Country Spirit Magazine September 2017

September 2017

PETAL POWER Melanie Blunt and Anne Walker prepare for the Piedmont Garden Club’s lecture and luncheon, October 10.

Details inside.

Country Spirit • September 2017

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Mount Gordon Farm

Crest Hill Farm

Mayapple Farm

The Plains, Virginia • $11,750,000

Hume, Virginia • $3,600,000

Middleburg, Virginia • $3,400,000

128 acres and immaculate 3 level, 13,000+ sq ft stone & shingle main house • 5 BR • 8 FP • Exceptional finishes on every floor • Caterer's kitchen • Elevator • Spa • Separate guest cottage • Pool • Farm manager residence • 3 additional tenant houses • 12 stall center-aisle stable • Pond • Extraordinary land w/incomparable views extending beyond the Blue Ridge Mts • Orange County Hunt Helen MacMahon (540) 454-1930

203 acres in Fauquier w/nearly 1 mile of Rappahannock river frontage • Elegant stone & clapboard house • 5 BR, 4 full & 3 1/2 BA • 4 FP • Wood floors • Gourmet kitchen • Gunnite pool w/stunning views overlooking Blue Ridge Mtns and private pond • Situated amongst protected properties • 5 stall Jim Fletcher barn w/pristinely maintained paddocks, pasture and gdns • 2 car garage w/in-law suite • Old Dominion Hunt territory • VOF Easement Alix Coolidge (703) 625-1724

“Mayapple Farm," purist delight • Original portion of house built in 1790 in Preston City, CT • House was dismantled and rebuilt at current site • Detail of work is museum quality • Log wing moved to site from WV circa 1830 • 4 BR, 4 full BA, 2 half BA, 7 FP & detached 2-car garage • Historic stone bank barn and log shed moved from Leesburg, VA. • Private, minutes from town • Frontage on Goose Creek Paul MacMahon (703) 609-1905

Rolling Meadows

Belvedere

Marley Grange

Purcellville, Virginia • $2,950,000

Middleburg, Virginia • $2,295,000

Millwood, Virginia • $1,995,000

Stunning 267 acres between Middleburg & Purcellville • Rolling terrain - some open some wooded • Lovely building sites with mountain views & large spring fed pond • Miles of trails • Complete privacy with extensive frontage on Beaver Dam Creek • Very unique offering - can be divided once • Come hunt, fish, swim, ride and enjoy the outdoors Helen MacMahon (540) 454-1930

Gracious home with 5 BRs • Gourmet kitchen • Two-story floor-to-ceiling window display of the Blue Ridge Mountains • 3 FPs, coffered ceilings, random width rustic cherry floors • Large home office, gym, rec room, multiple porches and patios • Three finished stories, approx. 10,000 sf. • Carriage house • Garage • Privately situated on 27 acres Helen MacMahon (540) 454-1930 Margaret Carroll (540) 454-0650

Understated elegance • Finely appointed home built in 1997 on 76 acres • 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2 half baths, 5600+ sq. ft. • Very private • 10 stall barn • 224 ft. X 128 ft. blue stone ring • Fine horse property • Choice ride-out • In conservation easement, bordered by farms in conservation easement Tom Cammack (540) 247-5408

Old Fox Den Farm

111 E. Washington Street Middleburg, Virginia • $1,300,000

Firethorn Lane

The Plains, Virginia • $895,000

Restored 3 bedroom 1830's farmhouse on 65 acres • Multiple porches & fireplaces, lots of charm • Lovely pool, shared pond, 4 stall barn, workshop • Expansive mountain views, rolling open pasture & fully fenced elevated land • Gorgeous setting in the protected valley between Middleburg and The Plains • Conservation easement permits 2 more homes to complete the compound Helen MacMahon (540) 454-1930

Stone building circa 1800 • Completely updated • New roof • Pine floors • Corner lot • 6 offices • Parking lot in rear • Shows well Paul MacMahon (703) 609-1905

Handsome house located in a sought-after area between Middleburg and The Plains • Main residence recently renovated • Large master suite and two additional generous sized bedrooms, each with their own full bath • Large gourmet kitchen • Lovely living and dining rooms • Wrap around porches with western views from the elevated site • Charming guest house • Beautiful gardens and stonework Alix Coolidge (703) 625-1724 Helen MacMahon (540) 454-1930

Kildare

Cub Drive

Pleasant Vale Road

The Plains, Virginia • $1,900,000

Middleburg, Virginia • $850,000

Marshall, Virginia • $749,000

Delaplane, Virginia • $600,000

Private 6+ acres in a lovely setting just 3 miles from town of Middleburg • Stucco home with 5 bedrooms • Traditional yet open floor plan • Hardwood floors • Wood burning fireplace • Front porch, rear deck, patio & pool • 2 bay garage and main level master suite • Very pretty lot with mature trees and old stone walls Helen MacMahon (540) 454-1930

House built by current owner in 2003 • 4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths • Fireplace • Screened porch overlooks Cub Run and Rappahannock River • Hardwood floors • County kitchen with Viking Stove • Hardiplank & brick exterior • 13.62 wooded and private acres Paul MacMahon (703) 609-1905

Great Fauquier County location • Small tract surrounded by large farms • Home built by current owner • 4 BR, 3.5 BA & 2 FP, huge 2-car attached garage • Room under garage can be used as a wine cellar • Shades in all rooms • New flooring throughout most of 1st floor & upstairs bathrooms • Freshly painted • Basement had been workshop • 6.84 acres, fruit trees, stone walls, mountain views Paul MacMahon (703) 609-1905

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info@sheridanmacmahon.com www.sheridanmacmahon.com

Country Spirit • September 2017

110 East Washington St. • P.O. Box 1380 Middleburg, Virginia 20118 (540) 687-5588

From the Editor

Back to school and so much more

As leaves start turning color, temperatures begin to cool and school busses once again are rolling down the roads, the September issue of Country Spirit offers a wide variety of stimulating stories from all around the countryside.

Education is always on our minds, and never more than at the beginning of a new school year. On a personal level, with career-teacher parents and both daughters making a difference as beloved secondgrade teachers, there’s a special place in my own heart for the men and women we entrust with educating our children.

Last spring, long-time area resident Scott Andrews Leonard Shapiro became president of Kansas City-based Grantham University, an affordable on-line college that helps make a difference in the lives of thousands of students around the world—including military members past and present. At an age when many of us ask “is that all there is?” Andrews clearly has lots more to do.

Teaching disabled kids and adults how to ride is also the main mission of the localy-based Sprout project, with a heartwarming story by Leslie VanSant. And long-time educator Tom Northrup, head of school emeritus at Hill School, offers up another must-read column.

We’re also focusing on behind-the-scenes people who may not be outfront in their line of work, but truly make things tick. And so does Middleburg Police Chief A.J. Panebianco, who’s department makes it so safe and welcoming. He’s profiled inside, and you’ll be surprised about his leisure-time passion away from the job, as well.

Music is always a key component of Country Spirit magazine, with September stories on a brilliant young pianist and a season-opening Oct. 15 concert at Grace Episcopal Church in The Plains with a nationally known conductor directing a fine regional orchestra.

Finally, if its fall, it’s also film festival season. We’ve got one of the best in the country—the Middleburg Film Festival Oct. 19-22. Read all about the main reason for its success—executive director Susan Koch, an accomplished filmmaker in her own right.

There’s lots more compelling reading inside, including a profile of Purcellville resident Chuck Kuhn, the man who saved the Middleburg Training Track, and lots of open space along with it. And so, as always, we hope you’ll catch the Spirit, and support our valued advertisers, as well.

Leonard Shapiro Editor badgerlen@aol.com

Clarification: In a story last month about Renè and Lauren Woolcott’s Thoroughbred breeding operation at Woodslane Farm near Rectortown, I wrote that the Woolcotts owned a share in the stallion, Tapit. To clarify, they booked their mare to be bred to Tapit, and Tonalist was the product of that decision.

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GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 6507 Main Street P.O. Box 32 The Plains, Virginia 20198 For tickets & information, call 540.253.5177 or visit gracetheplains.org Country Spirit • September 2017

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COVER PHOTO Published quarterly by Piedmont Media, LLC ADDRESS 39 Culpeper Street Warrenton, Virginia 20186 PHONE: 540-347-4222 FAX: 540-349-8676 Publisher: Bailey Dabney bdabney@fauquier.com Editor: Leonard Shapiro badgerlen@aol.com Executive editor: Kari Pugh kpugh@fauquier.com Visual design editor: Chris Six, 540-347-4222 csix@fauquier.com Contributing photographers: Caroline Fout, Missy Janes, Douglas Lees, Middleburg Photo, Crowell Hadden Contributing writers: Justin Haefner, Sebastian Langenberg, Sophie Scheps, Lizzie Catherwood, Amanda Scheps, Sarah Sudduth, Leland Schwartz, Pat Reilly, Emily Tyler, Barbara Sharp, Missy Janes, Caroline Fout, Tom Northrup Advertising manager: Kathy Mills Godfrey, 540-351-1162 kgodfrey@fauquier.com Ad designers: Cindy Goff cgoff@fauquier.com Taylor Dabney tdabney@fauquier.com Annamaria Ward award@fauquier.com For advertising inquiries contact Leonard Shapiro at badgerlen@aol.com or 410-570-8447

Photographers Doug Gehlsen and Karen Monroe did a selfie version of our cover that we’re calling Petal Power. Their ever imaginative and innovative approach to their craft thrills us no end. With many thanks to Piedmont Garden Club members Melanie Blunt and Anne Walker.

And kudos to Ally Blunt as assistant stylist and Barbara Sharp for the colorful and fun petals.

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Country Spirit • September 2017

3672 HALFWAY RD, THE PLAINS

Offered at $1,995,000 90 ACRES | 3BR | 2BA Wonderful opportunity for complete country living. Charming stone & stucco 3 bedroom, 2 bath farmhouse w/5 stall banked barn, 1 BR/1 BA guest house. Wide plank hardwood floors, fireplaces, large porches for entertaining. Plenty of room for horses, multiple paddocks w/water. A must see in Orange County Hunt Territory!

Peter Pejacsevich (540) 270-3835 Scott Buzzelli (540) 454-1399

39984 BRADDOCK RD, ALDIE

Offered at $1,985,000 20 ACRES | 6BR | 5BA 6,300 SF Custom Stone Chateau. Gourmet kitchen w/ granite countertops and commercial appliances. Main level bedroom, au-pair suite/artist studio. Jetted over-sized bathtubs, vaulted/tray ceilings. 12 stall barn w/wide center aisle and full 2nd floor. 8 fenced paddocks w/ waterers and run-in shed. Equestrian’s dream!

Scott Buzzelli (540) 454-1399 Peter Pejacsevich (540) 270-3835

22077 OATLANDS RD, ALDIE

Offered at $1,750,000 26 ACRES | 5 BR | 5.5 BA Breathtaking views from every window of this exquisite estate on 26 pastoral private acres minutes from Leesburg, Middleburg, & Dulles Greenway. Luxury abounds in 9000+ SF of living space. Infinity-edge pool, hardscaped patio. Horses okay. Great for winery. Aerial video on agent website.

Kim Hurst (703) 932-9651 Jane Hensley (571) 550-2728

C S + A EL 30 ARC 2P

16182 HILLSBORO RD, PURCELLVILLE

Offered at $1,595,000 22 ACRES | 4BR | 6.5BA Exquisite with every amenity. Light filled, high ceilings, premium materials. Beautiful master suite w/balcony overlooking pool. Spacious lower level suite w/outside entrance & kitchen, LR, 2BA, office, theater.

Outdoor living spaces, inground pool, poolhouse w/bath & kitchen. 22 ac. Gated entry, fenced paddocks & generator.

Carole Taylor (703) 577-4680 Paul Kakol (703) 303-2733

GLENGYLE, ALDIE

Offered at $1,495,000 7 ACRES | 6 BR | 6 BA “Glengyle” once hosted dignitaries from around the world & is offered now for the first time in 70 years. The 7 acres of private grounds will enchant visitors & carefully preserved historic home will please the most discriminating vintage-home aficionado. 6BR/6BA in main house + 2 BR guest house. 2 pools, pond, & gardens.

Kim Hurst (703) 932-9651 Jane Hensley (571) 550-2728

40124 NEW RD, ALDIE

Offered at $1,195,000 30 ACRES | 5 BR | 3.5 BA Just east of Middleburg, ALDIE GOLD is ideally located & perfectly remodeled! Sparkling, light filled, open concept layout with wood floors throughout. Gourmet kitchen opens to family breakfast room with fireplace. Beautiful land gently slopes from well-sited home to country lane. Room for horses.

Carole Taylor (703) 577-4680 George Roll (703) 606-6358

ST JU OLD S

34642 ATOKA CHASE LN, MIDDLEBURG

Offered at $949,000 11 ACRES | 3 BR | 2.5 BA Beautifully situated on 11+ acres with view of Blue Ridge, this quality custom Cape is just minutes from downtown Middleburg. Large bright rooms, main level master, dining room, living room w/ FP - all with views. Large kitchen with breakfast area. Perimeter fencing in place.

Perfect horse property.

Jane Hensley (571) 550-2728 Kim Hurst (703) 932-9651

35653 MILLVILLE RD, MIDDLEBURG

Offered at $865,000 18 ACRES | 4BR | 3.5BA Lovely home w/spacious rooms just minutes from Middleburg. Two-stall barn/tack with four stone/board-fenced paddocks, terrific rideout.

Middleburg Hunt. Enhanced by high-speed Internet, whole house generator, extensive invisible fencing. Mountain views, soaring magnolias, wonderful gardens.

Walter Woodson(703) 499-4961 Alex Woodson (703) 608-1776

38570 CASSIA LN, LOVETTSVILLE

Sold at $799,000 20 ACRES | 3 BR | 2.5 BA Classic Virginia farmhouse c.1850, fully updated in lovely creekside setting. Big, bright rooms, gourmet kitchen, slate roof. Multiple dependencies: original cook house (future guest house?), springhouse, newer barn, old stone ruins, run-in sheds. Mountain views. 3 car garage. Close to MARC train.

Jane Hensley (571) 550-2728 Kim Hurst (703) 932-9651

WE NERIC P

208 LOCUST ST, MIDDLEBURG

Offered at $785,000 3 BR | 2.5 BA | 1FP Outstanding Middleburg corner lot! Living room, formal dining room, eat-in kitchen, spacious sunroom, screened-in porch. Large, private fenced yard w/ fabulous gardens. Sep studio/work space. Replaced 2017: roof, gutters, carpet throughout. Great in-town property offering it all - walk to Salamander Resort & Safeway!

Bundles Murdock (540) 454-3499 Laura Farrell (540) 395-1680

15481 SECOND ST, WATERFORD

Offered at $449,000 3BR | 1 HB Residential/multiple-use potential. “Tin Shop” c. 1880 filled w/ charm & character in Historic Waterford! Well maintained, beautiful original HW floor throughout. Three sep entrances allow property for commercial tenants w/ spacious 2nd floor for residential potential use. Many more possibilities, no full bath.

Laura Farrell (540) 395-1680 Ted Zimmerman (540) 905-5874

210 MACKENZIE LN, STEPHENSON

Offered at $379,900 6BR | 3.5BA 3 finished levels with 2 car garage and large deck. Gourmet kitchen, granite counters & breakfast area. Family room w/ gas FP, dining room and formal living room. Upstairs master suite, 4 BR, basement w/ finished apt, separate entrance and full kitchen.

Mary Kakouras (540) 454-1604

Country Spirit • September 2017

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At Zigzag Gallery:

A Group exhibit with David Williams and his students

The Artist ’s Journey...

