annie hung up and he answered his phone.

“It’s gone, buddy. Gone. It’s a 100 percent loss. But everybody’s out. Everybody’s out. That’s the important part.”

I took a stunted, stammering sigh of relief. If it could possibly be called relief. Tears had welled. Then they flowed. One staple, one standby, one stable thing in our ever-unstable lives is gone. And my beautiful, strong, rock-solid wife and my young, impressionable, vulnerable son are the ones staring at charred timber, staring into our broken lives. While I write a newspaper about a hobby of a sport.

“You’re coming home...” Annie said minutes later.

The Stable Tour, about Wesley Ward who dealt with a barn fire this summer, will wait. Joe can write the Oaks preview with the Charlie Appleby quotes I had taken a few hours earlier when life seemed so different, and was so different. Tom Law and Paul Halloran and the cub reporters will cover the Whitney Day card.

My hands shake. Get it together, Sean. Stop crying. Get on the road, get home, where you belong.

It’s been two months and we slowly, tepidly go forward. As a mentor always says when times are testing, “forward progress.” It has been an arduous task trying to move forward when you’ve been sent hurtling backward in a gut punch you never saw coming.

Border, Blue, Kiss and Eagle Poise live in the front field. Apse and Lemonade Thursday live in their third barn since the fire, four if you count their old barn. Eli, the one-horned pygmy goat, lives in an old wooden shed found and delivered by a gracious neighbor. Duchess, the barn cat, lives under the floorboards of the tractor shed, being fitted with emergency stalls.

As for Annie, Miles and me, we had a tough summer. Thanks for asking. Thanks for being there.

Sean Clancy

to 541 +/- acres of beautiful

hills

pasture located in Flint Hill, Virginia. This scenic property is surrounded by unspoiled countryside and expansive views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, offering a private and quiet escape to enjoy. The farm consists of 7 residences, a 10-stall barn, and 8-acre spring fed pond, all protected by conservation easement.

Harness Racing Continues in Woodstock Through Nov. 6

Shenandoah

Downs opened its seventh season of pari-mutuel harness racing in mid-September at the Shenandoah County Fairgrounds in Woodstock, Virginia and its eight-week “Harness The Mountain Magic” campaign --- its longest ever --- will run through Nov. 6.

The first five weeks feature race programs every Friday at 3 p.m. and Saturday at 1 p.m. During the final three weeks -- beginning Oct. 22 --- the schedule will shift to a Saturday and Sunday format with cards starting at 1 p.m.

The meet highlight is the 25th running of the $640,000 Virginia Breeder’s Championships which will close out the season on Sunday, Nov. 6. Two and three-year-old pacers and trotters of both sexes will compete in eight divisional championships, each worth a minimum $80,000 purse. The “Day of Champions” event has been conducted at Colonial Downs from 1998-2014, at Oak Ridge Race Course in 2015 and at Shenandoah Downs since.

Friday “Happy Hour” cards will feature $2 draft beers and $1 hot dogs. Saturday programs will commence at 1 p.m. and feature a different promotion each week.

The Virginia Harness Horse Association (VHHA) will sponsor the popular “Own a Horse for a Day” promotion on four separate occasions this fall. A total of 32 fans --- eight each time the promotion is conducted --- will receive the unique chance to “own” a horse in a $5,250 race. Winners will visit their respective horse and connections in the paddock and collect the amount of purse money their horse earns in the race. One lucky “owner” --- during each of the four promotions --- will walk away with $2,625, which is 50 percent of the purse.

Parking and admission are free and the races are family friendly. Wagering is available on every race.

On the track, horsemen will enjoy purse and bonus enhancements courtesy of the state’s Historical Horse Racing (HHR) robust revenue stream. Average daily  purse distribution for overnight races will be $75,000 per day. Horses that finish sixth through eighth will receive a $100 stipend. Purses for Breeder’s Fund races, including eliminations and finals over the last three weekends, will total $824,000.

In addition, horses that are 100 percent owned by a Virginia resident will get a 50 percent bonus on overnight races, and drivers/trainers that are Virginia residents will get a 50 percent bonus on overnights. In 2021, a total of $56,000 in bonus money was doled out along with $16,000 in stipends.

ALNELL

Paragon Partners Prefer This Practice

By Pat Reilly

Aparagon

is a model of excellence, and that’s what a team of two local veterinarians describe as their goal in setting up Paragon Equine Veterinary Services.

Dr. Jena Porto and Dr. Alexis Theiss met while working at a practice that taught them high standards, but didn’t provide the autonomy they both sought. They wanted to own their own operation.

“We discovered we had a similar work ethic and long-term goals,” Porto recalled. “We decided to go out on our own.”

lameness workups, skull, cervical, thoracic and lumbar imaging.

“We can see the images immediately,” Porto said. “Ultrasound is best for soft tissue injuries.”

One of the biggest challenges in equine care is client compliance.

“We can do our best to evaluate and diagnose, but we rely on owners to treat their horses,” she said. “Horses, by their nature, pose a challenge to their owners.”

Photo by Pat Reilly Veterinarians Alexis Theiss and Jena Porto

“I was at the mid-way point in my career,” Theiss said. “I didn’t want the second half to look like the first. I wanted to modify and manage the business in a way I think is ideal. We have mostly the same clients. It’s the same job, but it’s really fun making my own schedule. I can make the day flow the way I want.”

They are entirely ambulatory now. They have carved an area of service that includes south Loudoun, Fauquier, and eastern Clarke counties with a little bit of Prince William, as well.

Theiss specializes in reproduction, foals and sports medicine. Porto prefers sports medicine, dentistry and emergency medicine but prides herself in excelling as a general practitioner. Both have digital radiology machines in their trucks. This is ideal, they said, for pre-purchase exams, repository films,

Porto has a bachelor’s degree in animal science from Penn State University. She then completed her education with a veterinary degree from Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in 2012.

Theiss graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in biology before attending the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, where she received her DVM in 2004.

Theiss, who lives on a farm in Upperville, has a 3-year-old son, an 11-year-old daughter and a 17-yearold stepson. When she isn’t taking care of horses, she’s being a mother. Her farm is home to a couple of retired horses, a donkey and a menagerie of pets.

Porto lives in Purcellville in a house she and her husband built. She carries her Weimaraner, Daphne, with her on work rounds.

For the immediate future, they’re happy the way things are and their clients will attest that Paragon— as in a model of excellence—is the perfect name for their practice.

“We discovered we had a similar work ethic and long-term goals,” Porto recalled. “We decided to go out on our own.”

TALKIN’ TURKEYS

PHOTOS © BY Dillonkeenphotography.com

and fifty Broad Breasted Bronze turkeys are now roamin’ in the gloamin’ in a palatial pasture at Ayrshire Farm in Upperville. Farm manager Chris Damewood is overseeing their meticulous care and feeding as

organic and Certified Humane®. They’ll be dressed and ready to

Toms will be dressed out to 20 pounds and the hens will be

the freshest birds on the market.” And, they also will

Upperville.

time

Damewood

Ayrshire Farm manager Chris Damewood

Dave Olimpi Races, Rallies and Reveres Auto Royalty

By Leonard Shapiro

Fora few days virtually every August since 1986, Dave Olimpi has walked up and down the 18th fairway countless times at the world-famous Pebble Beach Links course in Monterey, California.

Olimpi, who lives in the Middleburg area, doesn’t play or follow golf. But he and thousands of fellow automobile aficionados make the annual pilgrimage to pay homage to more than 200 magnificent vintage vehicles on display all over the 500-plus yards of turf from tee to green high above the Pacific Ocean down below.

They’re on these hallowed golfing grounds for the annual and iconic Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. It’s the flagship event of Pebble Beach Automotive Week, considered by many as the world’s premier celebration of cars past, present and future.

According to Concours d’Elegance promotional literature, “This is the ultimate event for every car enthusiast…Each year, the finest collector cars gather on the 18th fairway…to compete to be named Best of Show — the ultimate award for automobiles.

“Experts critique their elegance, technical merit, and history. And crowds come from all corners of the globe to cheer their favorites. In tandem with the competition between extraordinary historic automobiles, the Concours also serves as host to some of the most anticipated concepts and new car debuts.”

Olimpi was there again a few months ago. He’s been in the car business all his adult life and is now a highly regarded consultant. Specializing in vintage, mostly European, vehicles—Ferrari, Porsche, Mercedes, Lancia—he assists clients near and far in marketing their automobiles.

He also judges the occasional Concours event as a hobby, and fulfilled a long-time bucket list goal when he was asked to judge the Ferrari class at the Pebble Beach event in 2017, and again in 2021.

Olimpi started his own vintage auto business in 1996 and now operates out of his home office. He also can assist clients in everything from routine service to specialized restorations, no matter the make. He also will expedite pre-purchase inspections, appraisals, auctions and vehicle transportation.

As such, he considers the Pebble Beach event as must-go, must-see.

“I went out there for the first time in 1986 and I was immediately hooked,” he said. “The week is a convention, it’s a trade show, it’s a competition. There are some incredible auctions with many high value cars, to put it mildly.”

Indeed, 790 cars sold for a sales totaling $469 million at the auctions in Monterey in August, and 110 cars went for $1 million or more, a record. The top sale for the week was at RM Sotheby’s when a 1955 Ferrari 410 Sport Spider sold for $22 million.

Olimpi grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs in the 1960s and ‘70s. He described that area back then as a hotbed of imported car dealerships.

“Like so many guys of my generation,” he said, “I was always drawn to cars.”

So much so that when a friend who was involved in a racing team asked Olimpi to join up as a codriver, he earned his competition license and began driving Porsche 911s on the International Motor Sports Association series of endurance events at storied venues like Sebring and Watkins Glen. He raced from 1972-77, and, he said, “it was always non-stop, working or racing.” After five years, it was time to stop racing.

These days, Olimpi occasionally competes in road rallies, also competitive events at far lower speeds where cars go out on a pre-charted route. The idea is not to see how fast they can zoom but how they can make it to check points at exactly the right time.

This past April, he and a friend from Florida who had recently purchased a vintage Lancia joined up with two other drivers in a BMW navigating back roads through Switzerland and Italy. They picked up the car in Zurich, then drove over 700 miles of paved roads, many of them through tricky and treacherous mountain passes.

Olimpi described it as “five days of driving as fast as we could from one lake to another in Switzerland and Northern Italy to break in a freshly-restored 1969 Lancia Fulvia 1600 HF over some of the most challenging roads I have ever driven on.”

One month later it was on to Pebble Beach. No golf, of course, but gorgeous vintage cars all around, just the way Dave Olimpi has always liked them.

The Lancia Olimpi helped break in around Switzerland and Italy.

Dave Olimpi

There’s No Monkeying Around with This Pottery

By Joe Motheral

Monkeytown

Pottery occupies a prominent place in the small town of Bluemont in western Loudoun County in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Amy Oliver has been holding court there for some time engaging in her favorite activity: making pottery.

She credits her mother with get ting her interested in art. As a little girl she liked coloring, and her mom taught her to draw and to “look at something and observe the details— to simply draw what you see.”

After taking art classes in high school, she studied drawing at North ern Virginia Community College. Her awakening to ceramics came when she at tended James Madison University and “when I discovered ceramics, it was love at first throw.”

An intricate Monkeytown Pottery Creation

Oliver described her work as “Stoneware functional with an artistic kind of twist.” She uses a mixture of various clays from a Georgia company she’s able to buy locally. She blends the clay with a bit of water and, “I throw pots on a Potters’ Wheel” before it goes into a kiln twice, the first time at 1,800 degrees and the second at 2,200 degrees.

“I glaze after the first firing,” Oliver said, “but I dip the pots in ‘slip’ before any firings and when they are leather hard I carve the drawings in. Slip and glaze are different things and I do both.”

Slip consists of a liquid mixture of slurry or clay and/or other materials while glazing can include silica and various metal oxides.

Her main products these days are vases and pots. One of her unfinished creations was marked with a message that reads “Has the slip but hasn’t been fired.”

“I just stare at the pot and something comes up,” she said of her creative process. “Like the clouds that look like a dragon.”

She posted an owl on the pot and added, “I just kind of use my imagination. It literally goes around the pot. An owl rides a horse. I do like to put a horse in every now and then. It gives the animal something to sit on.”

She makes many mugs because they are her most marketable item. “If you can drink out of something that is a work of art it just kind of improves your life,” she said. “I love to draw nature, especially birds that have a lot of personality and trees. I think I started drawing the birds just to decorate the trees. I carve in the trees first.”

Oliver teaches three ceramic classes a week and opens her studio twice a year for visitors. Her teaching motivates her and “I really love doing this.”

Her pottery can be seen at the Booth and Nadler Gallery in Marshall and the Tin Tip Art and Handmade Gallery in Winchester. A number of local businesses sell her pottery, and it’s also available at the Buchanan Hall Farmer’s Market in Upperville.

And why Monkeytown?

Oliver said her great grandfather owned the same property she now occupies and had a private zoo populated by monkeys, a chimpanzee and a mountain lion.

“The authorities came along one day and told him his zoo was illegal and he would have to shut it down,” she said. And so, he followed their instructions by simply opening all the cages and releasing them.

Monkeys were soon all over town. The pottery came many years later.

a venue for artists.

“As Operations Manager for the Art Show for the past ten years I have seen the show grow and provide a place where artists look forward to displaying and selling their work, as well as a place to get to know each other better,” said Donna Caudill. “This show has been very effective in bringing many parts of the community together over the years.”

The 2021 show drew 194 entries from 83 artists. A total of 50 works of art were sold, generating $13,967 in sales. Donations from sponsors totaled another $10,425.

Caudill leads a group of 15 volunteers from the church organize the show and gala each year, handling various aspects from purchasing food and beverages for the gala to the hanging of the works for the show. Additional volunteers are recruited for the run of the show to help things run smoothly.

Proceeds from the show and gala help support the church’s programs. The event is just one of many cultural opportunities hosted by the church during the year that include a concert series and theater performances.

a.m.

Piedmont Symphony Has Plenty to Celebrate

By Leonard Shapiro

The Piedmont Symphony Orchestra celebrated its 25th anniversary season in 2022, and there will be far more to celebrate in this, its upcoming 26th year of providing superb high-quality concerts every time they take the stage.

After all, face masks and proof of vaccination for Covid no longer will be necessary, either for the audience or the musicians. Wind instruments no longer will have to be totally sidelined, as they were for many months, nor will they be relegated to playing in an alcove away from the rest of the orchestra, as they were for several rehearsals at Buchanan Hall in Upperville last year.

When the orchestra does rehearse, they won’t have to stop after the first 30 minutes, leave the building to air it out, then come back 15 minutes later to continue preparations.

