Two natural springs and the prominent owner of a large plot of land in the area, James Francis Fry, lend this neighborhood its name. Fry’s mansion, Azalea Hall, was impressive both architecturally and for its bountiful landscaping, awash with apple orchards, vegetable gardens and tobacco fields in the mid-1800s, but by the early 20th century, much of the estate was subdivided and developed into residential lots. Around that time, Fry’s Spring Beach Club—a now members-only facility that offers swimming and other summer programs—opened its door and to this day remains a focal point of both the Fry’s Spring and Jefferson Park Avenue neighborhoods.
er
Ch son fer k Par e nu Av e
Harr
is Ro
ad
Average home price: $263,000 Size: 592 acres Population: 3,097 Distance from downtown: 2.8 miles Notable attractions: Fry’s Spring Beach Club Historical distinctions: National Register of Historic Places (2014), Virginia Landmarks Register (2014)
AMY JACKSON
Fry’s Spring resident Beth Bullard is a mom of seven (six pictured here) and the beach club’s volunteer president. She’s responsible for organizing lessons and meets for more than 300 kids each year.
I
f you show up to Fry’s Spring Beach Club for a lesson, a swim meet or to tour the place while you’re considering purchasing a membership, there’s a good chance you’ll be greeted by Beth Bullard, the volunteer president of the club’s swim team and the club’s de facto mom. She’s also mom to seven of her own children—four biological, three adopted—and has fostered 16 others. Bullard first joined the beach club back in the early 1980s, but she and her husband, Todd, have been members consistently since 1988, after their first child was born.
JEFFERSON PARK AVENUE J
son eff er
Par
k Av
Developed in part by professors due to its close proximity to UVA, the Jefferson Park Avenue neighborhood, these days, comprises mostly students, thanks to a rezoning ordinance in 1976 that allowed R-3 (multi-family). A commercial area at the Maury-FontaineJPA intersection includes the neighborhood’s biggest draws for non-residents and leads traffic to nearby Scott Stadium. At the northern end is the Oakhurst-Gildersleeve pocket, which earned its own spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009 and features several homes designed by architect Eugene Bradbury.
enue
Average home price: $254,000 Size: 244 acres Population: 3,745 Distance from downtown: 2.1 miles Notable attractions: UVA’s South Lawn, Durty Nelly’s, Wayside Takeout & Catering
Jefferson Park Avenue’s winding street is one of the only crossroads between Charlottesville residents and university students. For the students, it’s a quieter, cheaper, alternative to the corner; for the residents, it’s a vibrant yet homey community. Beverly Amato—who was born and raised in and around the JPA area—says she loves being so close to the student body. As someone who never attended college, Amato enjoys being able to walk to the Lawn and glimpse pieces of UVA life. CONTINUED ON PAGE 39
MATTEUS FRANKOVICH/SKYCLAD AERIAL
JOHN ROBINSON
Best of both worlds: Students and residents mix in this university neighborhood
Mulberry Avenue neighbors Sara Robinson, Meagan Donohoe and Virginia Trower have bonded over their shared experiences of pregnancy and early motherhood.
I SSUE
Full schedule
The Bullards love Fry’s Spring Beach Club so much that in 1995, they moved into a house directly across the street on Jefferson Park Avenue. “The club has an old-school feel, sort of like what neighborhoods used to be, but a lot of people don’t let their kids run around in neighborhoods anymore,” she says. Last year, Bullard organized lessons and meets for more than 300 children, many of whom were able to swim at the club because of her efforts. She applied for and received a grant from the Benjamin Hair Just Swim For Life Foundation, which gave swim lesson scholarships to 192 children in need. With membership rates starting at $407 for individuals and $835 for families, Bullard knows that many people in town can’t afford to join the club and thus miss out on the sense of community it offers, and the scholarships help with that. Things get a little hectic—how could they not, with hundreds of swimmers and their families, plus her own seven kids to think about?—but that’s part of why Bullard is content in her corner of the Fry’s Spring neighborhood. “Life is never dull,” she says with a calm, bright smile.
NE I GHBORHOOD
ue ven
A ry
Jef
Shortly after Sara Robinson gave birth to her first daughter in the summer of 2013, she sat on the sofa of her Mulberry Avenue bungalow and gazed out the window onto their cozy little Fry’s Spring street. “The world’s gone on without me,” she remembers thinking once her husband, John, had returned to work. Life “can be very isolating after you have a baby,” she says. You’re stuck to a sleeping, eating and changing schedule that doesn’t allow for much time out of the house, or leisure time at all. During those first few months, she often wished someone “would just knock on the door” to assure her that the world hadn’t left her behind. Three years later, when Robinson had her second daughter in May 2016, she didn’t just have someone knocking at her door—she had two other women to share the experience of early motherhood. Virginia Trower and Keith Miller moved in directly across the street from the Robinsons in August 2013, just weeks after the Robinsons’ first daughter was born; Meagan and Mike Donohoe moved in next door in July 2014. The couples live in nearly identical bungalows, and by fall 2015, all three women were pregnant with daughters. During their pregnancies, the women checked in on each other with text messages, impromptu sidewalk chats and evening conversations that brought together all three couples on the Donohoes’ back deck. (The three supportive dads have grown closer, too, their wives say.) When Robinson was up with her younger daughter for a late-night feeding, she often looked out the window to see Trower’s light on across the street, or Donohoe’s on next door, and it felt like a special kind of solidarity. “Early motherhood can feel so overwhelming,” says Trower. “To have two wonderful women right across the street who both so acutely relate…is enormously reassuring that maybe I’m actually doing okay at being a new mom.” They say it takes a village, but sometimes just a single street will do.
FRY’S SPRING
T HE
Mulbaby Avenue
37