Sept. 14 - Oct. 15, 2017 Artist Reception: Saturday Sept. 16th, 2017 4 to 7 pm

Lisa Ben Dov Margaret MacMahon Carroll Judy Clair Carroll Foley Toni Gauthier Janette Ghattas Sara Jones Kadi Kadahar Wendy Krones Margaret Littleton Linda Malone Melissa McKee Charles Mulrooney Terri Roy Patricia Stout Floyd Thompson Bob Thoren Lynn Wiley David Williams

ZIGZAG GALLERY 6477 Main Street, The Plains, VA 20198 zigzagtheplains.com 540.253.5364 Facebook: Zigzag Gallery Open Wed thru Sun, 11 - 5 pm

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Country Spirit • September 2017

Marshall’s Anglican Church Offers Faith And Sweet Music

By Leslie VanSant

On a hot summer afternoon at St. John the Baptist Anglican Church, in an office surrounded by towering shelves bursting with books on theology and faith, the Reverend Canon Jonathan J.D Ostman, SCC, offers the following: “There is depth to the scripture. We live in the shallow end and are slow to move to the deep end. I like to help people get to the deep end.”

It’s hard to miss the quaint cream-colored building on the northeast corner of the intersection of Rectortown Road and Main Street (Route 55) in Marshall. The neoclassical columns quietly bear witness to the passing traffic.

If a car window is down at the right time of day, at the top PHOTO BY VICKY MOON of the hour from 8 a.m. to 6 The Reverend Canon Jonathan J.D Ostman with p.m., the sweet tones of the his Chow Chow dogs, Rhuma and Bella at St. carillon playing joyful hymns John the Baptist Anglican Church in Marshall. fill the air.

The church, with stately ture and miracles, including transpine trees all around, has been a figuration. house of worship since its construc“We try to codify life, miracles ask tion in 1849. It was originally known us to accept things we can’t explain,” as Trinity Episcopal until 1997, said Father Ostman, using Commuwhen the parish of St. John the Bap- nion as an example. “Faith asks us tist took over the building. to accept miracles and believe in the The roots of the Anglican Church power of the Holy Spirit. Through reach back to the 6th century and the prayer and faith, you can believe arrival of St. Augustine, the first that the bread becomes the body of Archbishop of Canterbury. They Christ and the wine the blood. It’s weave their way through the Eastern not symbolic.” and Western church split of 1054, to In comparison to the Episcopal the 16th century when Henry VIII Church, Anglican churches are conwas King of England, all the way up sidered more conservative. Father to present times.

Ostman says his own spiritual jourThe church was carried around ney wandered from the Episcopal to the world as the British Empire grew the Anglican because he desired a to political dominance with churches more serious conversation with God. and parishes partaking in the AngliThere are many opportunities for can Communion under the See of the faithful at St. John the Baptist.

Canterbury.

Mattins (morning prayer) at 9:30 Anglican sermons, including a.m. and Evensong (evening prayer) those at St. John the Baptist, inspire at 5:30 are held each weekday, unthe spirit by engaging the senses and less Father Ostman is visiting with performing traditional rituals. They include the warm, earthy smell of parishioners.

“Sometimes people join me,” he incense, with the high altar visusaid.

“But if not, it is important that ally raising eyes up to God. The forpeople know I am praying for them.” mal vestments worn by participants There’s a Mass on Wednesday emphasize structure and tradition.

The 1928 Book of Common Prayer mornings at 10. Sundays begin with guides and maps the ritual. There is Low Mass at 8, followed by Mattins at 9, Christian Formation at 9:30 communion and prayer.

The church service, except for the and Mass at 10. Church members sermon, is chanted. Yes. Chanted, come from the Marshall area, east to using ancient tones performed across Fairfax and west to Front Royal “We have a welcoming communicenturies from monasteries and by ty,” Father Ostman said, “and what monks.

The combination creates a can only be described as a brunch for thoughtful yet almost mystical en- our coffee hour.”

To learn more, visit the website, vironment in which to consider God and the lessons shared via the scrip- st-johnthebaptist.org.

2014 ROOTS AWARDED GOLD MEDAL

92 POINTS

Available for purchase at: Slater Run Vineyards Winery and Upperville Tasting Room The Ashby Inn Field & Main Restaurant Goodstone Inn & Restaurant Salamander Resort & Spa The Upperville Country Store

Thomas Glascock Slater, Upperville, 1933

On July 10th, the San Francisco International Wine Competition rated the 2014 Roots 92 points, earning it a Gold Medal.

The San Francisco International Wine Competition is the largest in the United States and one of the longest running in the world, including over 4,200 wine entries from 31 countries, and we are proud to have been a part of the competition.

The Winery is located at 1500 Crenshaw Rd. and the Tasting Room at 9030 John S. Mosby Highway, Upperville — Please call for open days and hours — 540-592-3040 or check our website at www.slaterrun.com.

Country Spirit • September 2017

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Chloé Loufield with her mother Tish Loufield.

Photos by Middleburg Photo

Give That Girl A Keyboard And Watch Her Perform

By Leonard Shapiro

Pursuing her passion for piano occasionally comes at a price for 14-year-old Chloé Loufield, about to enter her first year as a student at Middleburg Academy.

If time were money, then Chloé and her mother, Laetitia would be wealthy beyond imagination. Every Thursday, they drive up to Baltimore, at least a two-hour journey (with no traffic) for a 45-minute lesson at the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University. Then they head home to Middleburg for another two hours on the road.

This is clearly a commute that’s no Ode to Joy, a piece the precocious Chloé learned to play when she was only five. But mother and child have no complaints, barring beltway back-ups, and they’ll keep doing it for the foreseeable future.

While attending Hill School in Middleburg full-time, Chloé also studied at Peabody since age seven, clearly savoring every minute. “Even practicing,” she said. And it’s been that way since Laetitia, who studied piano herself for many years, started giving her daughter lessons when she was four.

“I just wanted to expose her to music,” Laetitia said. “Chloè had an incredible memory and an incredible ear, and she picked it up quickly. She learned on a keyboard, not a real piano. She also learned how to sight read so she could look at the music, and she got that right away. She enjoyed it, and she practiced on her own, and that’s when I realized she needed someone more capable to teach her.”

Laetitia, who grew up in Westchester, N.Y., had studied as a teenager with two faculty members at 8

Country Spirit • September 2017

Juilliard, the iconic performing arts school in New York. She contacted them, and was put in touch with Peabody instructor Yong Hi Moon. Chloé auditioned, and Moon recommended Peabody’s, Dr. Hyun-Sook Park, who worked with younger students.

Chloé’s repertoire runs the gamut of classical music—Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Bach and Bartok, among others. She also dabbles in Broadway show tunes and jazz.

More than anything, Chloé is thoroughly enamored with performing in front of audiences, piano especially but also acting and singing in various productions, including several with the Middleburg Players. Last year, in Hill’s eighth-grade production of the musical “School of Rock,” she learned to play electric guitar in order to perform the role of Zack Mooneyham, a leading character.

She’s also entered a number of competitions in Virginia and Maryland, earned the student body music award at Hill and played at several venues around Middleburg, including the Salamander resort, local wineries and the Middleburg Methodist church.

“I really love playing and performing,” Chloé said. “And I want to keep going with the piano at Hopkins. I’ve also picked up the violin and learned the flute in sixth grade. Electric guitar was fun, too.”

Chloé’s father, Ethan, chief financial officer at Hill, plays the acoustic guitar—“only at home, he said— and took piano lessons himself as a young boy.

“I learned how to play Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

And her younger sister, Genevieve, taught herself to play the clarinet and has toyed with the cello. These days, however, her mother said, “she’s

obsessed” with soccer.

Piano remains Chloe’s passion. She took a brief hiatus after the family moved to Southern California in 2015 when her father joined a start-up company. A year later, the enterprise began to flounder, so they moved back to Middleburg and he resumed his Hill CFO role..

“What’s great about Chloé is that when we came back from California, she decided on her own that she wanted to compete and perform,” Laetitia said, adding that one of these days, she might even perform a duet with her daughter because “she’s very inspiring.”

Here’s why.

“When I play the piano, whether it’s by myself or in front of a large audience, I’m in another world, Chloè said. “I can get away from reality. It just makes me happy.”

Chloé Loufield

The Price is Right for Land Trust of Virginia

By Sebastian Langenberg

Sally Price knows conservation.

She’s done everything from preserving her beloved Pine Barrens of New Jersey, to fundraising for the Ocean Conservancy to leading the effort to build an LEED certified performing arts center.

“It kinda’ feels like all my professional roads have led here,” she said.

“I am just thrilled.”

“Here” would be the Land Trust of Virginia (LTV); Price took over as executive director this past March.

She grew up in Princeton, and her very first job out of college was working to protect the nearby Pine Barrens of New Jersey with the Pine Lands Preservation Alliance. The Pine Barrens refers to a heavily-forested area of coastal plain stretching across more than seven counties of the state. The name “Pine Barrens” refers to the area’s sandy, acidic, nutrient-poor soil.

At the time Price applied for the job, she thought she probably was under-qualified. But she put her name into the mix because she’d become infatuated with the area, with some parental help.

“My father loved the Pine Bar-

rens and Princeton is about an hour away,” said Price. “He would take off on Sunday mornings and go ride his bike. He loved taking us there.”

She knew she’d be competing with applicants who had more experience, so she created her own oneyear plan to preserve this precious resource, the better to stand out.

And it worked. Her plan impressed the 14-member selection committee so much that they gave her the job.

Price stayed for ten years, which turned out to be the best professional experience she could have had at that stage in her career. Her board was made up of some of the largest preservation groups in the country, including the Nature Conservancy and the Audubon Society.

“All I had to do was learn from each of them,” said Price.

After leaving the Pine Barrens position, Price worked as a consultant for several years, then took a job in Washington with the Ocean Conservancy. She helped organize the foundation and its corporate fund-raising program. She then moved to Maine, where she helped raise funds to help the Waynflete School build a LEED certified performing arts center.

Now Price is ready to help the Land

Trust move up a notch. It currently manages 151 easements with only a handful of staff.

Price said one of her main objectives will be to engage more with the community. When a new property goes into easement, she wants to be certain that all the surrounding landowners know about it. They’ll get correspondence from her, and the LTV will also have a small social event “to celebrate the act.”

One of LTV’s most significant projects is the Blue Ridge Study, the brainchild of Board Chairman Chris Dematatis with the goal of preserving the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Land Trust has already mapped the mountain range and identified the areas that are most vulnerable to development.

“We want to try and get ahead of it,” Price said.

The maps show which parcels are most at risk by mapping density of mammals and birds, as well as showing where easements already exist and which parcels of land would appeal to developers.

There’s also an artistic side to the LTV’s efforts. The organization has partnered with the Loudoun Sketch club, and its members have been out-

PHOTO BY SEBASTIAN LANGENBERG

Sally Price

side for months painting LTV properties.

Their work will be on exhibit and for sale at an upcoming art show in Hillsboro Oct. 28-29, with a percentage of sales going to the LTV to continue its important work under a savvy new executive director who clearly knows what she’s helping to protect.

Country Spirit • September 2017

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Nothing At All Sketchy About These Local Artists

By Sebastian Langenberg

FURSMAN KENNELS The Fursman Kennels Experience

From the moment you and your beloved pet drive through the entrance leading to Fursman Kennels, I would like you to enjoy and feel the beauty of the trees and flowers on either side of the winding lane, which is nearly 1 mile long. The kennel itself is beautiful and spacious and is surrounded by two-hundred-year-old oak trees.

The staff who work here are very committed to the care and love of every individual dog or cat during their holiday stay.

We have separate rooms for different breeds of dogs, which make it more cozy and comfortable.

Each kennel has indoor and outdoor runs. We also have very large runs where we lead the dogs out several times a day at no extra charge for them to run, play and go to the bathroom..

Hours of Business

Mon-Fri: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Sat: 8 a.m. to 12 noon Sun: Between 9 a.m. & 10 a.m.

Please call for reservations.

Things to Know About Our Kennels • Beautiful, spacious kennels • 24 hour care and attention • Dedicated, loving staff • Cozy, comfortable rooms • Veterinarian recommended • Indoor, outdoor, and large runs • Founded in 1972 • Vaccinations REQUIRED

1661 Zulla Road Middleburg, VA 20117

(540) 687-6990

Best of Middleburg 2016 & 2017 10

Country Spirit • September 2017

They’ve been called “Hot Sketchers” and also historians over the 72 years the Loudoun Sketch Club has been in existence.

“The Sketch Club has been around for a long, long time,” said Cindy Bridgman, the current president. It was started by three Loudoun County women who met at each of their properties to paint the country landscape. One nickname came from founder Vinton Picken’s husband, who remarked one day, “You’re a bunch of hot sketchers, aren’t you?”

Vinton Picken was committed to preserving the countryside and she also was a leading advocate for for state legislation that banned billboards.

The club these days includes all types of artists, from painters to photographers, and everything in between.

“Some are beginners and some are nationally recognized artists,” said Mary MacDonnell, one of the club’s members.

The club paints “en plein air,” a French term used to describe painting outdoors, and its members have been painting this way from the beginning. This method was popularized by the impressionists, and is in vogue again, which also has led the club’s membership to swell.

The artists go out in force, even in inclement weather, and, said MacDonnell, “Only the hardy perservere!”

The Loudoun Sketch Club currently has over 150 members and selects different locations all around the area to work.

“When they found out where I lived, they said, ‘can’t you help us find places to paint?’” said MacDonnell.

She’s a member of the club’s crucial location committee that helps find picturesque Loudoun vistas to paint.

They’ve also worked with the Land Trust of Virginia to paint protected farms and for several years,

PHOTO BY SEBASTIAN LANGENBERG

Painting en plein air is part of the program.

they also painted Civil War locations. The club comes out to a location for two consecutive weeks, and paints from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

When the club arrives at a location, the painters fan out across the property to find a spot that “speaks” to them.

Wherever they find inspiration, they set up their easel and get to work.

Members also have become de facto historians over their 72-year history. Over the years, they’ve also painted many historic buildings and landscapes that are now gone.

During the winter months the club conducts four workshops for their members, with each one focusing on a different topic. It also has two art shows a year. The next is scheduled for Oct. 28-29 at Silver Brook Farm in Hillsboro and will feature landscapes protected by the Land Trust of Virginia. LTV will get a portion of the proceeds to help continue its conservation work.

“The show in October is a celebration of the opportunity we’ve had to go to the various places,” Bridgman said. “The owners have shared the beauty of the land with us.”

Cindy Bridgman, Pat Roth, Cynthia McGranahan, Becky Tighe, Jessica Wilson and Mary MacDonnell of the Loudoun Sketch Club.

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11

By Emily Tyler I may be wrong, but I think I was the only one who thought Mrs. Hill was a style icon. She was a tall and slender woman with chin length dark straight hair worn to one side with a tortoise shell clip.

Often she would be seen in a pressed white shirt, navy blue Shetland sweater, cropped trousers, bare ankles and loafers.

She was old school, born and raised in Philadelphia and the mother of my best friend growing up. They lived around the corner from our house in a classic Connecticut cedar-shingled home built around 1750 with a kitchen addition my father added on in the 1960s.

polish, ivory soap and that sweet must only an old house, well cared for, can produce.

Mrs. Hill would get wonderfully grumpy and often order us outside, when we ripped down the little steep stairs by her office as she sat in front of her slant top desk. There, she would write notes in her classic well-schooled penmanship. Mrs. Hill knew the importance of taking the time to say thank you or to reach out to a friend.

She died far too soon, leaving behind her beautiful family. I never did have a chance to tell her how much I loved being in her home. I just hope she knew.

So here’s to all the homemakers and The house was filled with Early American tastemakers out there, creating beauty antiques and goose down sofas. Sunshine and keeping in touch. You really can would stream though the wavy old glass make a difference with your very windows and stir the smell of furniture welcome efforts. And manners do matter.