Best of all they’ll be performing again in front of live audiences at their home base at Warrenton’s Highland School Michael A. Hughes Performing Center with a full season of five concerts. The first will be at a different venue when the PSO and The Reston Chorale present: “Bohemian Rhapsody: The Music of Queen” Sunday, Oct. 23 at 4 p.m. at the Capital One Hall in Tysons, Virginia.

Despite all those recent roadblocks, the PSO still was able to make sweet music on a regular basis during the pandemic. Instead of live concerts, they performed for audiences watching and listening on their computers.

Upcoming concerts will remain available via streaming, but musical director and conductor Glenn Quader and PSO Board president Ernie Hueter hope audiences will return to get their music live, up close and personal. They’re also trying to attract new patrons and sponsors for what promises to be a spectacular season.

“We had a lot of challenges the last couple of years,” Hueter said. “Dealing with masks, keeping the orchestra together. Some of our artists were performing from home and we were showing it on our web site, too. When we did finally have live concerts, people were concerned about returning because of Covid.”

Said Quader, “the video helped us a lot. We did a lot of it at Buchanan Hall (in Upperville), a great venue acoustically and visually. Last year, we were able to get the wind instruments and percussion back in, and by the end of last season the masks came off. It’s started to feel like we were really performing again.”

In addition to his wonderful work with the PSO, Quader also is involved with several other area orchestras that encountered similar problems. Some musicians declined to be vaccinated “and just checked out,” he said. “This year is different. A lot of my colleagues do this as freelancers and they’re now back in the saddle and able to make a living.”

One of the PSO’s missions also involves outreach to local schools. That also was curtailed over the last two years. Previously, orchestra members visited schools to work with aspiring young musicians and their teachers. Quader is in the process of reconnecting. It’s been a bit complicated because all but two of those Fauquier music teachers are new to the system.

The orchestra is now inviting students to sit in on rehearsals at Highland and play with them on stage, a process that also will accelerate this year.

And there’s also a push to get more young people to attend concerts. The good news there: anyone under 18 gets in free, another reason to celebrate the upcoming 26th year of the PSO.

PSO & PSO Rock Band

The Reston Chorale present: “Bohemian Rhapsody: The Music of Queen”

SUNDAY OCTOBER 23, 2022 - 4 PM

PSO HOLIDAY CONCERT: “Messiah Sing Along” Plus traditional Holiday & Pops Favorites!

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2022 - 3 PM

PSO Young People’s Concert: “The Pines of Rome” Young Artists Competition & Student Art Contest

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2023 - 3 PM

“Ludwig!” All Beethoven Concert

In collatoration with the UMW Philharmonic Beethoven Festival

SUNDAY, APRIL 16, 2023 - 3 PM

“Russian Masters in Concert” Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky & Glinka

SUNDAY, JUNE 11, 2023 - 3 PM

NEW SEASON SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE ONLINE OCTOBER 1st THRU OCTOBER 15th FOR INFORMATION & TICKETS: www.piedmontsymphony.org

The PSO is Generously Funded in Part By:

Luminescence Foundation & The Ben-Dov Family

and Patricia

The Margaret Spilman Bowden

Crossfields

Glenn Quader, conductor and director of music for the Piedmont Symphony Orchestra

Local Social Entrepreneur Getting Close With KIN

By Leland Schwartz

Alain

Chetrit calls it the “network of networks,” put together to provide a new source of “knowledge capital” to those working on scalable solutions to the United Nations Global Goals.

The world’s social entrepreneurs need contributions of sheer knowledge as much as they do monetary donations, Chetrit said, in order to crack the challenges they face trying to achieve zero hunger, knock out poverty, and among myriad other problems, save the climate.

So Chetrit, inspired by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet’s Giving Pledge, and two colleagues from the Young President’s Organization (YPO) set out to create a way to curate groups of experts to pledge their knowledge, experience and connections, and match them with social ventures that need their advice. It’s called the Knowledge Impact Network (KIN). Chetrit, who moved to Orlean six years ago with his wife, Claudine, is best known for creating and operating the first Hugo Boss retail clothing stores in the world. He also started a technology business, a hedge fund, and a laboratory services company serving drug research.

Photo by Leland Schwartz Alain Chetrit

Eden Reforestation Projects, which plants a million trees a day and gives nearby villagers a livelihood doing so, asked KIN to connect it to new pipelines of large-scale reforestation projects in Central and South America and Asia.

Reaching into his past as a fashion designer and artist, Chetrit is making and donating a series of drawings and oil pastels for KIN to make available to its donors who want to accelerate the growth of social ventures producing positive impact in the world.

Meanwhile, to take KIN off the drawing board and scale the idea around the world, he hired Elaine MacDonald, who led Harvard Business School’s alumni organization in San Francisco, HBS Community Partners, that connects the school’s alumni in the region with local nonprofits looking for specific kinds of help.

MacDonald and Chetrit decided that one way to actualize KIN was to have 90-minute brainstorming “Catalyze Sessions” and invite social organizations and “knowledge partners” to apply and engage. They did, and they came.

The World Food Program’s Innovation Accelerator asked KIN to help its award-winning hunger app, Share The Meal, find millions of new users by connecting it to partners whose platforms offer frequent transactions for consumers to engage, such as food delivery, eCommerce platforms, eSports and gaming.

Eden Reforestation Projects, which plants a million trees a day and gives nearby villagers a livelihood doing so, asked KIN to connect it to new pipelines of large-scale reforestation projects in Central and South America and Asia.

The Circular City Coalition, with a vision to create regenerative and equitable cities around the world, wants help identifying businesses that are investing in re-use/re-purpose/de-growth business models.

Corps Africa recruits, trains, and places young, university-educated Africans in under served regions in their own countries to facilitate small-scale, high-

impact projects. They asked KIN how to leverage partnerships to ultimately enable more young Africans to combat poverty in rural communities.

To pay for its pro bono work for the social ventures, KIN is launching an “Executives Engaging in Impact” program for companies seeking an innovative and turn-key way to involve their management in social impact, advance their corporate social responsibility goals and expand professional networks.

“Company executives will be able to choose their impact areas of interest, KIN will curate social ventures in need of their expertise, and then facilitate knowledge exchanges that enable multiple parties to collaborate and contribute to accelerating impact,” Chetrit says.

At the root of KIN’s network are about 40 members of its Global Advisors Council, purposeful leaders from around the world who are a wide mix of entrepreneurs, philanthropists, social engineers and thought leaders.

Most of the “Knowledge Partners” who want to give back by volunteering their time come from KIN’s worldwide networks and have heard through KIN about the needs of the various social ventures.

Chetrit also has been a long-time member of YPO, the international network of CEOs with 31,000 members in more than 100 countries. When he was Global Chairman of YPO Gold, he started the organization’s Global Impact Initiative, the group’s way of highlighting extraordinary members doing extraordinary things to make the world a better place.

Creating KIN was Chetrit’s way of taking that idea the next step.

“P&L doesn’t only stand for profit and loss,” Chetrit says looking out the window of his barn out Kilkenny Road. “It also stands for Purpose and Legacy.”

Stoke Stomp &

in

Rob deButts, Rosealine deButts, Bob deButts, Hays deButts, Wesley Miller, Dorsey deButts and Adeline deButts

Gretchen Kuney and Kirk Brandt

Eliza

Eloise Repeczky, Will Nisbet, Mark Winchester, Melissa Win chester and Dulany

Kate

and

Piedmont Regional Art Show & Sale

A Community Institution That Mints Musicians

By Leland Schwartz

Three decades ago, good friends Martha Cotter and Shannon Davis were putting together a children’s ensemble and said to each other: “Maybe we should have a music school.”

Forget maybe. They did.

We were able to get several teachers to join us and that’s how it started,” Cotter recalled, pointing out that the school will soon celebrate 30 years and asking: “Do you believe this?

Photo by Leland Schwartz Martha Cotter

Now, dozens of students attend the Community Music School of the Piedmont (CMSP) and gather in Middleburg, The Plains, Berryville and Stevens City, with more locations planned in Purcellville and Aldie.

All of the school locations are in their community’s churches in unused space –Trinity in Upperville and Grace in The Plains, for instance – and not by accident, but to save on rent so the school can spend more on scholarships.

CMSP awards about $12,000 a year to students who can’t afford lessons, living up to its mission of making instruction accessible and affordable. Pre-Covid CMSP had 350 students, ranging in age from less than one to over 90. “No one’ s too old,” Cotter said.

Cotter was an investment banker and wanted to get involved in the community. Operating in the churches can be a lifesaver when the economy goes down, she said, “because if you’re paying retail rent and your students drop off, you can be in deep trouble, so we’re really grateful to the churches.

”

Lena Scott Lundh, who is the chairman of the CMSP board and the engine behind several music initiatives in Fauquier County, said “We would like to build an endowment to strengthen the school for the future and enable us to continue in our mission of bringing high-quality music instruction and performances to all members of our community.”

During the pandemic, the school went totally online, where its roughly 20 paid instructors continued to teach students how to play a wide variety of instruments, from violin to the guitar.

Many CMSP students have gone on to study music in high school and college and “it’s always fun to hear back from them,” Cotter said. “Watching the students progress from being baby beginners with their instruments and later going on to competitions and winning prizes is great.”

Many other meaningful stories come out of the music therapy CMSP also provides. One success story involved a young woman named Katie, who, when she started taking music therapy, was completely unable to communicate.

Today, after seven years of sessions, Katie’s parents, Kurt and Jennifer Wellington of Nokesville, said the music therapy has helped on several fronts, “

Most exciting is Katie’s improvement in speech,” they told the school. “All of these improvements, as well as many that are very subtle, contribute significantly to Katie’s quality of life and her happiness.

CMSP’ s music therapy instructor, Miho Sato, explains it this way: “When musical stimulation reaches to her brain and her whole system, Katie gets boosted up. It ’ s as if all the dots in her brain and body start connecting and functioning as a whole. Katie starts to show who she really is by smiling beautifully and even sarcastically sometimes, laughing, tearing up, and saying ‘ Hello! How are you doing?

Said Cotter, “To me it’s magic!

The Space at Grace Has Music and Much More

By Leonard Shapiro

The Rev. Weston Mathews, rector of the Grace Episcopal Church in The Plains, has always had a great appreciation for music and the arts. After all, his grandmother directed church choirs in Front Royal, and as a student at St. George’s School in Rhode Island, he even learned how to sing chants.

Since arriving at Grace five years ago, he and several of his parishioners, including another music maven, Lena Scott Lundh, have helped transform the church into a cultural center for the local community and beyond. They call it “The Arts in The Plains at the Space at Grace.”

Rectortown resident Lundh, a principal in a highly regarded interior and architectural firm and a for mer chair of the Washington Performing Arts, has been instrumental in elevating the Grace Church Concert Series, now in its 23rd year, to what it is to day. With four concerts this year, a series that often features world-class musicians is funded in part by Jacqueline Mars in memory of her mother, Mrs. For

rest Mars, who also was devoted to music and loved the church.

Grace also is home to the Par agon Philharmonia orchestra, led by artistic director Miriam Burns. Now in its second year in partnership with the church, a half dozen concerts are scheduled for the 2022-23 season featuring the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn and Prokofiev, among others, including a sea son-ending event scheduled for Buchanan Hall in Upperville on April 23.

There’s more, including partner ships with the Piedmont Singers, the Shakespeare Opera Company and the Dark Horse Theater as well as a monthly film series and lecture with the Piedmont Film Club. The church will host the annual Pied mont Regional Art Show Oct. 28-30.

“We’ve become a Mecca for the arts,” Lundh said. “And Weston is the reason we have all of this going on.”

Rev. Mathews describes it all as “the beauty of holiness…We consider it a house of prayer and mu sic for all people. Dr. Edmund Lee Woodward (the

church’s first rector in 1918) wanted it to be a com munity center. And our thought is ‘how can we best serve the needs of all our residents?’”

Virtually all the events are held either inside or outside the church, with modest admission fees and children free. The church also has raised funds be yond ticket sales to support its cultural events, with many patrons contributing “generous amounts to bring top notch artists to Grace,” Lundh said.

Her appreciation for music began as a child in her native Sweden, where she said, “all the girls learn to play the piano. Music is for the soul. It raises you to another level in life, it takes you to another world.”

And Rev. Mathews clearly is a firm believer in ar tistic freedom and making certain his cultural part ners, “Know they are loved and appreciated.

“We’re not going to micro-manage them on what they perform,” he said. “Culture is predicated on trust. We want to bring out their beauty. We’re about kindness, not division. And I think the artists believe the church has made them better.”

The recent pandemic obviously had a debilitating effect, forcing the cancellation or postponement of some events. But Arts in The Plains is flourishing once again, with more to come if Rev. Mathews has his way.

“We’re all working to take it to the next level,” he said, without getting too specific. Stay tuned to this space, as well.

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Photo by Leland Schwartz Grace Church Rector Weston Mathews and Lena Scott Lundh.

Going Hungry No Longer an Option

By M.J. McAteer

For Elizabeth Ford, BetterALife Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to feeding needy local children, is a personal cause. That’s because the founder and president of the Purcellville-based charity grew up hungry herself.

“We didn’t have food at home,” Ford said of her early life in affluent Reston. Her single mother suffered from depression, she explained, and lacked the wherewithal to access food pantries or subsidized lunches to keep her daughter consistently fed.

As a result, Ford remembers being tortured by the aromas emanating from the school cafeteria on those frequent days when she didn’t have enough money to buy lunch.

“Teenagers don’t like to tell anyone” about their situation, she said, so instead of trying to get help, Ford started skipping classes and hanging out at the 7-Eleven, where she would bum quarters to buy nachos.

In ninth grade, she dropped out of school altogether, and, only later, after some rough years, earned a high school diploma and college degree that allowed her to become a government contractor.

In 2016, she founded BetterALife to help children who might be experiencing the same hunger that she did.

BetterALife started out by donating funds to the lunch accounts of needy children at Sterling Elementary, where 60 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

Yet, some children still fall through the cracks in the public assistance system and go hungry. Perhaps their parents are illegal and afraid to attract the attention of immigration officials. Perhaps they

Photo by M.J. McAteer Elizabeth Ford

make a bit too much to qualify for aid, or, maybe, like Ford’s mother, they are just ill-equipped to nurture a child.

In any case, for just $35 a month, Ford said she can provide 100 breakfast meals, 100 lunches, 100 single-serve milks and 300 snacks to a child over the course of a year.

She has subsequently extended BetterALife’s donation program to nine schools, including Leesburg Elementary where she “has been a great resource in assisting us with feeding and school supplies,” said Principal Shawn Lacey.