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Country Spirit • September 2017

When you’re invited to a dinner party, for example, it’s always a lovely gesture to arrive with a small gift. A good bottle of wine or flowers are always welcome, but with a bit of effort, why not make a hostess gift? Here’s a favorite of mine. I fill a mason jar with the mixture, and tie the tag with the baking instructions on the jar top with a ribbon.

until well gredients efrigerate until in e v o b a all of the ason jar. R • Combine d and put into a m e incorporat ions: stant) g instruct g dish use quick or in in o t k t o a y (n b d s g t a in a re w o ollo bakin fashioned with the f nd place in a 9X13 g a t a 1 cup old h ten free Attac d slice 4-6 apples a grees s or until n sugar stitute glu b su y Peel an ll u to 350 de or about 45 minute 1 cup brow f n ss e e v c o c e h su t an Preheat nd bake f tly brown. our (you c the crisp a nd the crisp is ligh 1/2 cup fl h it ) w ry p o a T ss a nece are soft s flour mix if the apples into chunk t u c r, e t t salted bu 1 stick un cinnamon 1 teaspoon

*a

If you make an effort to send hand-written thank you note afterwards, your host will certainly know how much you enjoyed the evening. The Fun Shop and Wisdom Gallery in Middleburg both have a vast assortment of classic stationery.

Artwork by Annamaria Ward www.annamariaward.com Country Spirit • September 2017

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Country Spirit • September 2017

IN THE GARDEN AND THE STUDIO WITH BARBARA SHARP

Decorative Floor Cloths Barbara Sharp is an artist in the garden and in the studio. Her inspiration comes in the form and color of the flowers as well as the insects in her gardens. Now, her latest project includes one-of-akind, hand-painted floor cloths of cotton canvas.

These cloths can enhance the beauty of a country home. She tells Country Spirit that the art form is not new; they were popular in 18th century England.

“They were apparently among the items used in the White House by Presidents Washington, Adams and Jefferson,” she says. “These early examples were probably more utilitarian than decorative, but they reflect a tradition that’s more than 200 years old.”

Barbara has recently collaborated with fellow artist Kerry Waters, an expert faux finisher. They’re working toward a showing at this November’s Christmas Shop at Middleburg’s Emmanuel Church.

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GONE AwAy

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Emily Ristau 540.687.7710

epristau@thomasandtalbot.com www.Thomas-Talbot.com THOmas and TalbOT real esTaTe 540-687-6500 mIddlebUrG, Va 16

Country Spirit • September 2017

A New Pearl of a Place

By Sophie Scheps

Rick Allison is bringing his King Street Oyster Bar to Washington Street and aiming for a mid-September opening. With a successful first location in Leesburg, he’s hoping to duplicate the same high energy in Middleburg and create a new vibe within the village.

“I originally was not interested in Middleburg because it’s such a sleepy town,” said Allison. “But Leesburg was a sleepy town, too, nothing open after eight o’clock, businesses closed on Mondays. But the Middleburg Town Council had been seeking us out so I came to check out this building.”

After a tour of the old Middleburg Bank building, site of Devonshire Garden Shop and more recently the former Home Farm Store, Allison was ready to take a leap. With several other restaurant ventures under his belt, including Pittsburgh Rick’s in Leesburg and The Dock at Lansdowne, Allison was confident Middleburg could become another hit.

“We love this town and feel like we can tap into others like Winchester, South Riding and even Gainesville to bring more people into the town,” said

PHOTOS BY SEBASTIAN LANGENBERG.

Rick Allison is bringing his King Street Oyster Bar to Middleburg.

Allison. “We’re very excited. I think it will hopefully jump start some of the other businesses. That’s the effect we have seen in Leesburg of great businesses feeding off each other.”

The Middleburg location of King Street Oyster Bar will have the same menu that receives rave reviews in Leesburg, especially the $5 Happy Hour specials. Allison plans to increase the local wine selection in honor of the numerous wineries along Route 50 as people drive into Middleburg.

The restaurant features both East and West Coast oysters to sample served raw, grilled, bacon-wrapped and fried. The whole menu focuses on fresh seafood with equally popular burger and other “turf ” options and a list of tempting desserts, including chocolate mousse cake and warm doughnuts.

The opening comes following a massive renovation of the space. Both the upstairs and downstairs will be used to maximize seating during busy weekday evenings and Sunday brunch.

For folks interested in sampling some of the menu without driving to Leesburg, the King Street Oyster Food Truck is regularly at Banbury Cross and Great Meadow polo games and Boxwood Winery. The schedule is viewable on their website.

“The credit for all this really goes to the town and the Town Council,” said Allison.

“They showed me this opThe building at the traffic light Middleburg was once the Middleburg Bank, later Devonshire Garden Shop portunity, and we can’t wait to be a part of Middleburg.” and more recently the former Home Farm Store.

Making It All Tick

The Debbie and Ronda Show

Let’s call this one “The Debbie and Ronda Show.” It takes place every workday and sometimes even on the weekends. They’re the two gems who keep the offices of Thomas and Talbot Real Estate ticking.

Located within steps of the traffic signal in Middleburg, a roster of 15 agents come and go every day. They need to schedule photo shoots, show property, arrange for open houses and best of all… closings.

Since 2010, Debbie Mc Laughlin has been in charge of marketing and advertising. A lifelong horse lover, she grew up in Birmingham, Alabama

Ronda Sherwood

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on Patchwork Farm, former home of Cahaba Horse Trials and Pony Club. She’s a former threeday eventer and pony club official.

“Over the years I just kept re-inventing myself,” she told Country Spirit recently. “There’s so much to learn and do that it’s hard to just do one thing.

I’ve been a groom, bookkeeper and personal assistant.” She designs and submits all print ads, lays out brochures, updates the website and maintains a master list of all listings held by the agents.

She came to interview for the Thomas and Talbot job in June, 2010. “I’m not sure if Ronda thought I could do the job or not but she talked to Mr. Thomas and he asked me what I thought. I told him I thought I could hold the office together until he found someone more qualified.”

That was seven years ago.

For her part, Ronda Sherwood serves as office manager and personal assistant to Phillip S. Thomas. Before joining Thomas and Talbot in 2006, she worked for a bank in Winchester as a credit card services representative and tax and settlement coordinator in its trust department.

Ronda proudly served over 11 years in the U.S. Army in the area of finance and accounting.

“I left for basic training within weeks of graduating from James Wood High School,” she said. “I was stationed in Ft. McClellan in Anniston, Alabama, in Rheinberg, Germany, Ft. Sill in Oklaho-

Debbie McLaughlin ma and Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri.”

She’s been a notary public for more than 20 years. She said she developed many core values while serving in the military: loyalty, respect and integrity. Her professionalism and pleasant personality clearly are a tremendous asset to the firm.

And we can’t help but make this olfactory note… as clients and friends open the red glossy door to the offices, the vague scent of Ronda’s favorite Elizabeth Arden scent, Red Door, wafts through the air.

But let there be no doubt. Debbie and Ronda are both definitely a breath of fresh air.

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Country Spirit • September 2017

17

Conductor Miriam Burns makes music, and a statement

A

By Leonard Shapiro

cclaimed conductor Miriam Burns occasionally helps promote upcoming concerts by speaking at local Rotary clubs. She preaches the importance of funding music programs in public schools, and always makes it a point to ask how many people in her audience have ever played a musical instrument.

“I’d say 90 percent of their hands go up,” Burns said. “These are all leaders in their fields, all with a background in music. It gave them the skills to set goals, to work hard practicing, and also how to deal with failure.”

There likely will be no extended speeches when Burns and her highly-regarded Tysons McLean Orchestra appear for a concert at the Grace Episcopal Church in The Plains on Sunday, Oct. 15 at 5 p.m. It will be music, sweet music — Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 and works by Vivaldi and Grieg as part of the Grace Episcopal Concert series. The church is starting its 18th year hosting high-quality performances by outstanding musicians appearing in a cozy and acoustically-friendly setting.

Burns is testament to the importance of providing musical opportunities in public school curriculums at a time when some financiallystressed systems often trim their budgets by eliminating programs in the arts.

She grew up near Columbus, Ohio “and I was very, very fortunate to be in an environment where public schools had well-funded music programs.

“When I give these sermonettes on the importance of music education, I talk about how much these kids will miss out if they don’t have it in the schools. And these are the audiences of tomorrow. Everyone doesn’t have to grow up to be a musician, but they will have an appreciation of music that will last a lifetime.”

Burns began playing the violin at ten, now considered a bit late. The Suzuki method, first developed in Japan, often starts children as as soon as they can physically hold a violin. When she moved into conducting in the late 1980s, the violin took second fiddle to the responsibilities she had in preparing herself and her orchestras for upcoming concerts.

“I haven’t really practiced much since 1989,” she said. “When you become a conductor, it’s difficult to do more than that. To keep it up, you need a minimum of two hours a day for practice. Between studying the music for the orchestra, with all the administrative work, there aren’t enough hours in the day. But I really do miss being in playing shape.”

Still, she’s obviously in magnificent conducting shape, having worked with some of the world’s finest orchestras. She was with the New York 18

Country Spirit • September 2017

Grace Episcopal Concert Series Featured Group: The Tysons McLean Orchestra

Date: Oct. 15 at 5 p.m.

Program: Works by Bach, Vivaldi, Grieg Conductor Miriam Burns

“I love so many things about this orchestra. We’re known for our camaraderie and esprit de corps.

We love making music together.”

- MIRIAM BURNS

Philharmonic as one of their “cover conductors” from 1999-2007 and accompanied the orchestra on tour to the Far East as the tour’s assistant conductor . For those eight years she was an assistant conductor on call for countless specific, fullyprepared programs under many guest conductors.

Burns lives in New York and is now in her sixth season as music director and conductor of the Tysons McLean Orchestra. Since 1995, she’s also been music director of The Orchestra of the Redeemer in New York City. She does occasionally pick up the violin and has performed with two-time Grammy winner Sylvia McNair.

These days, she’s totally focused on conducting an orchestra that recently changed venues to the Falls Church Episcopal Church. Her musicians are all experienced, paid professionals, including several servicemen who also play in various military bands.

“I love so many things about this orchestra,” Burns said. “We’re known for our camaraderie and esprit de corps. We love making music together.”

She also knows its vital role in the culture.

“It’s why music is so important,” she said. “In these times of ridiculous chaos, it’s one thing that can unite us. Music really can heal the soul.”

Tickets: season subscription $100, single ticket $25, students $15 Online: gracetheplains.org Facebook: @gracechurchconcertseries Email: concertseries@gracetheplains.org Phone: 540-253-5177 ext. 107

Next Concert Date: Nov. 19 Artists: The Peter and Will Anderson Jazz Trio Program: Lighthearted jazz for clarinet, saxophone, and electric guitar

Mallory Bryan ‘17 sity arolina State Univer Attending North C ip recipient as Park Scholarsh

n ‘17 Crishon Washingto e University Attending Penn Stat larship recipient as Millennium Scho

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“Highland’s motto is an invitation, not an imperative.

An invitation to become more than you were the

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instead of uncomfortable. It took a little longer than usual, but I bought in to Highland’s motto and as a result I am the greatest me I have ever been.”

– Crishon Washington ‘17 in a speech at Grandparents Day, April 20, 2017

About Highland School: We are a co-educational Pre-K2 to Grade 12 independent day school located in Warrenton with a unique focus on experiential learning. Find out what sets Highland – and Highland’s students – apart at www.highlandschool.org.

www.highlandschool.org Country Spirit • September 2017

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8/14/17 11:51 AM

Piedmont Garden Club Luncheon and Lecture, Oct 10

Copies of the book “Outstanding American Gardens: A Celebration: 25 Years of the Garden Conservancy” by Dickey and Marion Brenner and other garden-related accouterments also will be on sale.

The Piedmont Garden Club will present a luncheon and lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 10 at the Middleburg Community Center with Ben Lenhardt, chairman of the Garden Conservancy.

Lenhardt, an avid gardener in Charleston, South Carolina, and Winnetka, Illinois, will discuss on “Why Are Gardens Important?”

His interest in garden preservation combines his keen interests in gardening and architecture, including historical preservation in Charleston, where he’s on the board of Drayton Hall and the Easement Committee of Historic Charleston Foundation.

In Chicago, he served on the board of the Chicago Botanic Garden, Shedd Aquarium, and Notebart Nature Museum. He joined the board of directors of the Garden Conservancy in December, 2004, becoming vice-chairman of the board in 2007 and Chairman in 2011.

Lenhardt will show more than 250 slides of beautiful gardens around the world while giving a brief history of gardens, beginning with the Garden of Eden.

He’ll speak about the many roles gardens play in everyday life, farming, and the economy, while providing beauty and comfort. He’ll conclude with a description of

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Country Spirit • September 2017

the Garden Conservancy’s efforts to save and share outstanding American gardens for the education and inspiration of the public.

Copies of the book “Outstanding American Gardens: A Celebration: 25 Years of the Garden Conservancy” by Dickey and Marion Brenner and other garden-related accouterments also will be on sale.

Garden guru Ben Lenhardt will be speaking at the Middleburg Community Center on Oct. 10.

PHOTO BY BARBARA HANSEN

For more information Contact: Nicole Perry, (540) 592-3380 or piedmontgardenclub@gmail.com.

Deadline for reservations: Oct. 3 Tickets to the lecture and luncheon are $50

This garden in Charleston, South Carolina will be part of the talk.

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21

Breast Cancer Foundation Digs Deep Into Volleyball

By Leonard Shapiro For Bryant Dunetz, it began with a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer for his late wife, Gloria. She battled the insidious disease with all her might until her death seven years ago, and now, her husband and her son, Rick, are doing all they can to help fund research that may someday spare another family from the same devastating outcome.

They’re doing it with volleyball.

Bryant Dunetz, a retired Brooklynborn engineer and entrepreneur who now lives in Bluemont, had been his wife’s care-giver. At one point during her treatment, she went through what he described as a “serious depression.”

At the time, Rick was a volunteer volleyball coach for the West Springfield High School girls team. One night, he convinced his mom to come out to a game in an effort to lift her spirits.

“That’s where it all started,” Bryant Dunetz said. “Watching the game not only helped her depression, but it also motivated the young ladies’ team, who met her that night. They went on and won their division championship.”

Father and son soon were organizing local volleyball events in Fairfax County to raise money for breast cancer research. It was all donated to a support group associated with the INOVA Hospital.

22

“We were able to raise a few thousand dollars,” Dunetz said. “One day, my son and I were discussing what else we could do to have a significant impact on the disease. At that point, we set up a nonprofit called the SideOut Foundation and continued to raise money.”

Side-out is a volleyball term translated to mean that when the serving team doesn’t score a point, the serve goes over to the other team.

Rick used his coaching connections to initially compile an email list of over 1,000 volleyball coaches around the country. He sent out a mass email describing the foundation and its purpose, and his father said “the response was just overwhelming.

Many of them had their own fundraisers and that first year, we raised $400,000. A miracle. No one could believe it.”

The next step was deciding where the money would make the most impact on the disease. Through his wife’s oncologist, Dr. Nicholas Robert at Virginia Cancer Specialists in Fairfax. he was introduced to Phoenix-based Dr. Daniel Von Hoff, one of the finest oncologists in the country.

I told him about the money we had raised and basically said ‘what should we do to have an impact?’” Dunetz said. “He said ‘why not run a clinical trial?’ I said ‘what’s that?’ He had just

Country Spirit • September 2017

finished a $7 million clinical trial on colorectal cancer and surprisingly, a lot of the results derived from that also applied to breast cancer. He told me how it worked, how to set up a protocol, and were were off and running.”

Gloria Dunetz was in that first 25-person trial that included treatment sites in Fairfax, Phoenix and Scottsdale.