When Covid hit and schools closed, BetterALife retooled and began going door-to-door on Saturdays to deliver meals in low-income communities.

“I’ve never had a door closed on me,” Ford said.

Last January, with the help of a $15,000 grant, Ford opened a food pantry in Purcellville and stocked it with supplies both purchased and donated. The pantry is within walking distance of 700 residents living in Section 8 subsidized housing and is close to a bus line.

Unlike many food banks, BetterA Life does not require its patrons to prove need. And rather than being handed a bag of already selected food when they come in, people are allowed to pick out whatever they want from the shelves. They can come as often as they like, too.

“You need food, you can come and get it,” Ford said. “No one has abused the privilege.”

Having a storefront provides a staging area for BetterALife’s other charitable efforts, including a program that provides children with new backpacks loaded with school supplies.

Close to 300 people showed up one Saturday this summer to claim a bag. The Purcellville Police

and local high school students also partner with BetterALife in a weekly Homework Club at the pantry, which provides children with academic help and a hot meal.

BetterALife sponsors an annual toy drive, too, and a coat drive is in the works. Once a month, Ford hosts a cooking class to teach people how to make simple hot-plate fare such as scrambled eggs and chicken nuggets.

Ford estimated that she spends 40 to 60 hours a week on BetterALife despite having a full-time job and 11-year-old twins.

“My husband is very supportive,” she said, adding that much of her time goes into keeping BetterALife funded.

“I apply for a grant a day,” she said. “I don’t stop.”

Like Ford and everyone else associated with the charity, Kellyn Kellogg volunteers as the chair of BetterALife’s seven-member board. She provides hands-on help with food deliveries and event planning, as well.

“Elizabeth makes you want to jump in and help her succeed,” she said. “She has an amazing devotion to people in need, and she does it with humility and compassion.”

Principal Lacey seconded that opinion.

“Elizabeth has a passion for people,” she said. “We need more like her in the community.”

BetterALife’s Masquerade Gala, its biggest fundraiser of the year, will take place at the National Conference Center in Leesburg at 6 p.m. on Oct. 22. The black-tie-optional event will feature dinner, dancing and a silent auction. Tickets are $150. For more information about BetterALife and the gala, visit www.betteralife.org.

Photo © by Leonard Shapiro. Matt Hannan, executive director of the Historic Long Branch home near Millwood, with artist Barbara Batter ton during a showing of her work.

Photo © by Leonard Shapiro. It was a very happy and thoroughly shocking 50th birthday for Sean Ellis, the oldest son of Common Grounds coffee shop owners Cyndi (left) and Duane Ellis. In mid-August, Sean (center) was snookered into coming to the shop early one early Saturday morning. When he arrived, there was a shiny red, mint condition 1972 Corvette parked in front of Middleburg’s go-to morning gath ering place. They handed him the keys. Surprise!

Adagio (shown here) was Reserve Grand Champion at the 2022 War renton Horse Show. He’s owned by Bryden LLC and ridden by Snowden Clarke and Bryce Lingo. Bryden also had the Grand Champion, Float the Ice, ridden by Clarke.

Photo © by Leonard Shapiro. Rev. Jonathan Lamb recently was named Pastor of Middleburg’s United Methodist Church. His duties one day in August included manning the church’s Lemonade stand during the town’s annual sidewalk sale.

Photo by Donna Strama. Laurie Midlin Salama has a chat and chuckle with Suzanne Obetz, executive director of The Middleburg Muse um, during a “Saturdays in the Park” cookout. “This was a free event for the community to raise awareness and funds for the museum,” said Obetz, who has plans for additional events.

18 E. Washington

Photo © by Vicky Moon Sydney Bowers, the retired and long-time coach and athletic director at Hill School, had a chance mini-reunion with former students Helen MacMahon class of 1981, Camden Littleton ‘83 and Meg Coyner Forsberg ’82.

THOMAS & TALBOT ESTATE PROPERTIES

Opening The Door To Horse Country For Generations

Madison

This ICE Is Nice and Good for Trees

By Philip Dudley

Justwhen you think the environmental, social and governance narrative has been exhausted in the traditional sense, a new wrinkle emerges.

Just recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the leadership at ACRE Investment Management, LLC in the The Plains. What I learned was fascinating. The ice caps may be melting in the Arctic, but these folks at ACRE, led by manager and co-founder Chandler Van Voorhis, are making some big waves in Virginia.

ACRE operates four companies, and while they all tie to their core mission of reforestation, it is GreenTrees and the landmark deal they recently made with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) to auction 500,000 nature-based carbon credits that definitely has peaked my interest.

ICE is a major player in the capital markets. After all, they own and operate the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). They also have roots as a pioneer in electronic trading and meeting the needs of clients in the electric utility markets, as well as oil and natural gas markets. These businesses naturally led ICE into the world of futures exchanges and clearing on their electronic platform.

“By working with ICE, the world’s leading environmental marketplace,” Van Voorhis said recently, “we can now connect one of the largest global networks of companies to everyday landowners, who are our first responders to climate change.”

The GreenTrees and ICE collaboration solves a unique problem. You have the market leader in reforestation programs in GreenTrees leveraging ICE’s expertise in carbon trading.

So, how does it all work?

Landowners far and wide can achieve their environmental goals and receive income (translation: money in the bank) by partnering with GreenTrees. That company will, in turn, plant a forest, calculate the carbon captured and then sell that carbon to others in need of carbon credits like many Fortune 500 companies.

I believe this is a fantastic alternative to having all those unsightly wind turbines or solar panel fields in your backyard. Who wouldn’t rather look at a stand of trees knowing that you are doing your part in fighting climate change?

Basically, I’ve attempted to bring to your attention a highly sophisticated institutional level carbon credit strategy that is playing out right here in our own Middleburg area community.

So, I’m happy to raise a tree to the team at ACRE and, God willing, the two Sycamores, Shumard Oak and Appalachian Spring Dogwood we transplanted to our home in February will do their thing and add even more carbon credits to

Philip Dudley

A Carbon Footprint Is Definitely Paying Off

By Chandler Van Voorhis

Landowners are on the forefront of an exciting new revolution—the dawn of “Natural Capitalism.”

For many years, landowners have become accustomed to receiving income when crops leave the field or timber leaves the gate. Value was always on a point of extraction. The carbon markets fundamentally changed things. Now value is about how we price the services that nature affords us. This, in turn, is pulling people into a new orbit of capitalism, creating a dynamic future for landowners.

Until carbon emerged in the mid1990s, when Carey Crane and I first got involved, a tree only had value when a chainsaw turned it into board feet or paper. With the rise of carbon, pricing the value of a tree in terms of storing carbon, we now have to ask ourselves, is the tree worth more up than down?

Since 2003, when we founded our company, GreenTrees based in The Plains, we’ve been focused on unleashing the power of nature through reforestation.

Over the last two decades we’ve created an aggregation

reforestation model that’s become not only 99.6 percent of the reforestation carbon market in the U.S. but the largest of all forestry types. We’ve been able to achieve this by working with small landowners who, due to their size, would not be able to overcome the cost of verification nor the expertise needed. In essence, we’ve democratized the carbon market so the average landowner can participate. This is due to the power of aggregation and the power of one acre at a time, coupled with patience.

While we started our efforts in the Mississippi Delta, where we have 600-plus landowners and 133,000 acres of hardwood reforestation that have generated nearly 6.3 million metric tons under the American

This is evident by our recent distribution to landowners, the largest single distribution in the company’s history. What matters most is how those dollars are building equity in the landscape and lives of our landowner partners. Many are paying taxes, school tuitions, or making further property enhancements. Real dollars with real impacts.

And now, we look to the future. On August 8, we announced with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owners of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), that we would conduct the first ever carbon removal auction in the world later this year.

We’re putting up 500,000 tons for auction. We’re tapping into companies and institutions from around the world to create a race to the top for landowners who are removing carbon from the atmosphere by planting trees. In the process, we’re standardizing the settlement process, educating the market, and creating price discovery.

These are truly exciting times and we stand ready to work with all landowners wanting to be on the front lines of a climate solution by the simple act of planting trees and creating forests where carbon, water, and wildlife values accrue over time for the benefit of future generations.

Chandler Van Voorhis is the co-founder and managing partner of GreenTrees. A recent podcast on the same subject from the Library of the NYSE can be found at https://www.ice.com/insights/conversations/

Having Your Cake And Eating It Too

TEN SERVINGS

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously grease two 8-inch wide and 3-inch deep cake pans and line with parchment paper rounds.

FOR THE GUINNESS CHOCOLATE CAKE:

» 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

» 2 cups granulated sugar

» 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

» 2 teaspoons baking soda

» 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

» 1 teaspoon fine salt

» 3/4 cup sour cream or plain full fat yogurt

» 1/2 cup fresh vegetable oil

» 3 large eggs, at room temperature

» 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

» 1 cup Guinness beer

FOR THE IRISH BUTTERCREAM:

» 4 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

» 6 cups powdered sugar, sifted

» 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons Irish cream, such as Bailey’s

FOR THE CHOCOLATE DRIP:

» 4 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

» 1/2 cup heavy cream

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sour cream, vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla, and beer.

Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir with a spatula until just combined.

Divide the batter between the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool the cakes in their pans for 30 minutes before carefully turning them out onto a cooling rack or wire rack to cool completely. If possible, freeze the cakes while you prepare the buttercream.

MAKE THE BUTTERCREAM:

In a large bowl, use an electric mixer or hand mixer to beat the butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add the powdered sugar then the Irish cream. Beat the mixture on high speed until very light, fluffy, and smooth, about 3 minutes. If the frosting is too thick, add a splash more Irish cream. If it’s too thin, add some more powdered sugar.

ASSEMBLE

Place one cake layer a cake stand or serving plate. Frost the top of the cake generously, as this will become the filling. Use even more if you’re decorating as a ‘naked’ cake as shown in the photos. Top with the other cake layer, flat side up. With an offset spatula, spread a very thin layer of frosting all over the cake. This layer is a crumb coat and should act like spackle. For the smoothest frosting, return the cake to the fridge or freezer until firm to the touch. Spread the remaining frosting all over the cake. If desired, focus the frosting on the top to maintain the ‘naked’ look. Refrigerate while you prepare chocolate drip.

MAKE CHOCOLATE DRIP:

Place the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Bring the heavy cream to a simmer then immediately remove from heat and pour over chocolate. You can also do this in the microwave. Cover for a few minutes then stir until smooth. Allow to cool until it has thickened but is still pourable, about 10 minutes. Don’t place ganache in the fridge to cool. Test the consistency of the drip by pouring down the side of a glass. If it’s too thick, microwave for 5 to 10 seconds. If it’s too thin, allow to continue to cool.

Photo by Middleburg Photo | Recipe from Karen Monroe by Tessa Arias of Handletheheat.com

Ben & MARY'S STEAK HOUSE Ben & MARY'S STEAK HOUSE

By John T. Toler

The building that later became Ben & Mary’s Steak House was originally Crawford’s Lunch, a roadhouse on U.S. 17 north of Warrenton.

In

December 2018, the Foothills Housing Corporation bought the 27-acre Fletcherville community located off U. S. 17 north of Warrenton from Keith N. Fletcher Jr. The property includes about 40 rentable units that will be made available for workforce housing, and the building that once housed Ben & Mary’s Steak House, operated by the Golightly family from 1954 to 1996.

There was a restaurant of sorts at the location since the late 1920s, when it was a roadhouse run by Harold and Peggy Crawford and known as Crawford’s Lunch. They owned the business, but Warrenton businessman Keith N. Fletcher Sr. (1913-1976) owned the property.

Benjamin Franklin Golightly (1914-1982) and the former Mary Helen Dodson (1925-1996) were married in 1944, and initially lived on Ben’s parents’ farm at Boyce. In addition to farming, Ben later worked as an insurance salesman and as a carpenter.

The Golightly family got into in the restaurant operation in 1949, when Mary Golightly and her sister Jean Deal worked there as waitresses, and Ben cooked. The Golightlys lived in the apartment in the restaurant, and when the Crawfords were on vacation or out of town, they ran the business.

In 1952, the Crawfords sold the restaurant to Phil and Tudy Brubaker of Millwood, and in January 1954, Ben bought the restaurant, still called Crawford’s Lunch. Ben’s daughter Phyllis worked there, and later Ben and Mary’s sons, Donnie (born in 1945) and Terry (1952), worked there as well.

Terry Golightly remembers living and working at the restaurant. In addition to sweeping the floors and the parking lot, the boys helped prepare side dishes. “We peeled potatoes by hand, and cut them into French fries,” he recalled. “We usually made five to ten gallons of fries a day.”

The menu was varied, and included locally-cut meat (a 20-oz. filet mignon was $2.25 and a large T-bone, $3.25). The beef was bought at Wilson Meats in Catlett, and served with vegetables grown in a garden behind the restaurant.

Originally, the restaurant was open 15 hours a day, seven days a week. That grind became too much, and the Golightlys decided to close on Mondays, and from December 22 to January 2 for vacation each year. Ben had realized that, “If we couldn’t make it in six days, we wouldn’t make it in seven.”

The name of the business was changed to Ben &

The restaurant building today, in the process of being converted to apartments. The front façade will have only minor alterations, preserving the memory of Ben & Mary’s Steak House.

As a charter member and president of the Falcon BoosterClub, in February 1963 Ben Golightly (left) presented alifetime membership to Walter Robinson, the first purchaser of a $10 membership to the organization.

Mary’s Steak House, with a sign bearing the new name going up in 1956. Bigger changes came in 1958, when the old building was bricked-over and enlarged. Along the way, the slogan “Home of the Fabulous Filet Mignon” was established.

While the name was changed, the tradition of good quality food and friendly service would remain throughout the years of Golightly ownership. It became a routine side-trip for travelers heading north or south through Warrenton.

Terry recalled that during a big snow storm in 1961, his parents took in travelers stranded on Route 17, providing food and a warm place to stay until the road was re-opened. They accepted no payment.

Over the years, Ben & Mary’s hosted countless birthday parties, dinners and receptions, as well as providing a meeting place for Warrenton service clubs, including the Lions, Soroptimists and the Rotary Club, Terry said quick preparation of the food was critical – especially when the line to get inside stretched out to the parking lot. Mary often served a cheese, pickle and vegetable tray to those waiting for a table. When a fussy baby was disrupting his parents’ meal, Mary would offer to carry the child “on her hip” while she continued serving.

Bob Lee of Warrenton was told by his late fatherin-law, State Trooper Rex Hoskins, that Ben & Mary’s offered lunch to law enforcement personnel at half price, a benefit many enjoyed.

“The joke was that if anyone wanted to commit a

crime around Warrenton, noon was the best time to do it,” Lee recalled.