“One of the elements that was critical was diagnosing the diseased tissue from a biopsy,” Dunetz said. “That identifies the bio-markers that needed to be treated. The process was biopsy, diagnosis then a treatment selection committee to produce a recommendation on a chemotherapy regiment.

That was still the age of chemo.”

Father and son helped raise $1.5 million for that first trial, and over the last ten years they’ve raised over $10 million for breast cancer research, still using volleyball as their primary tool. They get funds from high schools and colleges who put on “Dig Pink” tournaments during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. Dig is another volleyball term, referring to a player who dives and gets under a ball to keep it alive.

Trials funded by Side-Out have already resulted in several new drugs coming on the market to fight the cancer. And the foundation also is now

Bryant Dunetz affiliated with a group of researchers at George Mason University specializing in molecular medicine research.

They’re experimenting on isolating the proteins that feed the disease.

Dunetz also is talking with George Mason about setting up an information center dealing with metastatic breast cancer intertwined with the school’s degree program in bio-informatics.

Now 83, Dunetz is the foundation’s chief operating officer and Rick is the executive director focusing on fund-raising. Bryant moved to Bluemont three years ago and also is breeding warm blood hunter/jumper horses on the side at his 15-acre farm.

Clearly though, helping to find a cure remains his main priority.

“We have made a niche for ourselves in metastatic breast cancer research over the last seven or eight years,” he said. “I’m very proud of that.”

For Grantham President Andrews, it gets better after halftime

By Leonard Shapiro Not long ago, Scott Andrews attended the Halftime Institute in Dallas, an organization that works with highly-successful middle-aged men and women looking to devote the next chapter of their lives to other meaningful pursuits. For some, it involves heading down a new and fulfilling path, as Andrews, a long-time Middleburg resident, can well attest.

His road now leads to the suburbs of Kansas City and the headquarters of Grantham University, a for-profit, on-line college originally started by a World War II veteran in 1951 to provide educational opportunities for military members, past and present.

In March, Andrews, 59, was named president of a university that once had a small campus in Slidell, Lousiana, until Hurricane Katrina huffed and puffed and blew it all down in 2005. Thirty-six hours later, the school was back up and running on most cylinders, and now has 17,000 students in the U.S. and around the world.

“I still have one of the two lost computers they found in the rubble after the storm,” Andrews said.

“They’ve had a resilient spirit, to say the least.”

A University of Virginia graduate, Andrews has worked primarily in the financial sector and was introduced a few years ago to Tom Macon, a Washingtonian who had taken over Grantham in 2000 with the idea of putting it entirely on-line at a relatively low cost. Like founder Donald Grantham, he also wanted to provide access to higher education for students in or out of the military, and the general public.

These days, about half the students have military connections, including two brothers who just graduated after taking courses while deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Andrews points to countless heartwarming stories from students who earned degrees despite extremely extenuating circumstances.

“We had a woman from Waynesboro, Virginia who’d been abused by her husband to the point where she had to get a restraining order,” Andrews said. “She’s partially deaf and had two special needs children, and she’s earned three different degrees from us—associate, bachelors and an MBA—and gone on to develop her own business.”

Andrews was asked to join Grantham last March, an intriguing opportunity for a man with deep roots in Virginia and particularly

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Jennifer and Scott Andrews.

Middleburg. Though he spends three weeks a month working in Kansas City, he and his wife, Jennifer, who often travels with him, have no intention of moving away from their long-time home base.

“Their board and CEO asked me if I would help stabilize the organization,” Andrews said. “I had attended the Halftime Institute, where you spend a lot of time thinking about the first part of your life and wondering ‘is that all there is?’

I thought a lot about what I’d like to be involved with going forward.

“People say ‘are you really going to spend three weeks a month in Kansas City?’ I think it’s exhilarating, it’s challenging. I’ve made a commitment through the end of 2018, and then we’ll revisit it. I just love the mission of serving an under-served population.”

His experience in the Halftime Institute provided the impetus for the move.

According to its web site, “Halftime is the in-between season that occurs at about age 45, plus or minus a few years. It’s the…season of “now what?” Most people are unprepared and they are searching for meaning in mid-life. The Halftime Institute is the leading authority on creating a second half defined by joy, impact and balance.”

And Andrews is proof positive that’s no idle boast.

“It’s an opportunity for me to use certain skills I’ve learned over the years in something totally new and different. I love the fact that we can provide a high-quality and affordable education that makes a difference in our students lives. We’re giving people a whole new sense of hope.”

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Country Spirit • September 2017

Middleburg Film Festival Remains A Must-See Event D

By Leonard Shapiro

ocumentary film-maker Susan Koch has known Sheila Johnson for quite some time and often heard her talk about starting a film festival at Middleburg’s Salamander Resort. Then one day, talk turned to action when Koch got a call from Johnson, Salamander’s founder and owner.

“She said ‘I want to do it,’” said Koch, a Bethesda native. “So we just decided to go for it. It was launched in January, 2013 and the first festival was that October.”

Koch, programming director Connie White and the small group of film aficionados she uses to help her make the final choices clearly have a wonderful eye for what works with a Middleburg audience.

That’s truly any audience because festival-goers come from all around the Washington region, with a large local presence, as well.

That first year, the feature presentation was “Nebraska,” with veteran actor Bruce Dern attending. Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday, a frequent festival speaker, said in her review that “at 76, Dern finally gets to be the leading man he’s long deserved to be, filling Nebraska’s wide open spaces with a performance of subtlety, bittersweetness and surpassing emotional courage.”

“Nebraska” was nominated for six Oscars that year, including Dern in the Best Actor category. He also was judged Best Actor at the iconic Cannes Film Festival in France, where Nebraska was named Best Picture.

Koch’s success rate in selecting similarly awardwinning films—including 2015 Best Picture “Spotlight”—has been virtually impeccable. Last year’s main feature, “La

La Land,” also had a spectacular awards season, earning a record seven Golden Globes and 14 Oscar nominations.

Sheila Johnson, a long-time Middleburg presence, is also a filmmaker, including credits as an executive producer on four documentaries and “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” that was on the firstyear schedule. She’s also on the board of Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute. When he came east to check out the 340-acre Salamander site preconstruction, he told her the new resort would be a perfect festival setting.

As Country Spirit went to press, this year’s lineup has not yet been released. This much is known. There likely will be about 25 films, narrative or documentary, with panel discussions or individual presentations also on the schedule.

How do Koch, White and their cohorts decide what to include?

They’re submitted for consideration in many ways, even on-line. Koch has relationships with distributors eager to have their films shown here. An advisory board in Los Angeles tells her what’s coming out, as well as pre-release buzz. At a recent French embassy function, the cultural attache gave her a list of potential films for this year’s event.

Foreign films are always an attraction.

And Koch wants films that have not yet been released in theaters, no shorts and nothing made for television.

“We really take decision-making seriously,” said Koch, who tries to attend as many other major festivals as possible. “We want something that feels like a good fit for Middleburg.

It’s a sophisticated audience and many people go to a number of films.”

Koch also knows she can’t please all the people all the time.

“It’s very subjective,” she said. “Some will like a certain film, some will not. We knew “Jackie” (focusing on Jacqueline Kennedy in the days after President Kennedy was assassinated) would be a great fit here last year. She spent a lot of time in this community. Others you take a chance, push the envelope. We just want to show the best films possible.”

This year’s festival likely will attract as many as 4,000 film-goers, and visitors also provide a welcome windfall for local shops and restaurants. Even before the roster of films is released later this month, many advance packages are already sold out.

“They don’t even know what the films are,” Koch said. “But they trust us.”

From past performances, they should.

“We want something that feels like a good fit for Middleburg. It’s a sophisticated audience and many people go to a number of films.”

PHOTO BY LEONARD SHAPIRO

Susan Koch Country Spirit • September 2017

25

Dean Elgin with his herd of cattle, Angus and Charolais cross.

PHOTO BY VICKY MOON

Elgin Family Farm at the Heart of it All

By Vicky Moon

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Country Spirit • September 2017

Mountain Hollow Farm is nestled down a dirt road between Middleburg and Aldie. The Bull Run Mountains loom elegantly to the east.

Dean Elgin settles back in a rustic wooden chair on his front lawn.

He’s proud of his heritage as a multigeneration farmer in this cherished corner of these parts. Over the years, various pieces of Elgin land have been part of the family’s agrarian roots, growing corn, raising cattle and running a dairy at their Mountain Home Farm, Hathaway Farm, Hunger Run and Fox Den. It all began with George Elgin, who came from Scotland to Maryland in the late 1600s. His grandson, Francis Elgin, moved to Virginia around the mid-1700s, and his son was Walter Elgin, whose son was Ignatius followed by David Alexander Elgin.

“David was married to Angelina Chinn of Chinn’s Crossing fame, Middleburg’s founding family. And, we have a possible great story going on here,” said Dean’s wife, Carina.

“He was allegedly murdered around 1872 while on his way to Middleburg from here.”

William “Willie” Lee Elgin was next up, followed by Roger Elgin Sr. a well-known horseman in the area.

Then came Dean’s father, Roger Lee Elgin, Jr., who had six children, four boys and two girls.

This could have led to a possible calamity if the land had been divided up among the kids and sold off, only to be transformed into subdivision with names like “Landmark Crossing” or “Bull Run Commons,” with 3bdrm. 2 ba. homes jammed together.

Instead, they found a way to keep

the land and keep on farming.

Said Carina, “We wouldn’t be standing here today, if it weren’t for the Piedmont Environmental Council and the Virginia Outdoors Foundation purchasing our development rights.

This land will never be developed.”

“I grew up in this house,” Dean Elgin said, turning to the circa-1750 stone home he shares with his wife and three daughters. A Fauquier County High School graduate, he was the youngest of the six.

Now 55, he helped his family run a dairy while growing up and said, “I thought I was going to milk cows the rest of my life.”

“It’s been challenging,” Dean said, adding that the farming has only been part of his challenge. In 2008, he suffered a heart attack and had triple bypass surgery. As a result of congestive heart failure, he now has an LVAD-left ventricular assist device implanted and is on the list for a heart replacement.

His work now involves raising Angus and Charolais cross-bred cattle and selling farm equipment at Virginia Tractor in Warrenton, where he always tries to match the customer to the proper equipment.

“I ask them about the terrain at their property,” he said. “Things like: ‘are there hills, rocks, how many acres?’” Then he’ll go on to other accessories—bush hog, mowers, conditioners, bailer or perhaps a manure spreader. The prices range from $200 to $200,000.

And then, Elgin looks out at his 75 acres and says: “We’ll make enough hay to feed the cows this year.

“This is a unique valley.”

Indeed.

Life Illuminated by Melody and “One Second of Grace”

By Caroline Fout Founded in 2010 by Tom Sweitzer and Kim Tapper, A Place To Be (APTB) in Middleburg capitalizes on the use of musical therapy to help conquer life’s challenges.

“It’s a place, for no matter what age, that uses Expressive Arts to help in the healing of people,” Sweitzer said.

A Place To Be serves those at any and all ages grappling with physical/ medical, behavioral/learning, intellectual/developmental, social, and life challenges. They not only offer therapeutic services, but the chance to engage and participate in workshops, theatre productions, and even become a part of touring ensembles.

Recently, A Place To Be has been touring with The Same Sky Project, a nationwide-touring ensemble of theatrical productions that raises awareness and teaches empathy and acceptance,” Sweitzer said.

The touring ensemble will soon perform its most recent project.

The show is called “One Second of Grace” and was created by a current mentor at A Place To Be. It’s directed by Sweitzer and scored by music therapy student Kyle Boardman.

Grace Wheeler, a student at

youth, along with the inevitable ob- Middleburg-native Forrest Allen and stacles and struggles, is a powerful his journey to find his voice again. subject.

Following a freak snowboarding The play takes aim at what seems accident, then 18-year old Forrest a “taboo” subject to talk openly about suffered a life-threatening traumatic in today’s society. brain injury that prevented him from “It gives a voice to this genera- speaking or moving for two years. tion,” Sweitzer said. “It opens up Sweitzer and Forrest would come tothese sensitive subjects for the audi- gether to help him regain his voice, ence in a musical way, which helps it through the power of music. to be palatable.”

The film, written and directed by The cast ranges in age from 15-22, award-winning film-maker Susan and all of them auditioned to earn Koch, follows a journey of healing spots in the show. Many of them are and transformation, and brings to part of A Place To Be. light the power of music therapy.

The show has an episodic format, Koch, also executive director of the featuring Grace herself as well as Middleburg Film Festival, is an various other characters with their Emmy and Peabody-award winner. own stories.

“She heard about Forrest’s story “The character takes us through her with music therapy,” Sweitzer said.

Tom Sweitzer of A Place to Be life with panic disorder and anxiety,” “I think the film will be a gameLoudon County, wrote the play.

Sweitzer said, “but through the show changer for music therapy. It takes “We love when youngsters come you meet another eight other students you into the personal story of Forrest to us,” Sweitzer said. “Grace has who have their own challenges.” and his family and how music therbeen mentoring at APTB and had The show will premier on Sun- apy helped him back to survival. It this idea that there needed to be day, Oct. 8 at the Shiela C. Johnson will be powerful for those that know more conversation about mental Performing Arts Center at The Hill him. But its really about hope.” health with high school students.

School in Middleburg. Tickets are “One Second of Grace” will focus $15 at the door. “Some of us approach wealth planning by leaving it entirely to of us approach wealth planning it entirely to what it is they have on anxiety disorders, sexuality, self-“SomeSweitzer also writes his own the ‘experts, ’ shows often by notleaving fully understanding harm, and the struggle of fitting-inthe and ‘experts, ’ often not fully is they have productions and soonunderstanding he willwe be do, what recommended while it some of us throw up our hands an and adhering to the ideals of currentrecommended starring in we a documentary, as well. do, nothing. while some of us throw up our hands and do Neither way is very wise.” times. The basis of the production,nothing.

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The circa 1775 Welbourne estate near Upperville has provided a setting with an award-winning backdrop for generations of Dulany family gatherings.

This includes subscription and invitation only “jass” musical celebrations such as a Cakewalk, The Cupcake and The Beignet. In between events, guests escape the city for weekends or longer and others migrate here for a memorable two-week performing arts camp.

The mellifluous ragtime tones of a tuba and the deep strains of a bass meld with an upright piano through the serene elixirs of the evenings on many occasions while those gathered drink it all in.

Photos by Vicky Moon

Above, Evita Arce and Nathan Bugh dance the night away. Right, Rebecca Morison Schaefer chats with a frequent guest, BBC broadcast journalist Katty Kay. Far right, The Thompson Farmily: Cindy, Maura, Mark and Maegann.

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Country Spirit • September 2017

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Saratoga Celebrations and More

Robert and Jill Monk.

Jockey Shane Crimin and trainer Doug Fout.

Preparations for the trip north to Saratoga Springs begin years in advance. For those selling yearling beauties at the prestigious Fasig Tipton auction, it begins as the foals hit the ground in early 2016. Then it ebbs and flows until this past August as the horse vans pull out the driveway of local farms such as Chilly Bleak, Old Chapel and Morgan’s Ford and head for upstate New York.

Neighbors Katie and Jim Fitzgerald at Chilly Bleak Farm on Frogtown Road had several in the auction: a filly by Uncle Mo, a colt by Fed Biz and a colt by Orb. Total sales were $810,000. The next week, they sold a New York-bred for $210,000, purchased previously for $35,000.

“The sale was very strong across the board,” Jim

Fitzgerald told Country Spirit. “When you have fabulous racing combined with a vibrant social scene it enhances everything positive about Thoroughbred racing in America.”

Andrew Motion sold a chestnut filly by Verrazano for $150,000 to Hope Haskell Jones. “Anytime you double your money in the horse business,” he said, “you’ve done well.”