Terry noted that having a patrol car outside and law enforcement officers on the scene likely kept problem customers to a minimum. For years, Ben hosted a Game Feast in January for law enforcement personnel and game wardens, with venison, turkey and other wild specialties prepared and served.

Legendary equestrian photographer Marshall Hawkins was a regular, and his large-format photos of horse races and hunt meets adorned the walls of the dining room for years.

Renowned artist and illustrator Wesley Dennis, who lived nearby, was a close friend of Ben’s, and regularly took his meals at the restaurant, running a tab he paid at the end of the month.

“Mr. Dennis would come in on Fridays in a jacket and tie, tennis shorts and sneakers. He sat by the front window, so he could see his Dalmatian in his Jeep parked outside,” Terry recalled. “He would order a filet mignon and eat half of it, and take the rest to his dog.”

When Dennis, perhaps best known for his work on the Misty of Chincoteague books, was painting and did not want to leave his studio for lunch, he would call Ben and ask him to bring him a sandwich. Ben was happy to oblige, often bringing a meal and couple of beers to enjoy with his friend.

“That was Warrenton’s first carry-out service,” Terry said.

Both Donnie and Terry were quarterbacks on the Fauquier High School football team, and Donnie noted that he was the first player to score at the first FHS football game in 1963. Ben and Mary were charter members of the Falcon Boosters Club, and brought hotdogs and hamburgers for the Friday night games, after a long day at the restaurant.

Michael P. “Mike” Flynn (1950-2018) starred on the FHS basketball team, and earned a full scholarship to Virginia Commonwealth University. After graduation, he served as a senior probation officer. Mike sang and played the piano organ at the restaurant on Thursday through Saturday evenings for 27 years.

“My mother thought our guests would like music with their dinner, and Mike was set up in the dining room,” recalled Terry. “His favorite song was ‘Mack the Knife,’ and he would take requests and sell tapes of his music.”

Mike enjoyed performing, and his complimentary steak dinner.

The Golightlys lived in the apartment at Ben & Mary’s until about 1971, when Fauquier County adopted liquor-by-the-drink. They moved to the house next door while the apartment was converted to a barroom and other changes made inside the restaurant.

With the children grown, it was time to move on, and the Golightlys built a new home off Carter’s Run Road near Marshall. Mary wanted to spend more time at home, and went into semi-retirement while Ben continued to run the restaurant, often working late into the night.

Ben died in June, 1982 at age 68, and Mary returned to run the business, with the help of step-daughter Phyllis and “…the wonderful, hard-working ladies” who came to work there. Mary resumed her close relationship with her customers. Knowing what they liked, she would often call to alert them when their favorite specials were going to be served.

By then in her late 60s, Mary needed to slow down, and in 1993, she formed a partnership with restaurateur John Lancaster. In 1994, her health began to fail, and she sold the business to Lancaster shortly before her death in December, 1996.

Mary’s absence was keenly felt by her clientele. “My friend Rick Collette told me that what he really missed was my mother’s hugs when he came in,” Terry recalled. “She was a humble, loving person who touched many lives. Our community meant everything to her.”

The last restaurant to occupy the building was Twisted Sisters Seafood, which operated with mixed reviews from 2011-2013. Subsequent uses included space for Keith N. Fletcher Jr’s. rental management office until the property was sold to the Foothills Housing Corporation.

The old restaurant is in the process of being converted into four apartments on the main floor, and storage compartments in the basement. In recognition of its restaurant heritage, the exterior frontage will be preserved.

While the work was starting this summer, Terry Golightly stopped by and met the contractor. Terry pointed out what was once there — the bar area that replaced the bedroom he shared with his brother, the dining room where Mike Flynn played and sang, and the kitchen where French fries were cut and meals prepared.

It was a good day for remembrance.

The Golightly family in 1957, when they lived in an apartment in the restaurant. Back row, Donnie and Phyllis; front row, Mary, Terry and Ben. Courtesy of Terry Golightly.

Perspectives on Childhood, Education and Parenting Seventh and Eighth Grades Are Critical Educational Years

By Tom Northrup

Author’s Note: I wrote this column for Country ZEST in 2019, several months before school programs and children’s lives were disrupted by Covid-19.  During the past two years, few would dispute that the education (academic and social-emotional) of children has suffered.  My life and professional experience inform me that academic achievement is more likely to occur when children feel respected, listened to, truly known by the adults in their lives.

and shelter. In his final chapter, “Educating the Social Brain,” he explains how today’s schools have failed in meeting this requirement, and offers practical suggestions.

When they’re given the responsibility to teach and mentor, these adolescents perform at a high level. Providing such meaningful and authentic opportunities on a regular basis promotes their sense of belonging. Of truly being needed.

These students will be motivated to prepare and to learn the material they will be teaching. The prospect of social embarrassment in the presence of a younger person provides a strong incentive.

In

his book “Social—Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect,” Matthew Lieberman, a Harvard trained, UCLA professor of psychology, writes that, “My belief is that junior high holds the key to our educational woes….(the students) are between the ages of twelve and fourteen.”

It’s a good reminder for all of us.

Have you ever heard that the seventh and eighth grades hold “the key to our educational woes?” I had not. Nevertheless, I’ve long understood the importance of keeping children interested in coming to school during these years. Designing and implementing a program to achieve this goal has been a major part of my life’s work.

Lieberman argues that our need to connect with others is as fundamental as our need for food

Lieberman asserts one reason “academic perfor mance and interest drop in junior high….(is that) the need to belong, our most basic social motivation, is not being met.” The in creased emphasis on high stakes achievement testing in evaluating not only the students, but the quality of the teachers and schools, he believes, is misguided— especially in those middle school years.

Tom Northrup

“Through the latest research in the social brain,” he wrote, “we know that it isn’t the students’ fault that they are distracted by the social world….the social interest of adolescents is no distraction. Rather it is the most important (channel through which) they can learn well.” The challenge for educators is “to stop making the social brain the enemy during class time and figure out how to engage (it).”

One suggestions is to place students in leadership roles such as having them tutor younger students.

There are other benefits which contribute to future academic success and psychological health. These student mentors develop a sense of competence based on their performance. It’s earned. This invariably feels good, and reinforces the desire to prepare and to learn. The mentors also serve as role models the younger students are inspired to emulate as they grow older—a healthy self-perpetuating cycle.

After reading Social, I reflected on my years at Hamilton Junior High School in Parkersburg, West Virginia. The memories of walking (often hitchhiking) to and from school each day with a friend, of a surprise birthday party organized by my first girlfriend, and of competing on the school football, basketball, and track teams—are vivid and powerful. To this day, they evoke strong feelings, and these experiences taught me a great deal.

THE HILL SCHOOL

Outdoor

Junior Kindergarten through

Molly Mosher: A Very Special Teacher Filling A Vital Role

"I spent many years teaching children with emotional disturbance in the public school system, a boarding school for boys with behavior problems, and a children’s psychiatric hospital. That was a real challenge. Autism is much easier."

Molly

By Vicky Moon

Mosher is a lifelong horse girl.

She grew up in Florida and New York City and has lived in Connecticut. She also readily admits “I have too many horses and dogs but rescuing is a good thing.”

“My mother once told a friend that ‘all Molly wants to do is ride her pony.’ The reply was: ‘Send her to Foxcroft.’”

Mosher and her mother moved to Middleburg in 1973 in order to join the first class of day students at the all-girls boarding school. In her freshman year, she took a child development class and was hooked.

“From then on I knew I wanted to be a teacher,” recalled Mosher, a special needs teacher of autistic children at Trailside Middle School in Ashburn. “Senior year, my project was working as a child life worker at Children’s Hospital in D.C. I was the youngest child life worker to ever work in the Burn Unit. What a gut wrenching, but rewarding experience this was.”

She began her first year at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, her mother’s alma mater, where her horse was a welcome part of her luggage. She was happy to study early childhood education but by year two, she transferred to American University in Washington and majored in elementary and special e ducation.

years ago. I immediately bonded with my principal as we discussed our love and personal anecdotes with special needs children. There were even some tears shed as we shared stories.

“Throughout the years I’ve worked summers with elementary school students, but middle school is my love. For three years I’ve had the same students, all day. I teach all the core classes including history and science, but add in social skills and functional life skills. Teacher down time isn’t really a concept in my teaching world. It’s the hardest job I have ever had but the most rewarding ever. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

Bonding with families and students is part of her concept.

“My classroom assistants are wonderful and our classroom wouldn’t run without them,” she said. “I’ve had biters, chair-throwers, hitters, non-verbal, verbal, but all absolutely wonderful children, no matter their level of disability. Their behavior is their form of communication.”

Mosher commutes an hour and twenty minutes to school from a small farm in Rixeyville, where she has horses. “I ‘d love to teach closer to home, but the reality is my pay cut would be about $30,000 a year.”

Developing a relationship with the parents is what Mosher considers special.

Molly Mosher’s day starts when the children get off the bus and ends when they get back on. There is little to no down time. She has eight students in her program. “I am the autism teacher and there is an Intellectual Disabilities (ID) teacher. We have three classroom Teacher Assistants (TA). It sounds like an amazing ratio, which it is compared to some school districts. The students are with us for all classes including functional life skills, occupational therapy, and speech.” The students also attend electives and have a TA with them at all times. “ We run a ‘Snack Shack’ for the teachers. The kids shop, price, tag, stock, count money in order to keep the store running. The teachers love to support us and we help feed their stress eating. We also sort, pack and deliver “Back Pack Buddies” for students that need extra food to get them through the weekend. The children work in the cafeteria. They stock chips, condiments, eating utensils, and package freshly baked cookies. Along with all these activities we squeeze in reading, math, language arts, s ocial studies and science. It is a full day.”

“That was where my journey through the education world took hold,” she said. “My junior year I was chosen by my professor to set up the first public school mainstream classroom in the United States, combining art and science with special needs students. I flew to Santa Barbara and spent six months teaching in the Santa Barbara school systems. I also worked with Dr. Sally Smith, founder of the Lab School in Washington. With so many wonderful experiences, I was sure I would spend my life as a special education teacher.”

Fast forward to the last day of school for her third year teaching in Loudoun County.

“My principal comes into my classroom and states he wants me to take over the autism program in this school,” she said. “Being female, I cried and stated I preferred to keep on doing what I was doing. He asked me to think about it. I had begun taking classes on autism and was a bit intrigued.

“That afternoon, as I drove out of the parking lot with a box of classroom items in the back of my truck, the top of a box flew off. As I went to replace the box top, I noticed the title of the top book, “Making Peace with Autism.” I am not a ‘sign person,’ but this was pretty clear. I took the job.”

Mosher has spent twenty-plus years teaching in Loudoun County.

“I’ve added many graduate hours, including my certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis. I opened the autism program at Trailside Middle School nine

“It’s so rewarding to see these young adults grow and change across those three years with the right amount of support, boundaries, and love,” she said. “I believe in them and they trust me. I still have students come to visit me from years before. A bond is a hard thing to break.”

Mosher considers Trailside Middle School an inclusive community that supports kindness and compassion, from the principal on down.

“Because of this,” she added, “my students and the program are supported emotionally and rarely do I come up with an idea that doesn’t get the go-ahead.”

Working with the children is the highlight of Mosher’s day.

“Watching them grow and change for three years is so rewarding,” she said. “Changing behaviors, large and small, is so rewarding.”

Data collection and paperwork also is part of the job.

“But, really the greatest challenge is sending the 8th graders off to start their high school career,” Mosher said. “Many past students keep in touch and some parents and students come visit or call me regularly. I try to be brave on their last day and put a positive spin on it, so stiff upper lip and a big smile and hug as they get on the bus.”

As for her parting thoughts, Mosher said: “No matter your barriers, keep trying. All of us struggle in one way or another. Working with these wonderful people makes me realize one step in front of the other will start your path in the right direction. And success will follow.”

Photo by Doug Gehlsen of Middleburg Photo

FOOTBALL AT FOXCROFT?

New Administrator Rolls With The Tide

By Leslie VanSant

There’s a new hound at Foxcroft. And she’s crazy about football.

Tanya Hyatt joined the staff as the Assistant Head of School in July. This new role at the 108-year-old girls boarding school makes her responsible for academics and student scheduling but also means stepping in when Head of School Catherine McGehee is off campus.

“My main job is Dean of Academics,” Hyatt said.“But with Foxcroft starting a capital campaign, Cathy decided to create this role with the additional responsibilities to give her the flexibility she needed for the campaign.”

The Dean of Academics oversees faculty and ensures that students are on track for graduation. The size of the school allows for small classes that really dig deeply into student interests.

“You have to ensure students are getting all that they need,” Hyatt said. “From their courses, residential life, student life, counseling, the health center, athletics. Is everything working smoothly?”

When she visited, Hyatt was taken with the beauty of the campus and the local countryside. She and her husband, Cris, enjoyed the small-town feel and charm of Middleburg combined with the opportunity to experience the culture of nearby Washington, D.C. But the return of students to campus in September

made her truly fall in love with her new home, not to mention her first experience with Foxcroft tradition.

“The night before classes start, you are sorted –much like Hogwarts and the sorting hat – becoming a hound or a fox. There is singing and celebration, and instant belonging that is really powerful. It is so easy to get lost at a new school, even as a teacher like me, and this tradition builds a common ground. It was magical.”

Hyatt didn’t start her career with the intention of becoming an educator or administrator. Born in Mississippi and raised in Alabama since age 12, her big interests were science and football.

“Friday nights were football nights,” she said, so it made perfect sense that she went to the University of Alabama where she earned her undergraduate and

graduate degrees while cheering on the Crimson Tide. She holds a doctorate in nutritional science and has published research on women and diabetes.

After she graduated, a position was open to teach AP Biology at Indian Springs School in Pelham, Alabama. “While I hadn’t really considered teaching high school, I thought, I can do anything for a year. They offered me the job – it was insane – it was chaotic, but I loved it! The students pushed me and I learned as much or more from them as I taught.”

Her career progressed, first teaching and then into administration at Indian Springs, a coeducational boarding school. Hyatt appreciates the boarding school environment tremendously for the greater interactions with students.

“This is their home,” she said.” You get to know each other as people, not just a teacher and students. They are wondering, what is adult life like, and you help show them. The students are watching everything. Being in this environment is a much deeper educational tool. It’s rewarding and fulfilling.”

Still, don’t be surprised on fall weekends to hear “Roll Tide” coming from the campus house she and Cris share with their dog, a Jack Russell/Yorkie mix named “Saban” and cat “Mac” named after Alabama’s football coach Nick Saban and New England Patriot quarterback Mac Jones, respectively. If you do, stop by and enjoy some hospitality southern football style. Roll Tide. Go Hounds!

®

RURAL BAKERY

Tanya Hyatt, Foxcroft’s new assistant head of school

By Tiffany Dillon Keen

Editorial note: Country ZEST photographer Tiffany is the mother of six-year-old River, her sweet son who has been diagnosed with autism. She said his special needs were obvious to her by the age of two months when “he didn’t look at me directly.” She deals with him with love and kindness and sent this story along for others

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I’d like to raise awareness for fellow parents who are noticing early signs of autism but have no clue where to begin helping their child navigate this journey.

Parents go through many emotions after the diagnosis, especially denial at first, but securing early intervention is extremely important. My advice would be for parents to consult their pediatrician; our wonderful doctor, Jennifer Barron, immediately connected us with Child Find in Warren County.

River was evaluated and found eligible to receive services through the Warren County School System. He attended preschool with the county for free at the age of two and received speech therapy and occupational therapy, both of which we were unable to afford on our own. We also use a program called Project Lifesaver with the Warren County Sheriff’s Office. This wearable tracking device provides River with an ankle bracelet in case he were to wander away—especially since he is non-verbal.

With time, patience, and an open heart we came to realize that autism can also be a blessing. River thinks outside of the box and surprises us daily with his intellect.

Recently, we got River involved with A Place to Be in Middleburg, because he’s very musical. He loves his teacher, Brandi Hanson, and enjoys playing the drums. I’ve learned how critical it is to allow your child to show you what interests them. This year we adopted three elderly rabbits which turned out to be the perfect autistic sensory pets, since they do not make noise, move slowly and are very soft to the touch.

River is thriving with the help of family friends and especially teachers who have helped us along the way.

TECH CAN HELP

Patrick Faga of Middleburg was at a makeshift desk on the porch of Common Grounds recently. After a chat we heard about his venture to create an educational app to help learning challenged children with constructive video games. This is a technology company that uses smart devices to drive the building of hard skills which are pivotal to early development in an entirely new way. “Our core technology drives learning by enabling users to ‘work’ for screen time by completing learning tasks they’re familiar with,” Faga said, referring to flashcard matching or listener-responding. “This process turns screen time, which is usually neutral, into something that is incredibly positive because it’s paired with the learning that is crucial for development.”

by Connie Carter

Details: https://firstworkapp.com

Photo by Dillionkeenphotography River with Patrick Faga on the porch of the Upper Crust.

It’s The Place To Be for New Executive Director

By Peyton Tochterman

Judith

Hanley had several offers from various philanthropic organizations in the region, but after serving as interim executive di rector for A Place to Be and then being offered the position, minus the inter im, she knew this unique Middleburg nonprofit was precisely where she want ed to be.

“People here in Middle burg genuinely love each other and want success,” she said, sitting in her office on North Jay St. decorated with 14 flourishing plants from the local Safeway. “This town is a profound place all because of the people here.”

“I chose A Place To Be for me and my son, who was diagnosed with autism and ADHD. I worked in the corporate world in my 20s but felt a void…I went back to school (and) I got my doctorate from the University of Maryland at College Park in human development specializing in child development, with an emphasis on child brain development research.”

Since then, she hasn’t looked back on the corporate world. Instead, her focus has been specifically directed toward helping the communities within which she has lived. She’s also the chief executive officer of Loudoun Citizens for Social Justice/Loudoun Abused Women’s Shelter (LAWS).

From 2007 to 2017, Hanley, who lives in Bluemont, was the director of the Loudoun Child Advocacy Center (CAC), a program of LAWS, before becoming its CEO. She was awarded the 2010 Crime Victims Service Award presented by the Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office for outstanding service to crime victims.

And in 2018, she was awarded the SCAN award, which honors five remarkable heroes working to protect children, support families, and prevent child abuse and neglect across Northern Virginia.

Accolades aside, Hanley reiterates that she continually learns and grows from those around her. “I love this staff and our families,” she said. “I get to see, day to day, the profound human transformation that our families experience. And that our staff works with neuro diverse children, I feel like I can learn a lot and help my son.”

In her role as executive director, Hanley will be in charge of dayto-day operations and oversee the business, financial and strategic planning, and expansion.

“We’re expanding to Leesburg, but our offices will always stay in Middleburg,” she said. “Many families in Leesburg need our services, and we want to make it reasonable for them to get to us.”

Tom Sweitzer, co-founder and creative director of A Place to Be, is excited for Dr. Hanley to join the staff. Sweitzer and co-founder Kim Tapper started A Place to Be twelve years ago and focused on individual music therapy.

“We had 13 clients,” Sweitzer said. “By 2011, we had 50, realizing that our population needed groups and productions. Now we have a 75-family waiting list…(Hanley) was our interim after John (Tong) left. And within weeks the board knew that we did not want her to leave…The buildout for our Leesburg space begins in early spring, and we are launching a pop-up theater in December to showcase what our program is about.

The opening show is called “Snow Monster,” Hanley said with a giddy smile.” A Place to Be is a place for me. We need to get a little bigger so we can serve more people who can benefit from the remarkable work our staff does daily.”

Judith Hanley, new executive director of A Place To Be

Scholars Thrive at Middleburg Community Charter School

By Linda Roberts

The untiring and relentless efforts of parents, volunteers and the community, over an expanse of time, kept an elementary school operating in Middleburg when its future looked bleak almost ten years ago.

With enrollment figures low at that time, the Loudoun County School Board was eyeing Middleburg Elementary for potential closure, meaning elementary-age children in the Middleburg district would be bussed elsewhere in the county for class.

“Parents and this community really wanted the school to stay open,” said principal Stephen Robinson, adding that meetings, town hall events and the ongoing efforts of many enabled the school to become the first public charter school in Northern Virginia, and one of just a few in Virginia.

With no pause in the academic cycle, Middleburg Elementary became Middleburg Community Charter School beginning with the 2014-2015 school year. With an average class size of 24, the school is now operating at a full capacity of 144 students.

Every five years, the school goes through a thorough inspection and the Loudoun County School Board votes on its continuance as a charter school. A lottery system is used each year for enrollment with current students guaranteed placement and their siblings given preferential status.

After that, Middleburg area children and then those in the district are considered. The school is governed by a board of directors composed of a balance of parents and volunteers from the community who come from all walks of life. Students are often referred to as scholars, holding them to a higher standard of learning.

Robinson noted that the school’s scholars learn the meaning of the three R’s— respect for others, property and yourself.

The board, a nonprofit organization, is dedicated to finding skilled and experienced leaders to help continue its work in providing scholars from across Loudoun County a unique educational experience centered in the philosophy, life, and learning of Leonardo da Vinci.

A project-based learning school with a focus on math, literacy and the arts,

Principal Stephen Robinson and a group of Middleburg Charter School student safe ty patrol offcers.

its scholars develop problem-solving abilities, social-emotional intelligence, and global citizenship skills through integrated, thematic instruction to develop their full potential.

“Our board is very supportive,” said Robinson, who knows every student by name. “My role is to ensure our staff is supported and that our scholars are supported each day in their work. Our staff wants them to know that they are loved.

The school’s goal is to cultivate in each child a love of reading, the ability to write clearly and speak confidently. The school targets the development of life-long learners who are curious, caring, reflective and who are productive members of the community.

To reduce the erosion of skills over the traditional summer vacation, the school uses a modified year-round calendar, which provides additional learning opportunities between quarters. Parent participation is also encouraged.

By partnering with local businesses and organizations, the school integrates the rural, historic culture with the high-tech innovation of Loudoun County into its curriculum.

Curriculum specialist Katie Charnley gets excited when asked questions about the academic platform.

Charnley explained that students frequently partner with local businesses and organizations to integrate real life practices with classroom studies. As an example, she pointed out that a study on the Chesapeake Bay and its water sources is combined with a field trip to the town’s water treatment facility to learn how water is treated before it is piped to homes and the school.

Because of the school’s close proximity to town, students on field trips are often a common sight on Middleburg’s sidewalks.

TWO CHARMING RENOVATED

PROPERTY

Photo by Linda Roberts

Hill’s Athletic Program: It Plays to Have Fun

By Leonard Shapiro

Roszel is known to many students around The Hill School campus simply as “Coach,” even if the Middleburg school’s Athletic Director doesn’t coach any single sport, because, he said, “I prefer to know and work with all the teams.”

Zach

He also knows what he and Hill want to accomplish with an athletic program that had a tradition of excellence under the direction of Sydney Bowers long before he arrived. She also encouraged him to apply for her AD’s position when she retired in 2020 after 44 years at the school.

“I don’t expect any of our kids to go pro…I don’t expect anyone to be the next Brett Favre,” Roszel said. “If I have a young girl who can take a frisbee and toss it across the field, or pick up a football and throw a spiral and have a friend catch it, that’s kind of cool to me. I want our students to go on from here and eventually play intramural when they go to high school and college. And I want them all to have fun while they are here.”

Said Head of School Treavor Lord, who hired Roszel, “Zach brings such energy and enthusiasm to his position as AD. He understands Hill’s philosophy including the value of interscholastic competition for our oldest students as well as making sports an active and engaging part of all Hill students’ experience.”

Hill’s Athletic Department remains one of the main elements of the school’s Total Education philosophy—strong academics and meaningful participation in art, theater, music, and sports. And Roszel and his team go about it with obvious joy and great passion, also adding new elements like flag football, floor hockey and even wiffle ball to the mix of activities.

“I like teaching through games, not just by having drills,” Roszel said. “With everything we do, there is an element of competition. It could be sharks and minnows, keep-away. We’d dribble a basketball and make it into a relay race.”

Roszel also credits “my right hand man,” physical education teacher and coach Mike Barreda, with helping him run the program.

“He was here for many years with Sydney and really showed me the ropes,” he said. “We’ve got a great relationship and he’s one of the reasons we’ve been so successful.”

Roszel’s younger brother Will, a fine high school lacrosse player at Fauquier High School, is also a Hill School coach and instructor in the athletic department. And eight other Hill classroom teachers coach boys and girls teams.

“I wanted our coaches to be Hill teachers,” Roszel said. “We have 100 percent Hill full-time faculty and staff on our fields, and they’re a huge, huge reason the sports department is successful. They’re positive, energetic, exactly the kind of coaches I want. And best of all, the students have all bought into what we are doing.”

Roszel, who lives in Unison with his wife, Kim, and their daughters Olivia and Brooklyn, is a Fauquier County native who grew up in nearby Marshall and graduated from Fauquier High School. He was recruited by East Carolina to play soccer, then had to transfer to Radford when ECU dropped the sport

after his freshman season. At Radford, he started 71 Division I games over three seasons.

He was a business and marketing major and not long after he graduated in 2009, he combined his love of sports with his academic background and started a soccer goalkeeping academy—ZAR soccer academy —based in northern Virginia.

He still works with young goalies and over the years he’s helped train and coach a number of Northern Virginia athletes who have gone on to play college soccer at schools like Virginia, Princeton, Arizona State, and North Carolina State.

He first connected with Hill when the school partnered with his company to run its summer camps back in 2017. That evolved into coaching 4th and 5th grade sports at Hill in 2018 and 2019. When Sydney Bowers retired, “She told me ‘you should apply for this job.’”

Roszel interviewed in the spring of 2020 and was offered the AD position about a month later.

“I guess you could say I was at the right place at the right time,” he said.

Hill’s students, parents, and his colleagues surely would agree.

“We have 100 percent Hill full-time faculty and staff on our fields, and they’re a huge, huge reason the sports department is successful.”

Zach Roszel and a young Hill School athlete.

Dealing With Disabilities in a Welcoming Business Way

By Carina Elgin

Asthe American population ages, the number of people with physical, mental, and non-apparent disabilities continues to grow. And welcoming them makes good business sense, especially in a tourist-friendly town like Middleburg.

Longtime resident Lori Daly, president of Diversifi Consulting Group, recently presented an important and informative workshop to local businesses in town on “The ADA and Welcoming Your Customers.” Diversifi educates companies and individuals on disability awareness, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace and throughout communities.

Hosted by Visit Middleburg and the Town of Middleburg, the September workshop focused on businesses understanding the importance of making their establishments more accessible and welcoming to people with disabilities. These customers represent 25 per cent of their potential market, and have significant spending power.

Daly also is a Mid-Atlantic ADA Leadership Network Trainer and Chair of the Loudoun County Disability Services Board. She’s planning to offer more in-depth workshops in Middleburg.

At her recent session, she spoke of The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), passed in 1990, and how this civil rights law defined the rights of people with disabilities to access all goods and services.

Costs to remove barriers can be minimal, such as

Photo by Carina Elgin Lori Daly speaking at her recent workshop discuss ing businesses dealing with disabled customers.

providing a ramp for wheelchair access into a store, rearranging tables, and repositioning shelves. She reemphasized that making minimal changes can greatly expand business and benefit everyone.

New construction and renovations must meet certain regulations, but Daly said that even businesses in older buildings must show an awareness of the ADA and make an effort to remove existing barriers.

The Department of Justice oversees ADA requirements and Daly said DOJ “does realize that it may be too expensive to fix all obstacles at once, but

expects that you’re trying.”

If a complaint is filed, it’s important for businesses to have a record of what they have done to improve accessibility, including, Daly added with a smile, “attending workshops like these.”

Many fixes are easy, and both landlord and business owners can get tax incentives, Daly noted. She encouraged businesses to assess affordable priorities right away.

“There are professionals who can help you,” she said. “Start by thinking about simpler, but important things, like hand railings and portable ramps.”

She also suggested accessible door hardware, making those doors easier to open, and installing buzzers for people who might need help getting in. Even if restrooms can’t be made fully compliant, grab bars will help, and customers can be directed to the accessible public bathroom Middleburg constructed off Liberty Street.

Daly recommended that sandwich boards not block the sidewalks. She added that old multistory buildings do not have to install expensive elevators if goods and services can be provided in another way. She also suggested business owners be open to moving meetings, offering services downstairs, or bringing items for sale down to the customer.

Also, it’s important to become knowledgeable about service dogs. Only dogs actually trained to do tasks to help their human are granted access to places pet dogs cannot be taken.

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Emmanuel’s Rieger Organ Gets Major Tuneup

By Pat Reilly

Samantha

Koch, of the Staunton-based Greenleaf Organ Company, is the first woman to found such a company in North America.

In late August, she and her colleague, Chris Bono, completed the refurbishment of the 1979 Austrian-made Reiger pipe organ at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Middleburg.

In addition to a cleaning of all the parts inside and out after 40 years, Hoc said her team, which also includes her architect husband, Daniel, rebuilt the broken grillwork in the knee panel, reworked the worn pedals and reshaped the pipes to be more conducive to congregational singing.