Susie and Wayne Chatfield Taylor have been selling at the sales for several decades and this year had two yearlings on display. Then it was off to the races and on to the party circuit. One morning soiree celebrated Ann MacLeod’s 95th birthday, including a cake with 95 candles blown out in a group effort; another with lots of locals attending

Lauren and Rene Woolcott’s Woodslane Farm homebred Sadler’s Joy came from behind to win the $1 million Sword Dancer Invitational.

Following a large 95th birthday blowout party in Middleburg, Ann MacLeod made her annual trek to Saratoga Springs for a champagne breakfast celebration. John Behrendt with Ann MacLeod, Johnathan Miller and Theresa Behrendt.

Teddy Mulligan with Lindsay Kelly.

George Grayson and Maria Tousimis.

was at the home of Peggy Steinman for the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg.

Finally, departing the races one afternoon… dare we report on a daring pair of mostly-undressed women posing for pictures at one of the track entrances. They painted their bare upper bodies the color of money, and collected plenty in a silver shopping bag. Photos were free. A nearby fully-clothed music student from Skidmore played her violin. Her carrying case also was filled with dollar bills.

All is definitely not lost at the betting windows in Saratoga.

PHOTOS BY LEONARD SHAPIRO

One of the yearlings from Chilly Bleak Farm arrives for the sales in Saratoga.

The lovely ladies at Saratoga.

Country Spirit • September 2017

29

WhyAre

Gardens

Important? m Join us for a history of gardening with

Benjamin Lenhardt, chairman of the Garden Conservancy Lecture presented

OCT. 10, 2017 11:00 a.m.

MIDDLEBURG COMMUNITY CENTER

Moves to Marshall

By Sophie Scheps

In the space of just a few years, Marshall has transformed into a gourmet food Mecca of the Virginia Piedmont.

The Red Truck Bakery, The Whole Ox, Gentle Harvest and Field&Main restaurant quickly snatched up store fronts on the sleepy Main Street.

The Merry Moo Market, owned and operated by Gail Reardon, might be the new kid on the block after recently relocating from Flint Hill, but this cozy store definitely stands out.

In addition to typical cuts of beef, chicken and pork, Merry Moo offers game meats and fresh seafood that’s often hard to come by outside of larger gourmet supermarket chains.

Reardon insisted she’s even got those giants beat.

“My seafood comes from a supplier that services the top-tier restaurants from New Jersey to North Carolina,” she said. “What makes them different from other suppliers is they send their trucks directly to BWI airport and to the Baltimore port and load off their trucks and then it’s distributed. When you compare that to the big stores like Food Lion or even Wegmans, they have these huge distribution chains so even if it says fresh, it’s normally frozen before it hits the store and is then thawed out.”

This direct-from-the-source food chain makes an enormous difference in terms of the consistency and quality of Reardon’s seafood. Her other meats come from a similarly selective background which includes a careful selec-

tion process to ensure the animals have been produced on top quality feeds.

“Everything is sold at a market price, not a Marshall or local price,” said Reardon. “People are starting to catch onto that.”

Finding well-priced, high-quality proteins might get customers in the door. And her selection of fine wines, beers, cakes, crackers, cheeses, seasonings and innumerable other flavorings and sides make the Merry Moo Market the ideal stop for those wanting to wow dinner guests or judges at the next tailgate competition.

“This is my seventh year of being in business,” said Reardon. “And it’s been shaped and tweaked for seven years, learning what turns on people.

It’s not about copying others. It’s about being different. You’re always learning about new products. There is constant research to find things that look good but are also unique.”

As her business continues to grow in her new shop, Reardon will expand her cold lunch offerings to include her fresh seafood. It will remain simple and uncomplicated, with a focus on freshness. She also plans on installing a new deli counter to increase her protein displays.

“The people up here are extremely nice and friendly,” she said. “It’s really been wonderful. I used to live in Middleburg and I can see myself moving up back this way. It’s such a joy to meet people I didn’t know before.”

The Merry Moo Market is open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Deadline to reserve seating: October 3, 2017 Boxed lunch included with $50 admission ticket For more information, contact: Nicole Perry at (540) 592-3380 or by email at piedmontgardenclub@gmail.com Presented by Piedmont Garden Club

Merry Moo Market open for business in Marshall.

30

Country Spirit • September 2017

PHOTO BY SEBASTIAN LANGENBERG

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Country Spirit • September 2017

33

A Crab Feast with a Cause

Kiernan Slater and her husband, Chris Patusky, hosted a Crab Feast at their Slater Run Vineyard winery near Upperville to benefit the Churches of Upperville Outreach Program.

The churches include: Upperville Baptist Church, Trinity Episcopal Church, Mount Pisgah Baptist Church and Upperville Methodist Church.

The program was started by the late Betty Lee, a long-time Upperville resident, over 26 years ago.

It has about 20 volunteer members drawn from the four Upperville churches.

The current program directors are Patty and Peter Nicoll.

The program’s primary mission is to distribute holiday baskets of food to families who need help and live in Upperville and the surrounding community.

Originally, the program distributed food baskets (actually overflowing banana boxes) at the three major winter/spring holidays—Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. In 2005, a fourth basket was added in February for Valentine’s Day to help people when they’re struggling with heating

Chris Patusky and his wife, Kiernan Slater, chat with Viviane Warren.

bills in the middle of winter. In addition to food, at Christmas two local garden clubs—the Fauquier/Loudoun Garden Club and the Upperville Garden Club—contribute beautifully wrapped presents for all family members in the program.

In addition to funds raised from the event at

PHOTO BY VICKY MOON

Slater Run, other sources of funding come from: the Upperville Colt and Horse Show, Trinity Episcopal Church Outreach, the offering from the annual community Thanksgiving service at the Upperville Baptist Church and gifts from friends in the Upperville community.

FARM to TABLE

CUISINE GrIlL

Our Market has exciting new stock just in time for the holiday season!

Look us up on Facebook for details.

WINE, BAR and a quirky little market filled with

M U S T H AV E S 34

Country Spirit • September 2017

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Middleburg~Meticulously renovated c.1890 VA fieldstone manor house set on 94 acs. only 1 mile from town. Features formal Living Room, Dining Room, Family Room, gourmet kitchen, 3+ BD, 3½ BA, Office & 2 porches. Original hardwood floors, 5 fireplaces & custom cabinetry throughout. Extensive landscaping includes 200+ new trees, rebuilt stonewalls & new driveway.

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This fully renovated brick home by Swiss architect Henri de Heller in 1938 sits on 5+ professionally landscaped acres in downtown Warrenton. House has influences from the Modernistic Movement & listed on the Nat’l Register of Historic Places. 4 BRs, 5.5 BAs, formal Living Room, Dining Room, Den, Conservatory, gourmet Eat-in Kitchen, Family Room & 6 fireplaces. The grounds have over 100+ species of trees, shrubs, flowers, terraced gardens & stonewalls all centered around a sunken garden. 3-car Garage. $1,775,000

Middleburg ~ Custom estate home on 3+ lush acres minutes to town. This 6,000+ sq. ft. former model has open floor plan with 5 Bedrooms, 6 Baths, stunning Chef's Kitchen that opens to Family Rm w/fireplace, wall of windows & spacious side covered porch. Formal Living Rm w/fireplace, Dining Rm, Den/Office, & Master Suite with Sitting Room, his & her Walk-ins & Luxury Bath. Quality finishes throughout include hardwood floors & crown molding. Spacious Nanny Suite on top level. Fully finished lower level with Rec. Room. 3-car attached garage. $915,000

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Middleburg ~ Small horse farm on 10 private acres with French country home. Features flagstone front terrace that opens into a Grand 2-story slate entrance hall, formal Living & Dining Rooms,spacious Kitchen with Eat-in area and Family Room. Hardwood floors & 2 fireplaces. 3 sets of doors open to a fenced back yard with matures trees, swimming pool & spa, and tree covered flagstone terrace for entertaining. Full basement. 3-stall Barn with tack room & wash stall. 3 fenced Paddocks with 2 turn out sheds. $849,000

Middleburg ~ Rare in-town custom home on quiet street. 1st Level features Foyer, Den, Living Room, Dining Room, Gourmet Kitchen with all high end appliances that opens to Family Room with fireplace, French doors to rear terrace. 9' ceilings & hardwood floors. 2nd Level has Master Bedroom Suite with sitting area, walk-in & luxury Bath. 3 more Bedrooms & full Bath. Separate Laundry Room. Unfinished Lower Level has walk-out stairs. 2-car detached Garage. $799,000

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delaplane~ Located in the historic village, this 4 Bedroom, 2.5 Bath home has been meticulously renovated features original hardwood floors, 5 fireplaces, formal Living Room, Dining Room & Library. All new gourmet Kitchen, Baths & Master Bedroom Suite. Re-plastered walls, new lighting, new furnace/AC, sound system, extensive landscaping, fenced back yard, expansive rear terrace, covered front porch & detached 2-car garage. $749,000

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upperville ~ Pristine Colonial on private 10 acre wooded parcel. Just North of Upperville. Features 3 Bedrooms, 21⁄2 Baths, Formal Living Room, Dining Room, Library & Family Room with fireplace. Light filled Kitchen with quartz counters, island & eat-in area. Large open deck. Master Suite has separate Sitting Room, Walk-in & luxury Bath. Finished basement with bar area, Rec. Room & ample storage. 2-car attached garage. $699,000

The Plains ~ Rare 6 acre parcel along prestigious Zulla Road only minutes to Middleburg, Marshall & The Plains. Fully wooded with slightly rolling terrain & house site farther back away from road. Existing driveway better entered driving North on Zulla. 500+' of road frontage. Space available within the woods to turn around. Small stream. Old septic permit available.

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Charming one level 2/3 Bedrooms cottage on 1+ acre in historic village of Rectortown. Updated with vaulted & beamed ceilings, hardwood & ceramic tile floors, built-ins & French doors to large rear deck. Includes Dining Room, Family Room & Master Bedroom Suite with luxury Bath with separate shower & soaking tub, walk-in closet and French doors to deck. Separate Mudroom and Laundry Room. Fully fenced yard.

Detached Equipment Shed. $395,000

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Middleburg ~ Lovely rolling and mostly open 3+ acre parcel in Loudoun County. This raw land sits less than a half mile down a quiet, deadend gravel road. The road frontage along Sally Mill is dotted with mature trees and lined with an old stone wall. County certified letter for a 4 bedroom septic. $290,000

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Middleburg ~2 office spaces for lease in prime Madison Street location.One larger office with built-in bookshelves, original hardwood flooring & fireplace. Includes front porch, small entrance hall/foyer & spiral staircase to 2nd floor with additional storage. Separate smaller office is light filled with 2 windows, carpet, built-in & has its own back entrance. Offices may be rented separately. Shared ½ Bath & small kitchenette for all 3 offices. $1,250/mo

cRickeT BedfORd office: 540.687.7700 THOMAS AND TALBOT REAL ESTATE Middleburg, Virginia 20118 (540) 687-6500 www.THOMAS-TALBOT.com

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Offers subject to errors, omissions, change of price or withdrawal without notice. Information contained herein is deemed reliable, but is not so warranted nor is it otherwise guaranteed.

Country Spirit • September 2017

35

W.J. Hanback:

By Sarah Sudduth Second of two parts

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHERYL HANBACK SHEPHERD

W.J. Hanback built many of the buildings at Foxcroft and Hill Schools in Middleburg.

Iconic builder W.J. Hanback will forever be tied to President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline.

The Kennedys were frequent guests at the Upperville estate of financier and philanthropist Paul Mellon and his wife, Rachel “Bunny” Mellon.

Jackie Kennedy and Bunny Mellon became close friends, and Bunny enlisted her help in redesigning the Rose Garden at the White House during President Kennedy’s administration from 1960-63.

Bunny Mellon in turn chose none other than W.J. Hanback to do the stonework and Hanback later made the stone gravesite for President Kennedy’s tomb in Arlington National Cemetery.

Renowned architect William Lawrence Bottomley collaborated with Hanback on numerous homes in the Northern Virginia hunt country.

The Halfway House, a stone structure designed in 1934 and located near The Plains, was the home of Vira and Norman de R. Whitehouse. Bottomley also designed the Charles C. Harrison House near The Plains using a Colonial Revival-style, which was completed in 1934.

This house was later renamed Marland and owned by Audrey and Forrest E. Mars. Oakendale, another Colonial Revival-style mansion designed by William L. Bottomley, was built in 1938 by Hanback for Howell E. Jackson and Dorothy Patterson Jackson.

Hanback worked with other architects such as

W.H. Irwin Fleming, who designed the Fletcher Harper House on Friendship Farm and started its construction in 1929.

The late Bruce T. Hanback, W.J.’s son, owner of Hanback Construction, said in a 1997 interview with his daughter, Cheryl Hanback Shepherd, “I know one big job he (W.J. Hanback) did when he first took over from his father was a large estate for Mrs. (Fletcher) Harper in Middleburg.

A large stone house, stable and all. She fell in love with him as well as his work, and I think that’s where his reputation got started. He became really well known around Middleburg and Upperville.”

After W.J. died, Bruce inherited a framed black-and-white photograph of a painting of Mrs. Harriet Harper by Ellen Emmet Rand.

On the bottom of the matte, Mrs. Harper wrote, “For William J. Hanback and his sons who since 1929 have been such staunch friends. Harriet W. Harper, Christmas, 1971.”

Hanback also worked with Fleming on the addition at Hopefield (1924) and built The Oaks (1933), Airlie House (1925), Arborvitae (1938), the Dowell House (1934) and Hanback’s own stone Georgian Revival-style home (1933).

Architect George S. Howe designed a home for A. Felix du Pont, Jr. located on Landmark Road, and built by Hanback in 1939. The estate, Green Pastures, of industrialist Robert Earll McConnell, a mining engineer and Wall Street financier, located off Zulla Road near Middleburg, was designed by New York architect Penrose V. Stout and built by Hanback between 1931 and 1947.

The Hill School and Foxcroft School in Middleburg had many buildings on their respective campuses built by Hanback. There also are a number of other area Hanback homes and mansions impressive in architectural detail as well as history.

Regardless of the type of construction, materials involved, or job size, Hanback’s quality work-

PHOTO COURTESY OF ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY.

Green Pastures, built by W.J. Hanback between 1931 and 1932 in collaboration with architect Penrose Stout, was built for Robert E. McConnell. It’s a stately manor house with many similarities to Mount Vernon.

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Country Spirit • September 2017

Bunny Mellon consulted on the design of the final gravesite of President John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery. The grave area, made by W.J. Hanback, is paved with irregular stones of Cape Cod granite, which were quarried around 1817 near the site of the president’s home and selected by members of his family. Clover, and later, sedum were planted in the crevices to give the appearance of stones lying naturally in a Massachusetts field. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was buried next to President Kennedy on May 23, 1994.

A Master Builder’s World-Class Work Still Endures manship and attention to detail led to his company being in high demand, even during the Depression. At that time, he focused on small houses in Warrenton to keep his men employed. His granddaughter, Donna Shiflett said he was shy. And, she added, his work spoke for itself.

William L. Bottomley and W. J. Hanback Builder worked together on at least nine projects.

These and other projects in turn led to repeat work on the same estates with the construction of new buildings in the form of tenant houses, cabins, stables, barns, terraces, walkways and entranceways.

The architect William L. Bottomley designed Halfway House on Landmark Road for Vira and Norman Whitehouse in 1934. It was built by W. J. Hanback.

These days, in some cases when a premier property built in the area is listed for sale, it may include the notation, “built by Master Builder W.J. Hanback.”

Special thanks to W.J. Hanback’s granddaughters, Cheryl Hanback Shepherd and Donna Sudduth Shiflett, who contributed to the article.