“New organ pipes make no sound,” Bono said. “They must be shaped to sing.”

To be an organ builder, one also should be a musician, able to craft new wooden pieces and also create the pipes from scratch. The team then “voices” the organ, which takes into account the size of the room and elements such as carpeting, padding, curtains and cushions that absorb the sound.

Koch pointed out that there aren’t many excellent voicers in the country. She went to the University of Oklahoma, which had one of the only organ building programs in the country. Bono learned to voice an organ while majoring in music at Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Virginia.

“It’s still really and old trade passed down for generations,” she said. “Usually learned by doing.”

Stay tuned for an organ rededication recital at Emmanuel Church this fall.

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Land Trust of Virginia Hosts 2nd Annual “Sunset in the Field”

Celebrate Virginia’s open spaces with bluegrass, BBQ and a spectacular sunset at Farmer’s Delight

TheLand Trust of Virginia (LTV), a nonprofit organization that partners with private landowners who voluntarily protect and preserve properties with significant historic, scenic, or ecological value, will host Sunset in the Field on Sunday, Oct. 23 from 4 to 7 p.m. at Farmer’s Delight (36276 Mountville Rd, Middleburg, Va. 20117), a picturesque country estate built in 1791.

“This is our second Sunset in the Field event after wonderful feedback we received last year,” said Sally Price, executive director of LTV. “We carefully selected another venue that like Oak Spring, has amazing sunset views and acts as wonderful backdrop to exemplify what we are working so hard to protect – our natural and historic resources.”

Sunset in the Field features the iconic Bluegrass

Band, The Seldom Scene, and barbeque from legendary Shaffer’s BBQ. Attendees will enjoy beer from Old Bust Head Brewery and wine, as well as a silent auction full of one-of-a-kind gifts and experiences, a raffle, and children’s scavenger hunt. Two music sets will culminate at sunset in a shared moment of celebration for conservation, lead by Reverend Jonathan V. Adams from Trinity

Episcopal Church in Upperville, to acknowledge the expansive, conserved landscape surrounding the event.

“We sincerely thank landowner, Betsee Parker for welcoming us at Farmer’s Delight this year, “said Ashton Cole, deputy director of LTV. “All the staff are looking forward to connecting with supporters new and old for a spectacular fall day!”

Tickets are $110 per adult, $20 for youth (1117) and kids under 10 are free! Entry includes one BBQ ticket and two drink tickets. Four tickets can be purchased for the discounted price of $380. Bring your own lawn chairs and blankets but please no coolers with outside beverages and no pets.

Tickets can be purchased at https://landtrustva. org/2022events/fieldparty-tickets/ or by calling (540)- 687-8441.

For Karen Jackson, It was Love Middleburg Style

By Leslie VanSant

Karen Jackson landed in Middleburg nearly 35 years ago. In the years since, her shop, Tully Rector has become a go-to destination on Washington Street for locals and visitors alike.

In the late 1980s, she was working as a flight attendant and living in Annapolis. “My flight schedule was only six or seven days a month, which left a lot of time available,” she explained. “I have always been interested in clothes, so getting a second job in a clothing store seemed like a good idea.”

Along the way she worked at small private boutiques as well as brandname, big box stores including Lord & Taylor and Neiman Marcus. She got valuable experience working with customers and honing her own tastes and sense of style.

When she first visited Middleburg, she quickly fell in love. As an equestrian, the horses, history and beautiful countryside made her feel at ease. But it was true love that won the day. Karen met Middleburg resident Tully Rector on that first visit, and he became her life partner from then until his death in 2014.

“Tully had a little shop selling his luggage, and I started to have fun bringing in accessories first—scarves—and then it just developed into more.”

Tully, the clothing shop, opened officially in 1990. In the years since, it has become a Middleburg mainstay for women’s fashion.

From the earliest days, Jackson did it all: buying, unpacking new arrivals, the window displays. Though she continued flying each month for the first 11 years, the business steadily grew thanks to her carefully curated eye for fashion.

On her twice-yearly buying trips, the first thing she asks herself is “do I like it?’ Then, “will someone wear it?”

“I always try to buy with our customers in mind,” she said. “Classic and something fun.”

Her personal style is influenced by her busy schedule. She tends to dogs and horses before she gets to the shop, with some of her day filled with boxes and unpacking. She has a collection of coats she’s kept “forever. You can wear something simple underneath and then put on a fabulous coat and you’re ready to go anywhere.”

She’s been supported, or, as she would say blessed, by long-time staff. Darlene Weeks has been greeting and dressing customers for nearly 25 years. Marilyn Bigelow worked for more than 20 years until she passed away earlier this year. Now, those classic black flats she left behind are being filled by Suzanne Aton.

A long-time favorite for locals, the shop also has been attracting a devoted following of women in the greater Washington metropolitan area, thanks in part to the pandemic, Salamander Resort and social media.

“When Salamander became one of the first places to open during the pandemic, people from the city just came here for a few days to get away for a change,” she said. “Walking around town they would find the shop and buy a few things. They fell in love with the charm of the town, just like I did, and realized it was not so far that they couldn’t come back easily for visits.”

“I don’t have a website, but I do post on Instagram,” she said. Customers follow her account where she posts photos of new arrivals and looks. Clients then call or come back to Middleburg for the day to shop.

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The Roads Less Taken Offer So Much More

By Jim Wofford

Inever

wanted an office with a view. I wanted a view for my office, and I found that view from the back of a horse.

Virginia has 5,889 miles of unpaved roads, 300 in my home county, Loudoun. I’ve ridden over many of them, and they’re a time capsule—living museums, really— if you take the time to visit them.

They’re also a good excuse to leave your office, enjoy yourself, and view some of Virginia’s wildlife. For most of the past three-quarters of a century, I’ve ridden and trained horses all over northern Virginia, most of it on the Commonwealth’s priceless network of unpaved roads.

Horses walk about four miles an hour, which gives me time to look around. It’s amazing what I wonder when I let my mind wander. Who first stepped along this path? When did it become a wagon trail? Where does it go? And what happened next?

Some of the walls that enclose unpaved roads are more than a century old, and still standing. Have you ever really looked at a stone wall? Every rock was placed there by a human hand; walls are giant puzzles, solved by human ingenuity.

The materials were free. The rocks were a by-product of felling trees and clearing fields for planting and pasture. All it took to create the wall was backbreaking labor.

After the Civil War, workers, many of them recently freed slaves, were paid “a penny a running foot” (a subsistence wage at that time) to construct some of these walls.

The stones were typically buried two feet into the ground for a foundation, then usually built to a yard high. The better walls utilized little or no quartz, which crumbled under the relentless annual assault of freezing and thawing; sandstone and granite endure.

Cars are now the most common means of travel on these back roads. Though speed limits are set very low, few turn off onto one of these shaded lanes because they’re in a hurry. New to driving gravel roads? A suggestion: Put one front tire on the crown in the middle, and the other one off to the shoulder. This will prevent “bottoming out” on the raised middle.

Virginia’s unpaved roads are not just a path to a destination. They’re a window into the history of the area, and an opportunity to reunite with the natural world.

Although there are occasional straight stretches, resist the temptation to speed up.  VDOT rarely bothers putting speed bumps along unpaved sections; it knows Mother Nature delights in growing them wild.

And let your mind meander. Did some of the 60 million bison that once populated the U.S. carve this path searching for fresh grass to graze. Did the Seneca and Shawnee tribes take this same byway? I’ve often thought the dust my horse kicked up once was stirred by the moccasins of Native Americans.

Others followed these paths: the first settlers with their carts drawn by oxen, and then riders with their eyes fixed on the summits and passes of the Blue Ridge Mountains. One such rider was a young man named George Washington, who used these tracks on his way to survey for Lord Fairfax the western territories of what was then a British colony. It’s strangely comforting that Washington first measured the metes and bounds of the country he would later help create.

I’m ambivalent about stone walls. There is something esthetically satisfying about a tidy wall, with all the cap rocks level and the grass verge neatly trimmed by weed-eaters. At the same time, weed-eaters are an invention of the devil, sent here to destroy the ecosystem. (I’m kidding…sort of.)

Mother Nature apparently doesn’t love stone walls. Left to her own devices, she’ll soon produce an astonishing profusion of life to disassemble them. Tall, thick hedges will cover a crumbling wall with creeping vines—bramble, honeysuckle, and multiflora rose.

At the right time of year, you can sample blackberries starting to ripen. But take advantage quickly; birds, deer, possums, and raccoons will soon harvest them, and the local fox surely will get his share tonight.

The hedges that frame your path may appear impenetrable, but peek underneath and you may find a parallel road system used by rabbits, ground hogs, chipmunks, mice, and other small ground game as protection from overhead predators.

There will be the occasional low spot in the hedge, where white-tail deer have jumped into the next field. A careful inspection will disclose a profusion of bird nests; this wall of bramble and honeysuckle is an avian condominium. Sparrows, wrens, mockingbirds, cardinals, blue jays, and gold finches will flutter out of the hedge ahead of you, twittering and chirping their protests at your intrusion, then settling back into the hedge behind you.

My favorite moments riding on an unpaved road unfold when a profusion of gold finches pours out of the hedge up ahead, forming a golden road—one that leads me to a deeper appreciation of these secret treasures of Virginia.

Jim Wofford is a three-time Olympian and one of the best-known eventing trainers in the world. The Upperville resident has been listed by the Chronicle of the Horse as one of the “50 Most Influential Horsemen of the 20th Century.”

Take me home, country roads.

A Young Man Crafting an Old World Future

By Leonard Shapiro

WhenAndrew Knepper completed his junior year at Arizona State last spring, he knew exactly what he wanted to do next, even if he also was fully aware his father, Scott, definitely would have another idea. Andrew was not looking forward to that conversation.

Instead of heading back to Tempe, Andrew wanted to go to work full time—and often overtime—for his father’s company, Old World Woodworking located halfway between Middleburg and The Plains. The business specializes in finely crafted wood products, and Andrew, 23, was particularly enamored with learning the skill from Dave Fox, an Old World master craftsman.

“Every year I’ve come back from school and worked in the cabinet shop,” Andrew said. “I always had a passion for millwork, working with my hands. It’s something I’d like to keep doing.”

At first, his father wanted him to head back to school and finish his degree. But Andrew offered an alternative. During Covid, he had taken a number of classes on line, and he told Scott he could do the same to finish the final 27 credits he needed to graduate.

“Once I worked out a plan to complete all my credits, he was a lot more open to it,” Andrew said. “I promised him I would do it, and he made all my

Photo by Leonard Shapiro Andrew Knepper

friends promise that they’d make sure I finished.”

So these days, Andrew is at the shop full time, learning from Fox and also branching out to help start up the company’s recently added handyman division. While he’s at it, he’s also in the front office working on invoicing, tax preparation and material procurement for the entire business.

“I’m learning everything,” he said. “I started working on my dad’s other company (Oz Construction), when I was 15. Construction is like a puzzle, and you’ve got to problem solve through it all. I really enjoy that.”

Cabinet making offers similar challenges and Andrew is thrilled to be working with Fox. He

estimated there are probably not more than a dozen high -end cabinet makers on the east coast, mostly because young people are not exactly flocking to the trades.

Computer technology has allowed for more cabinet mass production, but that will never truly match the subtle skills learned over many years by meticulous artisans like Fox.

“I just see a huge market there and I’d like to be in it,” Andrew said. “And you couldn’t have a better mentor than Dave.”

Andrew also is intrigued by the handyman work, whether it involves painting, fixing a loose gutter, installing some drywall, even light electrical work.

“You sort of learn as you go,” he said. “My dad tries not to send me on jobs I might not quite be ready to do. Electric has always been a little scary to me. But my dad’s mentor taught him everything 40 years ago working with him 16 hours a day. Now my dad is giving me verbatim what his mentor taught him.

“You have to have patience with everything you do. It’s something I was lacking a few years ago. But since I’ve started working here, my patience has skyrocketed. If you rush through things, you’ll mess up and have to start over.”

Sounds like an Old World mantra coming from a young man who knows where he’s going. College degree included.

Antique Arms, Edged Weapons & Armor www.davidcondon.com

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Purchasing and consigning quality antique arms of all types since 1957. Appraisers to the Smithsonian, the National Park Service and the National Firearms Museum. Recipient of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Citation for Public Service.

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We are always looking to buy vintage guns,daggers, swords,knives,bayonets,uniforms,flags,medals,belts, buckles and other collectable militaria.We also purchase sporting gun and military related books,gun related tools,vintage ammunition,etc.If you have any antique or collectable military or gun items that you want to sell please contact us for more information on our appraisal services,consignment rates or outright sale.

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Tues.-Fri. 10-5:30

Sat. 10-3

Post Office Box 7 Middleburg, VA 20117 Middleburg, VA 20118 Tel. 540-687-5642 Fax 540-687-5649 Email: info@davidcondon.com www.davidcondon.com

CLEANING

Ein glücklicher Tag in Middleburg

Photos by Donna Strama Country

photographer Donna Strama wanted to see the beer wagon pull up on to South Madison Street for the Oktoberfest and she was right on time. The celebration, hosted by the Town of Middleburg, included not one but two biergartens. An Artist Alley with pottery, jewelry and fine art was set up along Federal Street. And, oh let us not forget to mention the Stein Holding contest sponsored by King Street Oyster Bar, the Bratwurst eating contest sponsored by Northwest Federal Credit Union and the Best Dressed Bavarian contest courtesy of Endhardt Vineyards.

Out of TOWN

Wet and Not So Wild: A Life Well-Lived

By Constance Chatfield-Taylor

It was Labor Day, 2014. Feeling out of sorts, I took a long walk and ended up down at the Georgetown waterfront. There were dozens of children playing in the huge fountain feature, and one…grandmother?

I watched her spin in the water, arms outstretched toward the sun, enjoying it tremendously.

I took a picture, then another, and looked around for her family. I couldn’t find anyone connected with her, so I motioned that I would send her copies. She walked out of the fountain, dripping and smiling.

“Would you like some photos?” I asked.

She smiled, and when I asked her for her e-mail, she said, “I have none.”

Cell phone? Nope.

“I’ll see you here again, I come every day.”

OK, I said. Every day?

“Yes,” she said. “Every day I come from Silver Spring. You know it?”

Yes, I know it.

“I go to Miriam’s Kitchen for a very good meal, come here to the fountain, and go to the free concert every night at 6 o’clock at the Kennedy Center. Did you know they have free concerts daily?”

Photo by Constance Chatfield-Taylor The grandmother in the fountain.

We talked for a while, and I learned she was North Korean, born in 1934. We talked about North Korea during the war, her immigration to the U.S. in 1957, going to school in South Carolina. Her work as a ballerina for 10 years.