Oakendale, The Howell E. Jackson House, on Landmark School Road, was designed by architect William L. Bottomley in the Colonial Revival-style and built by W. J. Hanback and his sons in 1938.

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Country Spirit • September 2017

Perspectives on Childhood, Education and Parenting

By Tom Northrup

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

- Plutarch A summer highlight for my wife Ann and me was seeing a production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical, “Company,” in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. This musical, directed by Julianne Boyd, starred Aaron Tveit and featured several other Broadway actors. The music, dancing, creativity and energy were unforgettable.

We were familiar with some of Sondheim’s musicals, but we didn’t know much about his life. While what we learned surprised us, it reinforced something that I had long understood: virtually all accomplished and successful adults have had important mentors as children.

Sondheim’s father left his family when Stephen was ten. At the time he began a friendship with the son of Oscar Hammerstein, whose family lived nearby. From that time forward, the senior Hammerstein (Oklahoma, South Pacific and Sound of Music) became a surrogate father, teacher and inspiration for Stephen.

As adults, they maintained their close relationship, which continued until Hammerstein’s death over two decades later, in 1965. In fact,

Tom Northrup

Sondheim wrote that in those later years, when they were truly contemporaries, it gave him pleasure to be able to critique Hammerstein’s work.

Shortly before he died, Hammerstein (at Stephen’s request) inscribed a portrait of himself, “For Stevie, My Friend and Teacher”.

The beginning of a new school year is a good time for parents and teachers to pause and reflect on the responsibility we have to serve as mentors for children, our own and others. We can inspire them to pursue an interest, provide them with the structure to help them learn to work hard, and encourage them to persist when the outlook appears bleak.

Mentoring has been mentioned in earliest recorded history; nothing has replaced this essential relationship in successfully guiding children and young adults to productive lives.

It’s also the bulwark for the foundation of healthy and respectful communities.

A concern I share with others is that the time required for meaningful adult-child interaction is being crowded out (in both homes and schools) by the amount of time all of us are spending in front of screens, in all sizes and directives. Giving careful thought to how we can effectively balance these competing demands for our attention will continue to challenge us, a challenge we must not ignore.

The HammersteinSondheim connection is an anomaly. Most mentoring relationships, powerful as they are, are usually unknown outside the circle of family and friends.

One common thread to mentoring experiences, however, was expressed

by Oscar Hammerstein in his inscription to “Stevie” on his portrait.

He understood, as I believe most mentors ultimately do, that the children they have worked with become their friends and their teachers.

Tom Northrup is the Head of School Emeritus of the Hill School in Middleburg, the school he has served since 1981.

Country Spirit • September 2017

39

Middleburg Police Chief Counts His Blessings and His Chips

By Leonard Shapiro

C

hief A.J. Panebianco is in his fifth year in charge of Middleburg’s now widelyrespected police force and, he said, “I’ve never been happier in my 29 years of police work.”

“What attracted me to this job was the town’s desire for the department to evolve and move forward,” he said. “Nothing was wrong, but it needed growth and some improvement. Salamander was on the horizon, and I knew it would open the town up to more events and more visitors than they’d ever had before.

“The Town Council wanted to go from a part-time to a full-time police department, and I wanted to go to a place where I could have a positive impact. I’d like to think we’ve been able to do that.”

Panebianco and his six full-time officers are deployed 24/7 around Middleburg. Previously, the town relied on the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department to fill in any blanks, including overnight hours. Now, it’s all done by the town’s police.

He’s also proud that all his officers have the opportunity to do police work, and pursue their own particular interests at the same time. For example, when the town had parking meters, they were not always reliable.

Officer Tim Tharpe always enjoyed walking around town and talking to merchants, people on the street, and sometimes even petting their dogs.

“So he took the key to the meters and tested them at least once every month,” Panebianco said. “That had never been done before. And at the same time, he visited, he talked to everyone, and it was mission accomplished. If you had someone who didn’t like to do that, it would not have been as successful.”

Another officer, Jay Hollins, had excellent organizational skills, so Panebianco put him in charge of

40

Police Chief A. J. Panebianco

training. When the department moved to its current location on Federal Street last year, there finally was enough space to add a training room. It’s since been certified by the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services as an official satellite training academy.

There’s not much serious crime in Middleburg, an occasional break-in, shoplifting, a case a few years ago involving silver thefts by a Richmond group. When Middleburg officer Mike Prince, who retired last month, located the vehicle the thieves were using, it led to their arrest and prosecution.

Country Spirit • September 2017

PHOTO BY LEONARD SHAPIRO

“We have an unofficial motto,” Panebianco said. “We like to say we don’t have to police this community because we are the police for this community. People trust us with information. They know they can talk to an officer. We get every type of complaint, and they come to the police first. That’s the key element to our success.”

Clearly, Panebianco has a great passion for police work, both locally and in the Commonwealth. He’s chairman of the Virginia Chiefs of Police Association, as well as chairing its ethics committee. And he’s also been able to separate work from pleasure in his

o f f- d u t y hours. “ W hen I eat in Middleburg,” he said, “I’ll never have a beer because I’m the police chief.”

And when he’s away from Middleburg, he also has a passion for poker.

It began a dozen years ago when he took one of his sons to Atlantic City to attend a mixed martial arts fight.

He’d been an MMA instructor at Virginia Military Academy and the wrestling coach at Southern Virginia University.

“I had never been in a casino before,” he said. “I took $20 and started putting it in a slot machine and discovered this was not the way to go.

So we walked around and started looking at the other fun stuff.”

The poker table intrigued him.

He’d played before in friendly low ante neighborhood games, and a few months later, he celebrated his birthday in Atlantic City by playing his first tournament. In fact, he won his first two events, beating 80 participants and confirming in his own mind he had the requisite skills to compete. In 2006, he entered a preliminary event in the World Series of Poker and has played two or three tournaments a year ever since. The most he’s ever won is about $5,500 and overall, he said he’s pretty much ahead of the game.

He also believes he hit the jackpot when he took the chief ’s job in Middleburg.

“I have the best, most wellrounded staff I’ve ever had,” he said.

“I’m also blessed to have a a Town Council that has the confidence in me to say ‘let’s see what this department can be.’ Now, we have people who want to join this department.

We just had 20 applications for a job opening. Our reputation has changed from being security-check officers to police officers.

“I will retire from Middleburg.

I’ve had other opportunities since I’ve been here, but I won’t even consider it. Middleburg has taken me in, accepted me and shown me a great deal of love, and you can’t buy that anywhere else.”

The Chief is definitely all in.

The ride, the run and the bowl of a lifetime

We asked some local folks for the classic “what I did on my vacation” report, the one we all used to give in grade school.

Friend and photographer Missy Janes offered up a doozy. She was among a group of ten women who followed the exploration trail of Lewis & Clark along the Missouri River. Here’s her report: “We canoed and camped along the ‘breaks’ and hiked the canyons experiencing the same views and geological formations as written about in L&C’s diary. After leaving the river, we ventured further into the gorgeous Montana prairie landscape to the American Prairie Reserve.

“This very special place was first introduced to me through Jacqueline Mars. I decided to promote it to the Garden Club of America and in so doing was asked to do a reconnaissance trip. That lead to my planning and organizing a trip for ten women to explore the idea of doing smaller boutique trips higher in adventure and geared toward engaging

Carter Wiley and Will Driscoll ran with the bulls

and educating younger members.

“We learned so much and laughed a lot and had a great time. The short grass and sage prairie is referred to as the American Serengeti and is a grassland ecosystem of world importance. The breadth of sky and grassland is unforgettable and seeing the free roaming American Bison, prairie dogs and pelicans added to the awe of such a spiritual place.

The ultimate goal is to protect a land area the size of the state of Connecticut and reintroduce a sustainable wildlife mix that will be the largest wildlife refuge in the lower 48 states. We also traveled to Paradise Valley where we organized a one-day photography workshop on horseback and were introduced to fly fishing and local fauna. Our final dinner was all locally-sourced and served next to the Yellowstone River.”

Carter Wiley, a starting defensive back on Virginia Tech’s football team too many years ago to mention, still has plenty of adrenaline left in his system to take on a far more dangerous foe than an Ohio State running back.

Over the summer, he journeyed to Pamplona, Spain and ran with the bulls. He also had company. Will Driscoll, a recent graduate of Highland School and an outstanding tennis player heading for Hampden-Sydney College in the fall, went along with Wiley. Middleburg Town Councilman Bridge Littleton participated in a more peaceful activity. He traveled to the Isle of Iona, in the Inner Hebrides off the Ross of Mull on the western coast of Scotland. He went there to play in an annual golf tournament. The event is only over 11 holes at a venue maintained mostly by sheep and goats eating the grass. Why only 11 holes? Maybe

Missy Janes out on the trail.

PHOTO BY MISSY JANES

because the tradition is to have a nip of an adult beverage at every hole (preferably malt Scotch), making 18 holes nearly impossible. And there’s not much need for a 19th hole either.

Valerie and Guy Dove had a fabulous time with friends and visiting relatives in the villa they rented in Tuscany. That was the goods news. The bad news came when they returned to the states, when they visited Jackson Hole to see more family. They went bowling one night at a place called—what else—the Hole Bowl. Guy Dove apparently had a hard time releasing his bowling ball on a very slippery lane. He took a hard fall, injured his pelvis and was sidelined for several weeks. We are pleased to report he is recovering beautifully.

Some vacation.

Country Spirit • September 2017

41

Running and jumping and Fall can’t come soon enough for the faithful followers of horse competitions in and around the Hunt Country. The October calendar is crowded with a number of premier events.

The Piedmont Fox Hunter Trials, now in their fifth year, are scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 8 at Shelby Bonnie’s Salem Farm Show grounds in Upperville. The event includes the addition of the Green Hunter and Novice Rider divisions and $1,000 in prize money for the winner of the PFH Field Hunter Derby.

The competition is open to all equestrians, foxhunters and nonfoxhunters alike. In addition to classes in the Grand Prix field on established, undulating turf, horses and riders will vie for honors over impeccable all-weather footing in the Grand Prix ring.

Warm-up classes will be held at two heights and the Low Hunter, Open Hunter, Junior Hunter, and Adult Amateur Hunter divisions will each have two-over fences and one-under saddle class. The popular Hilltoppers classes again will be offered.

For more information or to request a prize list, contact Barbara Riggs at barbarasriggs@gmail.com.

Thoroughbred racing aficionados would be wise to head up to Charles Town, West Virginia for the $350,000 West Virginia Breeders’ Classic on Saturday, Oct.14. The Classic, at 1 1/8 miles for horses three and older, will highlight a nine-race program worth a total of $1 million in purses in the 31st edition of the event.

The West Virginia Breeders’ Classics were inaugurated by founders Sam Huff and Carol Holden of Middleburg in 1987. The $125,000 West Virginia Cavada Breeders’ Classic, for fillies and mares ages three and older, takes its position as the top supporting stakes race on the program. Post time for the first race is 7 p.m.

On Saturday, Oct. 28, it’s on to steeplechase racing in the

Head up to Charles Town, West Virginia for the $350,000 West Virginia Breeders’ Classic on Saturday, Oct.14.

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Country Spirit • September 2017

raphy

Photo by MIddleburg Photo

galloping into 79th running of the International Gold Cup at Great Meadow in The Plains. An event that started in Tennessee, moved to Virginia in 1984 and draws a huge crowd to the gorgeous grounds. Pari-mutuel betting is also available.

“As currently the only venue in Virginia with live pari-mutuel on-site wagering, we’re excited to feature betting for our fall races again,” said Dr. William Allison, president of the Virginia Gold Cup Association. “It’s been a big success and a lot of fun for our races.”

Gates open at 10 a.m. with the first race starting at noon.

General admission car passes are $55 and available online (www.vagoldcup.com), at area Harris Teeter stores and through additional ticket outlets.

The next day, on Sunday, Oct. 29, the annual Orange County Hounds Team Chase will be held at Old Whitewood Farm in The Plains starting at noon. The traditional English Team Chase has been held at Old Whitewood for 34 years.

Foxhunters from Virginia and neighboring states will compete over the beautiful rolling countryside of Fauquier County.

Riders may compete in pairs in the Hilltopper Division over log jumps and post and rails. For the more experienced horses and riders, the First Flight division is for teams of 3 or 4 horses and riders who ride over a longer course of approximately 20 jumps spanning two fields with stone walls and water crossings.

Reserved parking at $100 per vehicle is available. General admission is a requested $10 donation to Orange County Hounds. For more information, contact Pippy McCormick at doverhse@earthlink.net or at 540-454-2852 and also Jane Bishop at jcb.waverly@mac.com or 540-729-7083

THE ART OF RACING IS

fall Saturday, Oct. 28, it’s on to steeplechase racing and tailgates galore in the 79th running of the International Gold Cup in The Plains.

PHOTO BY EQUINE EVENT PHOTOS

The Orange County Hounds Team Chase will take place on Sunday, Oct. 29 at Old Whitewood in The Plains.

Beverly Alcock won the Grand Championship on Billy the Kid at the 2016 Piedmont Hunter Trials.

This year’scompetition is on Sunday, Oct 8 at Salem Farm Show Grounds in Upperville.

PHOTO BY MIDDLEBURG PHOTO, COURTESY OF PIEDMONT HUNTER TRIALS.

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Country Spirit • September 2017

43

REAL Estates:

Heavenly for Horses in Leesburg This equine sanctuary, nestled on 47-plus acres on Forest Mills Road in Leesburg, is the quintessential brick, stone and stucco Quaker estate. The magnificent home offers plenty of space for entertaining with large rooms opening to a terrace. There is a two-level au-pair wing with a separate entrance.

The home has four bedrooms, three baths and two half baths and numerous wood burning fireplaces.

Additional rooms include: living, dining, kitchen, family, den, foyer, laundry room and mud room. Add to this such amenities as an attic, extra storage, walk-in closets, builtin bookcases, chair railing, double drapery rods, wood floors, French doors and nine foot ceilings.

The property also includes a fabulous two-story guest barn with A wood-burning stove and a lovely log cabin overlooking Crooked Run Creek with plenty of privacy and tranquility.

There are three barns, with 20 stalls, five paddocks and two run-in sheds.

Listed at $1,575,000 by Middleburg Real Estate| Atoka Properties.

For inquires, please call Scott Buzzelli at (540) 454-1399.

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Country Spirit • September 2017

The main residence on Forest Mills Road in Loudoun County.

1.

2.

3.

4.

1. Inset in an old stone structure on the property: 1787 Israel Janney.

2. The library in this Loudoun County home includes built in bookcases.

3. Wood floors in the main house have been polished perfectly.

4. A large porch offers not just space but an opportunity for entertaining or a quiet place to enjoy the countryside.

5. There are three barns on the property.

5.

Country Spirit • September 2017

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Pine Quarters: Remembering Great Uncle Cornelius February 15, 1927 Hon. Judge William P. Woolls: We the the gentlemen of the jury, upon the issues joined, find the defendant, Jno. Martin guilty of murder in the second degree and fix his punishment at confinement in the penitentiary for a period of 20 years.

By Charles Matheson Part 1

Uncle Nelie was a distant and proper man. He was so aware of his ancestry, yet modest and religious and really not so prideful. He was a bachelor all his life, stocky and muscular with a placid demeanor that reflected his long relationship with nature.

He had wavy brown hair that never turned gray and a positive, youthful exubérance undiminished by extended family relationships.

Now he did like to take a drop of whiskey now and again and enjoyed having visitors because of it.

Sundays in December are always too bright, the air dry and crisp. The

46

drive down to Casanova was shorter now that Route 29 had been paved, but we still cut off toward Catlett, before Warrenton, across to Rogues Road at Auburn Mill. But this day was different because it was a memorial service for Uncle Nelie, great uncle Cornelius.

Nelie lived at Spring Hill all his life. He was born there in 1847 in the same house where his father, Robert Redd (also known as R.R.), had moved with Elizabeth Thornton Fitzhugh of Fredericksburg, his bride of 1835. Robert came to the Piedmont in 1837 from Caroline County when he bought the half section with its tiny frame and log house from the Stewarts. A leanto kitchen was attached to the “old

Country Spirit • September 2017

room,” kind of a tap room for entertaining guests.

Elizabeth came from a proper Tidewater family and her new rustic surroundings gave her pause to consider her lot. That is when she actually had time to consider, what with the eight children in succession she and R.R. began to produce. They lived there all through the Civil War, sending three sons off to the Southern Army. It was not an easy life. Of the handful of slaves Elizabeth brought with her from Fredericksburg. Jonathan was the only one to remain during the war.

He lived with his baby son, known as Jno. in Pine Quarters, a one-room log house on the top of the middle hayfield about 200 yards north of the

kitchen. Some said it had been the original clerk’s office for Fauquier County.

Jonathan died in 1864, a year after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Jno. soon left the farm and moved to Washington by way of the Freedman’s Bureau in Middleburg.

So R.R. was left to run the place with his sons. Only Cornelius and his sister, who was called “Miss Butler” because she was rapidly becoming a spinster at age 30, stayed on.

Jno., then 17, had left to find new opportunity and a wife. He found the wife. But soon, Mary moved back to Baltimore, depressed by the dreary bigotry of Washington and disillusioned by her illiterate husband. Jno. had seemed so courtly at first, polite

and religious, just like R.R. After Mary left him, Jno. came back to Spring Hill to work for Nelie, who by this time was managing things for R.R.. Robert had taken a bad turn when Elizabeth moved back to Fredericksburg. She was disillusioned by the crudeness of life during Reconstruction.

Nelie was like a big brother to Jno. Born six years apart, Jno’s mother had been a wet nurse for Nelie and attended his birth. Jno. came back to Casanova knowing that his old sweetheart, Betsy, was working at nearby Melrose Castle and if Cornelius would not take him in, then “Mr. William” would use him at Rock Hill.

Maybe if he hadn’t gotten drunk and damn near killed Mary on her way out the door to Baltimore, he would have stayed in D.C. and worked for Nelie’s brother, “Mr. Frank,” who had a tin shop. But Frank’s baby had died in a fire at Spring Hill and grandmother wanted nothing to do with the memories of that place. She never smiled again and lived with premonitions. Those premonitions led to warnings she gave when Jno. returned to work off his remaining 60 years of indenture to Uncle Nelie.

In November Part 2: a murder at Spring Hill.

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Not so easy rider Chuck Kuhn transforming Middleburg Training Center

PHOTOS BY LEONARD SHAPIRO

By Leonard Shapiro

T

he last time Chuck Kuhn got on a horse, he was heading up a mountain path in Colorado five years ago. He got thrown. And then he stopped riding. For good.

“I enjoy horses, looking at them,” he said. “But I’m not a rider. I don’t know anything about that.”

What he does know plenty about is the moving business. He’s the 52-year-old founder, president and CEO of JK Moving Services. Based in Sterling, it’s the largest independent moving company in North America, providing residential, commercial and international moving services, as well space to store corporate records and even a document shredding service.

And these days, and perhaps forever more, he can look at horses to his heart’s content. In May, Kuhn, who lives at Egypt Farm in Purcellville, purchased the iconic Middleburg Training Center originally built by philanthropist and horseman Paul Mellon in 1956 as a private operation to train his stable of racehorses.

The center had been acquired in 2006 by the late Randy Rouse, the developer and fox hunting legend.

Unable to sell it in recent years for $3.5 million, the day before his 100th birthday last December Rouse do-

48

nated the center to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF). They, in turn, sold it to Kuhn to help settle TRF loans that were coming due.

Kuhn closed on the 150-acre property for $1.5 million in June and plans to add more adjacent acreage, as well. He’s putting the land into easement, and also pumping another $2 million into renovating the track, its 11 barns and all the fences and paddocks. The ultimate goal is to make it a world-class training center for Thoroughbred racing, while also attracting horses and riders from other equine disciplines—steeplechase, show jumping, dressage, polo and three-day event.

“In talking to people in the county (government) and to the trainers already here, keeping this going is important to them,” Kuhn said in a recent interview. “You could see the passion in their faces. We’d like to turn it into a self-sustaining, ultimately profitable operation and also keeping it in open space. Basically, it’s a great give-back to the community.”

With Dulles Airport soon to have a horse quarantine facility, Kuhn also envisions the training center as a “transient place” for horses coming into the country. And he’s also in talks with the Virginia Equine Alliance about becoming involved with the center.

At the moment, 14 trainers are operating at the Middleburg facility, with more than 70 horses already on the property. There will be 220 stalls available once all the barns are renovated, with another 120 stalls planned for the future. Kuhn foresees other horse events in Loudoun and Fauquier using it, as well.

In late August, new tenants were already being courted and accepted

by Kuhn and his 22-year-old son Steve, the on-site general manager.

“When it’s done the way we want

Country Spirit • September 2017

it done,” Kuhn said, “it should be completed by May, 2018.”

Steve Kuhn is over-seeing the renovation and admitted “in the beginning I was a little nervous about what was happening. But when people see the track now, they’re very happy with what we’ve done to get it back to where it should be. They’re also very appreciative. Everyone here is very easy to deal with.”

His father said that trainer Chris Cole came up to him not long ago “and he said ‘I want to thank you because Steve has done a remarkable job here. You all have done everything you said and more, and faster.’”

Chuck Kuhn grew up in Annandale and his father worked for the telephone company. At one point his dad was asked to go to Iran to help update their telecommunications.

The family was there when the Shah was overthrown in the revolution of 1979. Kuhn and his brother were soon shipped back to the U.S. and stayed with an uncle in Rockville.

“He had a two-truck moving company and he would put us on the trucks,” Kuhn said. “I learned the trade from my uncle. As soon as I was 16 and could drive, I bought a truck. That was 1982.”

That’s how JK started. When his father retired a few years later, he joined his son’s up-and-coming company. When his brother graduated college, he also came into the business, and his mother moved into the accounting department. They now have a 487-truck fleet and over 800 employees. JK’s headquarters are in Sterling, with a massive 600,000 square-foot facility. There’s another warehouse in Gaithersburg and the company has offices in Bentonville, Arkansas and Toronto.

Also under the JK umbrella is a relatively new company called Cap-

Chuck Kuhn and son Steven Kuhn.

relo, which works with Fortune 500 companies and the federal government to relocate their employees around the world. Back home in Purcellville, he and his wife, Stacy, have seven children and have adopted two nieces. There are four boys and five girls ranging in age from 14 to 27.

Part of Kuhn’s interest in purchasing the training track was his long-time commitment to helping keep open space in Loudoun County. He’s also a philanthropist, supporting programs involving disadvantaged children, the educational development of children and children’s health. He’s served on the board at Wakefield School in The Plains and is a long-time supporter of Habitat for Humanity.

As for the horses, one daughter is into dressage, and Steve’s girlfriend is a rider, as well.

But for now, father and son have their feet planted firmly on the grounds, focusing on making the training center a horse-heaven jewel.

As they say at the race track, they’re odds-on favorites to succeed. And you can bet on it.

Since 1957

Dealers and Appraisers for Fine Antique Firearms, Edged Weapons & Armor David Williams art work will be part of a showing at Zig Zag Gallery in The Plains beginning September 16.

Artist David Williams and His Students on Display at Zigzag

By Caroline Fout “An artist can really grow if he sees the way other artists are painting their own paintings, different perspectives are important,” artist David Williams of The Plains said, as he sat in his studio, with walls fully adorned by his own works.

Some are in progress, and others are complete. Yet, to anyone passing through, the unfinished paintings still register as works of art. Painted with oil on linen, Williams’ subjects range from still-life to unique snapshots of the surrounding landscape of the rolling countryside of Northern Virginia and more.

For over twenty years, Williams has painted professionally. He also teaches in Marshall, The Plains, and in his own studio. From Sept. 14 through Oct. 15, the work of many of his students as well as his own will be exhibited in the Zigzag Gallery in The Plains. Each artist will display two of their own works, which will take up the entire first floor of the gallery.

As a teenager, riding horses occupied much of Williams’ time “and art was the next thing to get me out of my parents hair,” he said.

Attending Virginia Commonwealth University, Williams took part in the competitive Foundation Program, focusing on painting and printmaking. Soon he found himself on the west coast, studying classical French academic drawing at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art in Pasadena.

“The program focused on precision-oriented drawing,” he said. “It really trains the eye to pick up details like a fine strand of hair or a little spot of color. But painting has a lot to do with unlearning how to draw.

The fine lines that come with drawing create detail but almost look like an illustration. Painting brings the

subject to life.”

With a passion for the forest and field, Williams set to work bringing a more abstract approach to the natural world.

“I want my paintings to have the least amount of information that I can use to describe whatever it happens to be,” he said. “To give it life in that way.”

Many of Williams’ paintings emphasize and work around the idea of light and atmosphere. A few of his favorite subjects include Goose Creek and Sky Meadows, where he prefers to paint plein-air, or out in the open and away from the studio.

“It’s the way certain light looks at different times of the day,” he said.

“That’s what I’m trying to capture”.

Williams also has captured quite a following. He currently mentors and teaches 18 artists in weekly painting classes. The class is an instruction on still-life painting, with an emphasis on the proper beginnings of a painting and finding relationships within the subject of the painting.

“They are all very good, and everyone always needs practice,” Williams said of his students. “They are all serious artists, some have been painting for over 50 years.”

Zigzag Gallery was opened in December of 2004 by owner and artist Susan Jeffries. There will be an artist reception for the current showing of Williams’ work and others on Saturday, Sept 16 from 4-7 p.m. The gallery also showcases crafts and art from worldwide contemporary artists.

“It will be really cool to see everyone’s pieces hanging together,” Williams said.

To learn more about Zig Zag Gallery, visit zigzagtheplains. com. To learn more about the artwork of David Williams, visit williamsart.com.

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When Equine Flu Burned Down Boston

Horse-drawn rail car of the Toronto Street Railway Company, High Park line, at King and Queen Streets, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, circa 1889. Toronto Public Library, via Wikimedia Commons.

By John Connolly Several months ago, I saw a fascinating column

by John Kelly in The Washington Post that focused on an outbreak of equine influenza in 1872.

The piece looked at the impact on Washington,

D.C. and Richmond of “The Great Epizootic,” a massive outbreak that impacted Canada and most of the U.S. between October and December of that year. Since my desk is less than 30 feet from the NSLM’s collection of 19th century newspapers, I decided to see if any of our

materials could help tell the story.

Two resources were most prominent in our collection on the topic: “The Turf, Field and Farm” and “The Spirit of the Times.” Both were weekly newspapers printed in New York City, but enjoyed a national audience that submitted small columns or letters spread throughout the paper.

“The disease appears to be a form of influenza, and is classed by veterinary authorities under three heads, viz., the catarrhal, rheumatic and the gastro-erysipelatous forms,” according to The Turf, Field and Farm. “The disease, which has made such havoc in the stables of Buffalo, Niagara and [Rochester], is of a catarrhal character, its first noticeable symptoms being a flow of tears from the eyes, a watery discharge from the nose, and general languor, followed by a cough.”

“The Horse Epidemic,” came from “The Turf, Field and Farm,” Oct. 25, 1872.

Both papers assert that the disease first broke out in Canada and trailed south quickly, infecting stables across the U.S. in a matter of days.

Almost overnight, “The Great Epizootic” became a national crisis. Although most food sources during the era were far more local than today, many other aspects of the economy ground to a halt without a means of transportation. The horse was still the main powerhouse for plowing and carting in rural communities, and by the 1870s, urban travel had quickly become dependent on the horse to pull rail cars and trolleys in the

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Illustration from Every Man His Own Horse Doctor by George Armitage, 1877.

The main symptom of “The Great Epizootic” was lethargy and weakness. cities.

Even worse, the epidemic was a critical factor in the Great Boston Fire in 1872, which broke out on Nov. 9 and destroyed over 750 buildings in twelve hours. The Boston Fire Department’s horses were unable to pull tanks and engines when the fire broke out, forcing the department to respond to the fire with volunteers pushing equipment on foot.

“The fire departments of London and New York have put out thousands of fires every bit as threatening in the commencement, and in as crowded neighborhoods, as

the one at Boston,” wrote The Spirit of the Times. “But at the latter place the sickness of the horses induced the fire companies to draw their own engines, heavy engines, to the fire. Before they reached it and got to work it was beyond their control.”

The challenges of contemporary American veterinary science were on full display during the crisis as conflicting theories of medicine and contagion resulted in recommendations from sources reliable or otherwise. The editors of The Turf, Field and Farm took a commonsense approach to their

advice, endorsing the course of action that history would bear out as correct: give the patient rest, keep the horse comfortable, and feed it well.

Businesses that lost money for each day a horse was ill were willing to pay a premium price for those who claimed to have “the cure.”

The mortality rate of “The Great Epizootic” is estimated at no higher than 10 percent, but it likely could have been lower were it not for the great economic pressures to resist giving adequate rest. It appears that most casualties were very old, or had been over-worked. The reality is sad in retrospect, but we might excuse some of it due to just how important the horse was to everyday life in the 19th century.

John Connolly is the George L. Ohrstrom, Jr. Head Librarian at the National Sporting Library & Museum (NSLM). He is responsible for the care of the Library collections, including books, magazines, photographs, diaries, letters, and much more. The NSLM collections span over 350 years of the history of equestrian sport, as well as fly fishing, wing shooting, and other field sports.

An ad for Taylor’s Great Compound in the November 16, 1872 issue of The Spirit of the Times.

Country Spirit • September 2017

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The four arch bridge across the Goose Creek just west of Middleburg dates to 1803 when it was completed. Once part of the Ashby Gap Turnpike, it’s 212 feet long, 23 feet wide and carried traffic until 1957. The normally quiet crossing came to life recently when a film crew from Wide Awake Films in Kansas City, Mo. moved in for three days and two nights to film scenes for a highlight film to be shown eventually at the visitor’s center at Mount Vernon near Alexandria. The bridge served as a location during the Battle of Trenton during the Revolutionary War and was covered in cotton to mimic snow. Actors in coats of all colors could be seen roaming the countryside. Since 1976, the bridge has been maintained by the FauquierLoudoun Garden and was recently turned over to the Civil War Trust.

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Country Spirit • September 2017

De Landtsheer Art Gallery

TURN YOUR ART ON

Jason Melius of Winston Salem, North Carolina.

Ed Leydeciker co-owner of the film company scouts a location along the Goose Creek

Direct from Belgium and just in time for fall to arrive, De Landtsheer Art Gallery showcases its modern sculptural lighting for the first time in Northern Virginia, at the Paragon Fine Arts Festival in Leesburg. Join us on September 22-23 at this signature event, for a chance to purchase an original handmade chandelier, direct from the artist, Kevin De Landtsheer, who will be present at the entire event.

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It’s all in the details in the accouterments worn by Timothy Logue, a professional historical interpreter from Williamsburg. As a Hessian solider he wears a cow hide pack, tent pegs and a black leather pouch for smooth bore flint lock musket cartridges.

Re-enactors Luis Cruz, Michael Ramsay and Paul Luks were part of the cast working at the Goose Creek Bridge.

Jack Pinnell • 540-905-9332 heartwood.3677@gmail.com Warrenton, VA Country Spirit • September 2017

53

Sprout’s loving horses help heal body and mind

By Leslie VanSant

Caroline Elgin has enjoyed many memorable hours at Sprout Therapeutic Riding and Education Center.