“I was in fashion design for many years after dancing, you know it helps to understand human anatomy when designing clothes….I also played classical piano.”

She works in cosmetology in Silver Spring now. I was still trying to take it all in.

You seem so very peaceful, I said.

“Yes, when you enjoy life, you treat yourself. I take no medicine. I eat only healthy food.”

“I’m 80 years old,” she said with a huge smile.

“The things I have done with my life – dancing, design, music – give me a very good foundation for enjoying life, for opening myself to the paradise around me.”

I asked her name and told her mine and she said,” I’ll see you someday at a free concert at the Kennedy Center. I’m there every night.”

What’s tonight’s concert? I asked.

She thought a minute and then said, “It’s September, right?”

Yes, I said. September 1st.

“I won’t know until I get the schedule tonight! Then I can tell you.”

“I’ll see you sometime,” she said. “I sit on the left, all the way up, by the piano.”

Constance Chatfield-Taylor lives in Upperville and Georgetown and will be writing for Country ZEST on matters country and city.

Thorpe III

Karen

TAKING

Roger

Morgan-Grenville is a late-to-life writer. First, he wrote about bees — Liquid Gold: Bees and the Pursuit of Midlife Honey. Then he wrote Shearwater: A Bird, An Ocean, and a Long Way Home. And now, he’s back with...cows.

Whether or not you live anywhere near a farm or even eat meat, cows are an integral part of all our lives.  From the gum in gummies, the tires on our vehicles, the vacca in vaccines, sunscreen, laundry detergent, garden fertilizer, and everyday packaging…the list goes on and on.

Since Highland cattle ruined his grandmother’s vegetable patch when he was six, Roger Morgan-Grenville has been fascinated by cows. A age 61, with no farming experience, he signed on as a part- time laborer on a beef cattle farm to tell their side of the story. The result is this lyrical and evocative book.

For 10,000 years, cow and human lives have been intertwined. Cattle have existed alongside us, fed and shod us, quenched our thirst, and provided a thousand other tiny services, and yet most of us know little about them. We are also blissfully unaware of the de-natured lives we often ask them to lead.

Part history, part adventure and part unsentimental manifesto for how we should treat cows in the 21st century, Taking Stock asks us to think carefully about what we eat, and to let nature back into food production.

Weaving history and science with his own one-on-one experiences amid a collective of cows, Taking Stock is a delightful and fun book about our bovine companions: their history, their personalities, rare breeds and common breeds, all set against some very BBC-worthy backdrops.

Cows, after all, are ecological engineers (and also play a big role in climate change—though new methods to combat the methane emissions may surprise and even delight you).

Readers will be enchanted with the cow when they read Roger MorganGrenville moo-ving Taking Stock: A Journey Among Cows (Icon Books, October 2022). The author was a soldier from 1978-86 and later helped to set up the charity Help for Heroes. He lives in Petworth, England.

I am not a farmer, I just happen to like cows. They press a button in my soul that other, perhaps better regarded animals, simply don’t.

“No cow could ever hope for a better appreciation of its truly unique worth.”— Betty Fussell, James Beard Award winner for magazine feature writing and author of The Story of Corn and Raising Steaks

u r S i s t e r C o

r S i s t e r C o m p a n y

o i l s ,

Middleburg’s Betsee Parker (6th from the left) was honored with the 2022 Louis J. Malon Outstanding Preservation Achievement Award recently at a dinner held at Scotchtown Plantation in Hanover County, once the resi dence of U.S. founding father Patrick Henry and now the home of Virginia Preservation. In announcing the award, Virginia Preservation CEO Elizabeth Kostelny said Parker was the recipient “for your tireless historic preservation and philanthropic work…The awards committee was very impressed with your multiple preservation efforts over the years,” including the Huntland and Farmer’s Delight properties near Middleburg among other projects.

n c

Photo © by Leonard Shapiro Leah Palmer had a teardown party at her newly purchased home near Mar shall. As the owner of Horse Country Design she took the opportunity to en thusiastically swing a sledge hammer and start knocking down a wall.

Photo © by Leonard Shapiro Laurie Volk and Tommy Hill, a trustee for The Nature Conservan cy, attended a recent presentation in Delaplane focusing on the Conservancy’s Cumberland Forest Project. Featured in the Septem ber issue of National Geographic, it’s an innovative effort aiming to tackle climate change while supporting local communities in Southwestern Virginia.

R a w L a n d B? u i l d i n g o n R a w L a n d ?

e e d S o i l s w o r k d o n Ne e e d S o i l s w o r k d o n e

Photo © by Leonard Shapiro Treavor Lord, head of school at the Hill School, and Catherine McGehee, head of school at Foxcroft, were in attendance at a recent BizzBuzz meeting of the Middleburg Business and Professional Association held at Lost Barrel Brewery.

Photo © by Leonard Shapiro Pam Fessler retired NPR reporter with her new book “Carville’s Cure: Leprosy, Stigma, on the Fight for Justice” with fellow writer Marc Leepson of Middleburg who had several of his books including “Saving Monticello” and “Flag: An Ameri can Biography.” The occasion was a book fair at Lansdowne Woods produced by publishing expert Kathleen Hughes.

Jim Donegan has more than 40 years of experience as an ISA Certified Arborist — he was one of the first to become certified. With his leading knowledge and leadership, he has created a well-respected and professional tree care company that focuses on providing you and your trees the utmost care. Jim has worked in many historical places across the northern Virginia and D.C. area including but not limited to the White House and Oatlands Historical House and Garden.

Donegan’s Tree Service is the leading tree care company in the region that offers tree inventories to property owners who have more than 50 serviceable trees on their property.

WHAT MAKES A TREE INVENTORY SPECIAL?

• Helps prevent costly tree loss damage

• Mitigates unplanned budget expenditures

• Protects property and property values

• Helps generate a 3-to-5 year maintenance plan

• Labels and records species names, width, and height

• Create a unique identifying tree ID number

• Collects GPS coordinates for all trees tagged

• Helps to keep trees healthy

• Helps to prevent hazards

• Provide information to calculate Carbon and Carbon Dioxide sequestering totals and yearly yields

• Reduces liability by providing accurate and up-to-date information with urban forestry metrics such as total of all trees species, age, size, condition and diversification

Oatlands Historic House & Gardens

Raising a Puppy for a Critical Cause

By CatiAdele Slater

Flint X, a black lab retriever cross, came to Middleburg in March as an eight-week-old pup. Little did he know he was about to embark on a journey that would lead him to live a life serving a human as a service dog.

Canine Companion for Independence (CCI) was founded in 1975 and the nonprofit organization breeds, trains, and pairs dogs with people living with disabilities, helping them lead a life of greater independence.

I was introduced to CCI at a young age when my sister Cassella started training her first dog thanks to Colleen Roberts. Since then, I’ve seen the community embrace the program and the number of volunteer puppy raisers grow exponentially.

My own family has raised eight dogs, Flint being the ninth. We’ve all learned so much from each experience.

Every puppy starts the journey in a similar way. Their training with the volunteer

Uniquely

Banking

puppy raiser lasts just over a year. This entails routine veterinary appointments, regular socializing in the community, and twice a month puppy class.

A volunteer puppy raiser signs up to care for the first year, including some financial responsibility as well as supervising its overall development. And sponsorships help, as well.

Since working at Holtzman Vogel, Baran Torchinsky, Josefiak PLLC in Haymarket since June, 2021 I knew their love for dogs and community engagement made the law office a great environment. With that in mind I approached the managing partner, Virginia Senator Jill Vogel, and told her about my interest in becoming a puppy raiser for CCI.

I explained a bit about the program, outlined my responsibilities, then asked if the firm would be interested in sponsoring his basic training. They immediately jumped on board and when Flint arrived, he was a daily office worker. Spending many hours there allowed him to become socialized to that setting.

From contact with humans, dealing with noises, being introduced to different spaces, he should be extremely comfortable supporting his future companion wherever they live, work and operate daily. The law firm and the school settings have been extremely valuable in his training process.

In Middleburg, we have puppy class the first and third Wednesday of each month hosted by the Middelburg Montessori School in the winter months, and Foxstone Estate when the weather is nicer.

Colleen Roberts, who was a trainer of championship ponies before she began working with CCI, volunteers her time and expertise. She teaches the puppies about 30 basic commands—things like sit, stay, heel, under, over, back, up, speak, jump, shake and down.

Flint and I are extremely grateful for all the support from our community volunteers and sponsors. It’s going to be difficult to say goodbye, but knowing how much Flint will mean to the life of his future owner makes it all worthwhile.

Flint also spends time at Middleburg Montessori School interacting with children of all ages both in the classroom and outside.

A Riveting Read on Spying and Treachery

By Anthony Wells

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from a new book, Crossroads in Time, written by Anthony Wells, a native of the United Kingdom who now lives in The Plains. He’s the only living person to have worked for British intelligence as a British citizen and for U.S. intelligence as a U.S. citizen.

The

lives of Harold Adrian Russell “Kim” Philby and James Jesus Angleton intersected almost continuously from their first meeting to Philby’s defection to the Soviet Union after being unmasked as a Soviet agent in January, 1963.

Philby remains to this day the most notorious British traitor, a man whose treachery cost the lives of countless British agents and by association those of sister agencies associated with the United Kingdom‘s secret intelligence service, or MI6. He betrayed a whole generation and more, merciless in his pursuit of obtaining the secrets of British and Five Eyes intelligence and of their individual and joint relations with third-party foreign intelligence organizations— and passing these secrets to the Soviet Union.

Philby’s relationship with Angleton, the chief of counter intelligence at the CIA from 1954 to 1975, is unique at every level. For the times in which they both lived (Philby died in Moscow in 1988 at 76 and Angleton died in 1987 at 69 in Washington D.C.), their relationship went far beyond the normal bounds of routine US/UK intelligence liaisons and exchanges.

It was not just about comparing source material and the resulting analyses and oiling the intelligence machinery of their respective countries. It went beyond these well-established boundaries to a highly personal level of meetings almost always extremely private, at nefarious non-government locations and clearly very secretive and clandestine, in which there is a little doubt that the most sensitive intelligence material was discussed and exchanged.

They rarely met at either CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia or at the

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British embassy on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C. This measure was not related to security protocol – – avoiding for example KGB watchers in Washington and dodging them by changing locations regularly. Rather, they held totally unofficial non-recorded and non-sponsored meetings about which their leadership knew very little, if anything. Their positions of trust allowed them both to pursue this totally unofficial liaison well outside the bounds of traditional trade craft, since both were senior officials and not undercover agents working clandestinely with false identities. Where else went the critical and highly classified material that they discussed and exchanged is explored in the unfolding plot.

No two senior intelligence operatives from the oldest intelligence relationship in the world, between the United States and United Kingdom, have ever interacted quite like Philby and Angleton. These two bear detailed review and in light of the benefits of both hindsight and newly obtained material, this historical novel invites readers to form their own opinions.

This story is chronological, following both main characters from their early beginnings and the foundation of their personalities and inclinations to their activities and relationship until the end of 1963, shortly after the Kennedy assassination, by which time Philby was a Moscow resident.  Angleton continued at the CIA until various scandals and investigations into his activities and personal contact led him to being fired from the agency under the guise of being rewarded with a retirement accolade.

This Fall, Come Chill with Us and Enjoy BBQ &

Since 1999, the Community Foundation for Loudoun and Northern Fauquier Counties has helped generous donors support a variety of charitable causes in our region. We salute the leaders who wrapped their vision and commitment—and arms—around this community to create and sustain a permanent charitable resource.

Carry Me BACK

Millicent West

By Jimmy Hatcher

Letme carry you back to the late 1960s. I was writing off my horses on my taxes because I had a lot of income from judging horse shows, and occasionally I would also sell a horse at a profit, as well.

But back then, the IRS went from having to show a profit two out of seven years to showing a profit two out of every five years. My friend Millicent MacKenzie took pity on me and rented me her late husband Donald’s stable for a song. That enabled me to show a profit and saved me a lot of money that normally would have gone to Uncle Sam.

Millicent, who passed away in 2009, was a major shareholder and board member of the old Middleburg Bank. She loved the Middleburg area and told the Washington Post in 2004 that, “If you can serve the community in any way, then I’m in favor of it.”

One of the great benefits of being at Millicent’s stable was the beauty of being “the extra man for dinner.” Millicent entertained a lot as did everyone in those days. There was no Covid.

One night after dinner, I happened to hear some of the ladies talking about how that night I had filled in for Paul Mellon, who couldn’t come at the last minute. Those were expensive shoes to fill!

Millicent was just the loveliest person and it wasn’t long before she had a beau. His name was Bill West and he had been a widower for some time. He and his late wife, Betty Christopher West, had lived down the Foxcroft Road  from Millicent and her late husband, Don MacKenzie.

The Wests two daughters were becoming high school age and they wanted to attend Foxcroft. Miss Charlotte Nolan, the founder and still head of the school had disallowed the girls desire to attend because they lived too close to the campus.

So Betty got her father, the owner of Carter Hall in Millwood, to give her a chunk of land and she and Bill West built Locksley. That distance was far enough away from Foxcroft to suit Miss Charlotte just fine and the girls were able to attend.

Millicent and Bill West dated quite a long time before they decided to take a trip together. Neither had ever been to the posh Mill Reef Club in Antigua, Paul Mellon’s stomping grounds, so Millicent got on the phone and asked Paul to make reservations for them at Mill Reef.

Because Paul Mellon was so respected for all his big business acumen and so many good philanthropic works, few people other than his close friends and associates realized that he also had a wonderful sense of humor.

Bill West and Millicent MacKenzie arrived in Antigua not knowing that the Mill Reef manager had been told by Paul Mellon to tell the vacationing couple that reservations had been made for Mrs. MacKenzie at the club, but reservations for Mr. West were at a hotel in downtown Antigua.

I never heard how things turned out, but my guess is they somehow managed to get together at Mill Reef and the trip clearly was a great success. After all, Bill and Millicent were happily married shortly after they returned.

Jimmy Hatcher

COLES AARP

All About Retired Pals

PHOTOS © BY Tiffany of Dillionkeenphotography

In

to a successful career teaching, training, competing and traveling

the show jumping circuit, Sloane Coles operates a compassionate option for equine retirement in a serene setting.

Ledge Horse Retirement is located at Springfield Farm on 350 acres in The Plains. Sloane and a full-time, professional retirement manager run this lovely AARP equivalent for the equine set.

New horses are given the time to relax and transition from their previous lives as show horses. They begin with one other equine buddy in a small paddock before full-time turn out with a group of retirees in a larger field. All pastures have auto matic waterers and run-in sheds.

After a new horse is totally relaxed in its new environment, it’s introduced to a small herd of well-mannered horses. There, they live out their lives together, being allowed to graze, rest and roam the fields. Details: https://springledgeva. com/retirement/

Returning the favor

Caretaker John giving out treats

Taking the time to smell the flowers Posing for a picture

Caretaker John giving out treats

Grazing with a mountain view

The main house at Littleton Farm has ten bedrooms, nine full bathrooms, and three half bathrooms.

PROPERTY Writes

Littleton Farm Offers Big Possibilities

Family and friends will love gathering in the extravagant theater room which includes a bar and large screen.

The premier estate of Littleton Farm is an equine and entertainer’s paradise on 153-plus glorious acres in Upperville’s horse country in part of the historical Piedmont Fox Hounds territory. The main home offers grand living and entertaining spaces with soaring ceilings, unique and inviting gathering areas such as a library with fireplace, formal dining room, mud room, commercial grade kitchen and memorable breathtaking views.

A laundry room and additional guest accommodations are above. Relax and unwind in the Primary Suite with a fireplace and sweeping views from three balconies. This space also has a walk-in closet with ample built-ins, bathroom with soaking tub and standing shower, and a sitting room.

Family and friends will love the extravagant theater room with a bar located in the basement. Additionally, there are multiple outdoor living spaces perfect for entertaining. Three tenant houses also include numerous bedrooms and bathrooms for guests, staff or office space.

The late Jacques Wertz, a world-famous Belgian landscape garden designer, was the inspiration for landscape design. Wertz was known for his signature “clouds” of beautiful boxwood creating a green architecture. The boxwoods, weeping Kastura and extensive vegetable garden are a true delight. There’s also lovely lake, stream and waterfall features.

The property is in Open Space Easement. *The final acreage is subject to pending boundary line adjustment. Littleton Farm is conveniently located 38 miles from Washington Dulles International Airport, and 52 miles from the Nation’s Capital.

Co-listed at $ 8,300,000 by John Coles of Thomas & Talbot Estate Properties jcoles@thomasandtalbot.com 540-270-0094 | Licensed in VA AND Peter Pejacsevich of Atoka Properties/Middleburg Properties peter@atokaproperties.com 540-270-3835 | Licensed in VA

A 60-foot long pool near the main house includes a pool house with a steam room, large gym, one bedroom, and a full bathroom, and a stone house with two bedrooms and two full baths above and a four-car garage underneath.

Upon entry, the living room offers stunning exposed beams, two massive fireplaces, and patio access with views of the impec cable grounds.

There are two horse barns (12 stalls and 17 stalls), four run-in sheds (three include feed rooms, tack rooms, and extra stalls), a machine shed, a sixbay garage, a riding ring with competitive footing, multiple fenced paddocks with automatic waterers, two silos with rolling hills, a lighted helipad, and trails to ride out.

The property includes three tenant houses/apartments with a total of nine bedrooms and five bathrooms.

Operation Homefront Offers Military Families a Helping Hand

By Joe Motheral

Operation

Homefront (OH) serves military families nationwide dealing with some sort of emergency in their lives.

Consider the case of Loudoun County resident Heather Derenberg, who served 18 months in Iraq and is still dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“The roof on our garage was collapsing,” she said. “I don’t know what we would have done without Operation Homefront. They replaced the roof. Without them we would have been homeless.”

Vivian Dietrich is president of the OH MidAtlantic Region now based at the Dulles Two Center in Loudoun County. The non-profit has its headquarters in San Antonio, Texas and opened a local office near Leesburg in 2007.

“Our mission is to build strong, stable, and secure military families so they can thrive – not simply struggle to get by – in the communities that they’ve worked so hard to protect,” she said.

Since its founding, OH has provided programs offering relief through critical financial assistance and transitional housing programs. In the MidAtlantic, the housing in located in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and counseling is provided there, as well.

The longer term goal is to provide permanent housing, and OH also offers programs and services to offer programs and services available throughout the year.

large and small, from fixing a kitchen appliance, providing auto repair, helping with payments for rent, mortgage and utilities, eliminating food insecurity and more.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Operation Homefront and Dietrich said the organization has “fulfilled over 50,000 requests for assistance and we have provided nearly $35 million in critical financial assistance to military families.”

Photo by Joe Motheral Vivian Dietrich

“We believe it’s a national tragedy when our military families face short-term financial hardships that often turn into a longterm struggle that derails any hopes of a brighter future,” Dietrich said. “While we serve tens of thousands of military families each year, it’s our goal to grow our outreach and continue serving those who have worked tirelessly to protect our freedoms.”

The process for a military family to seek help for an emergency situation involves initially submitting an application between the first and 10th of any given month. That allows them to have those applications approved within one month.

“It’s a grant, not a loan,” Dietrch said. “And we pay it directly to the vendor.”

Programs vary from one-time relief to recurring assistance. Those emergencies run the gamut,

In keeping with its mission, OH also provides school supplies and Christmas gifts each year. They recently delivered their 500,000th backpack filled with school supplies that Dietrich said “saved military families over $55 million.”

The Dollar Tree company, among others, donates school supplies and toys at Christmas. And over the years, countless volunteers have done the collecting and distributing.

“Our biggest hurdle at Operation Homefront is reach,” Dietrich said. “We know the need is great and while many Americans struggle, our nations’ military families often have additional burdens not faced by other segments of society. While we help tens of thousands military families each year we miss opportunities to help many more with limited resources.”

Writes

Is Home to Picturesque Glatton Folly

Enjoy

easy living in the hunt country surrounding Middleburg at “Glatton Folly.”

Located in historic Unison, the home is known as one of the most visually prominent buildings in the village. Deceivingly large, this circa 1820 remodeled Victorian-era home offers three large bedrooms and three full baths. Exterior features include German lap siding, a standing seam metal roof with front dormers and two exterior-end brick chimneys.

What truly catches the eye is the full-height, two-story portico with a barrel vault ceiling and a balcony along with the unique corner front porch. Interior architectural details include wide board pine floors, built-in bookshelves, old hardware and four fireplaces and two wood stoves in addition to baseboard heat.

The owners have lovingly cared for this home for over 22 years, renovating the kitchen, the bathrooms, the home office and more. Upgrades include new windows, a metal roof and a discreet solar panel array on the roof.

Additions and renovations over time have blended well to honor the history of the house while being incredibly functional. Off the back of the house is a large open deck ideal for entertaining. The spacious backyard is fenced on three sides and has horseshoe pits.

Mature trees, shrubs and gardens surround the house. Other outbuildings include an open one-car garage, two storage sheds, and a pump house.

Established in 1813, the town originally was called Union and in 1829, it formally took the name Unison. Today the Unison Historic District encompasses over 70 acres. The heart of the village contains 20 or so residences centered around this well-known crossroads (now a three-way stop) which used to house a store, a school, and a post office.

This is country living at its best in the heart of horse country.

Letter From Paris

By John Sherman

Garden

season dawns with bright hope -- and the brief reveries of plucking peaches from a ladder, snipping arugula, twisting off ears of silver queen, snapping asparagus spears.

The foreplay of poring over seed catalogues. Going a bit overboard on your order which totals out at $139.45. What’s wrong with a quarter pound of mesclun? It’ll keep.

Amending. Spading. Tilling. Twining tape measured rows. Gently tapping seeds into shallow furrows. Digging in potted plants. Some watering from wands. Perhaps a celebratory martini (gin).

Followed by the roar of the starting cannon. When all manner of blight, fungus, rust, wilt, beetles, aphids, borers, worms suddenly start on their terrible missions. When a gardener’s reveries turn to combat.

Back to Lowe’s garden section where every imaginable antidote (read poison) lines the shelves. Gone are the days when throwing bags of Sevin dust over all potential casualties -- from roses to rutabaga. Now, each adversary merits its own specific organic (or otherwise) silver bullet.

Sadly, if anthracnose doesn’t shrivel the cucs, the cucumber beetle waits in reserve. If the hornworm misses a few tomatoes, squirrels will take up the slack. Too much sun or too little rain must be figured into the defense strategy.

Just when a garden is beginning to collapse under this silent scourge, a new, more menacing assault force gathers -- ones with four legs. Groundhogs, possums, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons -- and, of course, deer.

One afternoon, early in April, we watched with amusement as a groundhog half-waddled-half-ran across the lawn and into the barn. As spring began to warm, he and his lot had nearly stripped the perennial gardens of coneflowers, daisies and rudbekia.  Dahlias were next in line.

Tamping down my urge for brutal revenge, I bought a Have-a-Heart trap -- a rectangular wire cage with a spring-loaded trap door. My first catch was a snapping turtle, drawn in by apples and peanut butter. Then came a possum---and the neighbor’s gray cat.

I finally found their tunnel in the barn. After dumping a bag from our cat’s litter box, along with a gallon of Clorox, I retreated and bolted the barn door. I sprayed a disgusting-smelling deterrent around his favorites. I heard muffled laughter from deep down.

The hoggishness soon resumed.

I found my mother’s carnival .22. Bought a box of shorts. I stood the gun behind my chair on the patio during the cocktail hour.

After many misses, I finally whacked my first “hog” one morning. Relying on stealth and steadiness, I waited for him to sit up for a better view of the garden. How cute. Whammo!!!

My wife sternly reminded me of the small children next door. “Where do you think you live, Montana?”

The groundhogs proved a mere nuisance compared to the next field of battle: two prime peach trees. The raccoon and the opossum are climbers; the raccoon almost prehensile. They only work at night.

The trees were heavy with peaches, ripening and coloring as May and June progressed. We would pick a couple every three days or so, just to measure the optimal date for a full harvest.

The day never came. We returned after a weekend away to find the trees virtually bare, mounds of pits at their bases. The assault must have been joined by a dozen raccoons. That was last year.

This year we prepared by hanging all manner of tinsel and pie plates to branches. We considered adding motion lights, a transistor radio -- or a Jack Russell.

I ordered an electric fence, sized specifically for raccoons. (I wanted an outfit that would set the intruders on fire---but had to settle

for a sharp sting on the snout.)

More laughter.

Two new players arrived in the backyard pond in July.  Otters.  For years, I have been feeding around a hundred goldfish and finger-sized koi.  Just the sound of the falling pellets would start the surface boiling.

How cute is an otter lying on its back, belly and snout in the air?  Sort of like beavers, the ones who nosh on my young trees (and canoe).  Wrong.  Otters are carnivores, through and through.  The last time I cast the pellets, only a handful answered the bell.

Critters can have my chard, my beans, my mesclun, but don’t even think about my 32 tomato plants.  I have been growing tomatoes off and on for fifty years—-every variety from hybrid Better Boys to heirloom Mortgage Lifters.  A few years back, I settled on the nonpareil Brandywine—-the heavenly intersection of big and sweet.

At five tomatoes a plant (minimal), that’s a lot of tomatoes.  Friends ask what we do with them all.  By the beginning of September, a rash appears.  BLTs twice a day, panzanella, gazpacho, ratatouille, pasta amatriciana, sliced with basil and olive oil, stuffed with shrimp.  The few left, we give to neighbors.  Or put them up for taste competition (never lost).

No surprise, the nefarious critters disregard our contract.  Unlike the devoured peaches or strawberries, the tomatoes evidence small scratch or a single bite and bird pecks—-only on the ripest and just enough to assure that rot begins.

Our instinct is to pick the damaged ones first and then cut out the spoilage before serving.  The consequence, of course, is a season of eating mostly mutilated tomatoes.  Next year we bring out the electric fence and netting.

On the bright side, this combat has distracted me from the moles and voles that are ripping through my lawn.

Photo by Vicky Moon

cottage would make the perfect hunt box or weekend

minutes to Route 50

Some interior features include: a beautiful kitchen with 2019 stainless steel appliances, 10-foot ceilings throughout with lots of natural light, laundry on the main level, spacious bedrooms- all with large closets, and a newly finished basement with a large bedroom and full bathroom, a great work space with tons of light, along with doors that lead up to the beautiful back yard.

Some exterior features include: a large new 2-level deck, split rail fencing around the perimeter of the backyard, and newly planted flower beds. This property is available for a 6 month lease up to 9 months. Tenant is responsible for utilities, lawn care, trash, and maintenance of the water treatment system. There is a brand new full house generator that can be used if the tenant refills the propane. Pets case-by-case.

Littleton

Littleton Farm’s *153+/- glorious acres are graced with a beautiful 4 acre lake, 2 smaller ponds and Beaverdam Creek which traverses the property. The boxwoods, weeping Kastura and extensive vegetable garden are a true delight. There is a 60’ pool and a pool house, complete with a steam room, large gym, 1 bedroom and 1 full bathroom.

The main residence offers grand living and entertaining spaces with soaring ceilings, unique and inviting gathering areas and breathtaking views of Horse Country. Within the main home are 7 bedrooms, 6 full bathrooms and 3 half bathrooms. Enjoy a double living room with exposed beams, 2 fireplaces and spectacular views of the impeccable grounds.

The farm features 2 stables with a total of 29 stalls (12 stalls / 17 stalls), 4 run-in sheds, 3 large feed rooms, tack rooms, 1 machine shed, 1 riding ring, multiple fenced paddocks with automatic waterers and 2 silos.

Alnell Farm

acres

Alnell Farm is home to 541 +/- acres of beautiful rolling hills and pasture located in Flint Hill, Virginia. This scenic property is surrounded by unspoiled countryside and expansive views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, offering a private and quiet escape to enjoy.

The farm consists of 7 residences - four are separate income producing tenant houses. The Lodge, a historic log house first built in 1790 was moved to the property in 1990 and restored to preserve the original structure while adding a few enhancements. There is a 10-stall barn and an 8-acre spring fed pond, all protected by conservation easement.

The property also offers a 9-bay machine shed, 3 silos, multiple storage buildings, a machine shed, fenced pastures and 7 paddocks that support the livestock and agricultural uses of the farm.

Hidden Trail Farm 107+ acres |

Custom built in 2002, the stone and stucco main residence features large open rooms from which one can enjoy expansive views of the countryside. Some of the special features of the home include wide plank flooring, planed by a local artisan, Clive Christian custom kitchen with imported French limestone countertops, gathering room with fireplace and spacious breakfast area, a formal dining room with bow window and a dramatic great room with vaulted ceiling and fireplace.

The horse facilities include an 8 stall, center aisle stable with 14’ x 14’ stalls, wash stall, tack room, lounge and large hayloft. Behind the stable is a 4 bay equipment barn/machine shop. From the stable one crosses a stone bridge to the indoor arena, beautifully crafted with Alder wood beams. The design was greatly influenced by one of the local Olympic riders.