PHOTOS BY TYLIR PENTON

Drive too fast along John Mosby Highway heading east from Aldie and it’s easy to miss the curious mailbox on the south side of the road. It’s a black horse, trotting along, with the word “Sprout” in green script written on its side.

But if you’re looking for something inspirational, call ahead and travel down the driveway to a truly magical place. A place where horses have wings and halos and their riders feel free of life’s physical and emotional struggles and challenges.

Welcome to Sprout Therapeutic Riding and Education Center. Or just simply, Sprout.

Any equestrian walking down the streets of Loudoun or Fauquier counties will attest, at length, the benefits of time spent with a horse.

But ask Brooke Waldron, the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Sprout, and the answer is far more scientific.

“If a student has an autism spectrum disorder we would use a horse with a more concussive trot for an individual that is sensory seeking,” she said. “The vestibular input given by the horse helps to regulate and

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Country Spirit • September 2017

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calm the nervous system, and allows them to focus and attend to learning.

If a student has cerebral palsy, riding helps stretch and strengthen muscles in the legs and core.”

Carina Elgin of The Plains agreed.

Her daughter, Caroline, 24, has cerebral palsy and takes lessons twice a week at Sprout, one in the saddle and one learning to drive a horse and carriage.

Carina described Caroline’s hours at Sprout as time “getting out of the (wheel) chair and onto a horse.

It stretches her muscles and gives her brain that important feedback.

Emotionally, Sprout puts a positive spin on having a disability. You get to ride. You get to be with great people who care about you and are your friends. You have fun!”

Waldron was raised as a self-described “possibilitarian,” meaning someone who can see the possibilities. She was close to an uncle paralyzed from the waist down after having polio as a child. “He never let his disability get in the way of seeing the possibilities.”

When her uncle died, she and her cousins decided to do something to honor his memory. From this inspiration, in the middle of a 27-acre soybean field in Aldie, Sprout sprouted.

“There was nothing here except the house,” Waldron said as she walked through the barn. “We had

to build everything—the barn, the ring, the indoor, the paddocks. Everything. And, we had to find our special horses and ponies who make the magic happen.”

The 18 very special horses living at Sprout are key members of the team providing riding lessons, ground lessons, driving lessons and equine movement therapy sessions. They are loved by the hundreds of students who come to ride to become “possibilitarians” about their own future.

At one stall, Phin, a chestnut pony with a flaxen mane and tail, was quietly munching hay and nuzzling a recent visitor. Brooke described Phin as her “heart horse” and the one who started it all at Sprout. “He’s a favorite of anyone who meets him because he’s so friendly.”

Despite its great benefits, therapeutic riding is not covered by insurance. Lessons cost $125. But through fundraising and the gift of time from volunteers, Sprout is able to bring the cost down to $55. “We don’t want cost to limit the possibilities for our students,” said Waldron.

There’s also a non-scientific benefit that comes from riding a horse.

Caroline Elgin said it succinctly.

“Riding gives me freedom.”

You can learn more about the 501c(3) nonprofit by visiting its website, sproutcenter.org.

Sharing love with the horses is part of the experience for Caroline Elgin.

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Author Philip G. Smucker

Philip Smucker goes riding as George

Author and journalist Philip G. Smucker has written an interesting book called “Riding with George.”

It’s not about well-known showjumping coach George Morris. It’s about our nation’s first president, George Washington.

Smucker’s tome is a living history, flush with re-enactors, historians, hunters, park officials, and trail guides, all of whom have contributed to the story. They’ve put flesh on the bones of the scholarly texts that have guided the writer’s thinking on George Washington, the wars he fought in, and the history of sportsmanship as well as early American drama, politesse, and leadership.

In re-creating Washington’s passion for riding and hunting, Smucker recently appeared at a book event at Mystique Jewelers in Middleburg.

He also once befriended Col. Dennis Foster, then the executive secretary of the Masters of the Foxhounds Association of America. Foster’s keen insights appear throughout the book, but he gets even more kudos for finagling rides for the writer on several hunting horses and introducing him to the fellowship of the Blue Ridge

Hunt near Berryville. What follows here is an excerpt from the book, available at Second Chapter Books in Middleburg.

“Foxhunting is not a sport for the faint of heart, nor has it historically been for commoners, myself included.

I had taken it up to satisfy my curiosity about George’s own love of the sport, but what I discovered in the process was that foxhunting is an acquired taste. My friend Dennis (Foster) had several good stories about how he got hooked.

“I learned to ride when I was about ten, jumping on mares bareback and holding on to their manes for dear life,” he told me. “My father was a roofer, and so I was a poor kid in a neighborhood with a lot of Ivy League sportsmen. I fell off a lot of those mares because I didn’t have a saddle. A few years later, when I saw the local fox hunt pass, I followed along on a horse to have a look but was shooed away.”

That did it for Dennis; he wouldn’t be looked down on by a bunch of lousy Ivy Leaguers. I imagined that fox hunting was like that for George, too, in some respects, given that it

was a leisurely pastime more likely to be indulged in by Cambridge and Oxford types than, say, colonial farm boys.

After he joined the U.S Army, Dennis ended up in intelligence, working as a special agent in the company of British allies, one of whom was an important cavalry officer. It was not until he needed to gain insight into a special weapons system that the army became interest in his fox hunts.

There was some weird correlation, I suppose, in the parallel notion that a modern army officer had become a fox hunter to better fight the Cold War when, in another age, George Washington had used fox hunting to become one of the nation’s greatest field commanders.

George had recorded the number of turkeys he killed in the forest with Native Americans, so it didn’t surprise me that in his diary entries he also carefully marked down the exact times that a fox was taken, dead or alive, as well as his outright anger at not catching one.

“More than anything, Washington was a hunter,” said Dennis, twisting back in his saddle and

ducking under a tree branch. “That is what he loved. Sometimes that can get lost in the formalities and social events surrounding a hunt, but that is what he always really cared about.”

Fox hunting has a long and storied tradition in European and British lore. English poet Geoffrey Chaucer makes a 14th Century reference to an entire village shouting “Ho! Ho! The fox!” before chasing it with the next best thing to hounds—cudgels.

The sport has had strong advocates in the upper classes of the British Isles (as well as in France) for centuries. In the 18th Century, the sport became all the rage with “young men of fashion, who took great pleasure in jumping their horses.”

Baron Robert Baden-Powell, otherwise known as the founder of the modern Boy Scouts movement, believed that fox hunting was some of the best training a young man could have for war.

“The nation really owes much to fox hunting [for] what it has done to help our cavalry to compensate for its small quantity by its excellence in quality, and this without any PHOTO BY VICKY MOON extra call upon the taxpayer,” he wrote.

Philip Smucker as George Washington

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Self defense shooting hitting target female audience “Ladies only programs both in terms of students and instructors, create a comfortable, safe and unThe women’s only courses at Elite Shooting intimidating learning environment,” said Natalia Vlosov, Elite’s executive administrator. “When it Sports always have a big turnout.

Women with all degrees of experience and lev- comes to carrying a firearm, women have different els of comfort with firearms come to the Manassas considerations than men. It offers great information on staying safe, regardless of whether they training center for many different reasons.

One woman in a recent ladies’ defensive readi- intend to carry a firearm for self-defense.”

Stephanie Jones, Elite’s training administrator, ness and concealed carry class said she had just divorced a man with post-traumatic stress disorder begins her defensive readiness classes by sharing statistics about violence toward women. and she signed up “to feel empowered again.”

“One in five women in the U.S. will be raped at some point in their lives,” Jones told the packed classroom.

“Each day three or more women are murdered by their boyfriends or husbands on average.”

Jones lays out criminals tactics, including repeatedly violating boundaries, being deceitful and focusing in on their prey. She tells her students that criminals don’t “look a certain way” and an assault can happen at any time.

It may not be posPHOTO BY DELIA ENGSTROM sible to avoid criminals, At Elite Shooting Sports it’s all about women are learning how to defend themselves.

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Country Spirit • September 2017

“No always means no even when it’s followed by thank you.”

STEPHANIE JONES Elite shooting sports’s training administrator

Jones said, but women can make themselves a less desirable target by walking with confidence and purpose, staying attentive to their surroundings and being explicit with their boundaries.

The issue of boundaries is particularly important, Jones told the class. If a man gets too close, yell, she said. Criminals don’t expect to be yelled at and they will be thrown off.

“As a society we teach girls to always be polite,” she said. “But no always means no even when it’s followed by thank you.”

The instructor suggested that all the students and their families create plans in case of various emergencies, including being stuck in a situation with an active shooter.

“It may seem like paranoia but it’s not, “Jones said. “It’s vigilance.”

The best ways to protect yourself, she added, are to run, hide or, as a last resort, fight.

“But most importantly, trust your intuition,” she said.

Elite shooting also offers a ladies-only pistol classes.

There’s a ladies night on the range every Wednesday from 3 to 9 p.m. and women get half off range time and free use of a training simulator. For more information, visit: eliteshootingsports.com.

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59

SCENE...

PHOTO BY LEONARD SHAPIRO.

The Free Church Homecoming at Middleburg Baptist church: The Rev. Anne Hallmark, George Lengauer, The Rev Herman Nelson, The Rev. Gil Gibson, The Rev. Dr. Randall Warren, Ms. Dorothy Kingston, The Rev. Steve Weedling and The Rev. Dr. Travis Moger.

PHOTO BY LEONARD SHAPIRO.

Alice Frazier, president and CEO of the Bank of Charles Town, with board member Barbara Scott at a reception to celebrate the bank’s first year in their new full-service location in Middleburg.

PHOTO BY VICKY MOON

Mary Michaela Murray had a showing of her artwork inspired by the Statue of Liberty, “I Stand With Her” at Youngblood Art Studio in The Plains. “She is liberty.

She is justice. She is freedom.”

PHOTO BY DEBBIE MCLAUGHLIN.

Jiame Pyles recently hosted a party at The Rail Stop in honor of her father Gomer Pyles’ first 30 years in business as a computer guru in The Plains. He is shown here with Cathy Lefon and Rachal Allen.

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Country Spirit • September 2017

AND SEEN PHOTO BY VICKY MOON.

Tom Wiseman, Lucy Zimmerman and Ted Zimmerman were out on a trail ride at Sunnybank Farm. The ride, arranged by Wendy Clatterbuck, was to benefit Ability Fitness Center, a community of hope, health and healing to be located in Leesburg.

Barbara Luther of Ashburn makes regular trips to Dulles Airport to be a greeter in the Honor Guard at Dulles. She tells Country Spirit: “I speak to the honorable and I’m proud to shake their hands!”

PHOTO BY MIDDLEBURG PHOTO

Jennifer Brannigan on her Irish Sport horse Cambalda won the Great Meadow International CICO3.

Kudos to Middleburg’s own Bob Foosaner. He was named to the Wireless Hall of Fame and honored at a gala dinner Sept. 11 at the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco. A New Jersey native and a graduate of American University’s law school, he had a long, productive career at the Federal Communications Commission and led the FCC’s attorney hiring program for many years. In 1986, he joined the law firm of Jones Day, and in 1992 moved to Nextel’s in-house government affairs office. Beginning in 2004, Foosaner oversaw efforts to secure regulatory approval of Nextel’s merger with Sprint. He retired from Sprint Nextel in 2008 and is an active member of the community.

Country Spirit • September 2017

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Rainforest Trust CEO Dr. Paul Salaman (front center) meets with international conservation partners.

PHOTO COURTESY RAINFOREST TRUST.

Rainforest Trust is local and acts global It’s one of the best kept secrets in Fauquier County—an international nonprofit conservation organization nestled off Airlie Road near Warrenton on a bucolic property where U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson met with students in 1969 to discuss the launch of a national Earth Day. This historic location is currently the headquarters for the Rainforest Trust, which embodies the spirit of environmental protection shared with the Airlie Center’s founder, the late Dr. Murdock Head.

Although it has strong local ties, the organization supports conservation efforts on a global scale. Since 1988, it has helped safeguard over 17.6 million acres of wildlife habitat around the world (larger than West Virginia and Delaware combined). By working with in-country partners and communities to identify eco-systems that are home to the planet’s most threatened species, the group has helped create over 100 protected areas across Latin America, Africa and Asia.

This action is crucial, as every day nearly 70,000 acres of earth’s rain62

forests are destroyed, pushing more animals to the brink of extinction.

Rainforest Trust currently has efforts underway to increase protection to over 32 million acres in the coming years, and these sites are estimated to provide a place of refuge for 63 percent of the world’s bird species, 42 percent of all mammal species and 25 percent of all amphibian species.

“Protecting areas is very tangible and real; we can demonstrate it on our map and can show the areas where species are being protected,” said Rainforest Trust CEO Dr. Paul Salaman. “All of our work is achieved through partnerships with experienced local conservationists who share the same passion and desire to safeguard our planet’s most endangered species.”

This group helps establish protected areas in several ways: through their partners’ direct land purchase, the designation of national parks and reserves, or the creation of community conservation areas where local residents help maintain the sites to ensure lasting protection.

Country Spirit • September 2017

One major success came when Rainforest Trust worked with its local partner last year to create the nearly 2.2 million-acre Lomami National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This conservation action was a major breakthrough in securing urgently needed rainforest protection for Central African wildlife, and was also the first national park in the country (and one of the few in Africa) to be established with major support from local communities.

The expansive Lomami National Park now safeguards vital habitat in the Congo Basin, one of the most under-protected rainforests on Earth, for threatened wildlife such as Bonobos, Okapis and Forest Elephants.

While the conservation group supports projects that provide protection for iconic species and vast landscapes, it also focuses on animals and areas that are less well-known, but no less important.

They are currently partnering with a conservation organization in Panama to protect a “sky island”

called Cerro Chucantí mountain that rises from sea level to 4,721 feet in elevation and is home to many animals found nowhere else in the world. Some of these species have only recently been discovered, including salamanders, frogs, snakes and numerous plants.

Unfortunately, the rainforests in Cerro Chucantí are under significant threat from deforestation due to logging and cattle ranching. Rainforest Trust and its partners are diligently working to secure this area before it is too late.

Rainforest Trust strongly believes that flourishing tropical eco-systems are imperative to maintaining a healthy planet for humans and the millions of species that share this Earth.

By supporting Rainforest Trust, environmentally-conscious individuals both in northern Virginia and around the world can join in making a lasting conservation impact.

For more details go to: RainforestTrust.org.

Country Spirit • September 2017

63

JoHN CoLeS

“ Specializing in Large Land Holdings” oaKeNdaLe

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oakendale Farm is the epitome of an exquisite Virginia hunt country estate in prime orange County Hunt territory. From the william Lawrence Bottomley designed Manor house to the meticulously manicured gardens, grounds, dependencies and the hundreds of acres of surrounding pastures with protected view-sheds.

333 acres @ $8,990,000 or 837 acres @ $17,990,000

world class equestrian facility comprised of 115 acres in the oCH Territory. The U shaped complex encompasses an 80’ x 180’ lighted indoor riding arena connected by a breezeway to the 12 stall center-aisle barn and extraordinary living and entertaining quarters overlooking the outdoor ring. additional structures include tenant houses and large heated equipment barn. $4,750,000

a graceful & charming 5 bedroom French Country home is set amongst nearly 40 serene acres enhanced by majestic trees, rolling lawns and fenced paddocks. This property also includes a 7 stall center-aisle barn with office, additional 4 stall barn with apartment, indoor arena, and tremendous ride out potential. Located in the orange County Hunt Territory. $3,200,000

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c.1823, with a stunning tree lined entrance, offers one of the grand manor homes on 34+ acres in the famed horse country of Upperville. Recently renovated, the home offers wonderful indoor and outdoor living areas. Porches, gardens, barns, paddocks, riding arena, pond, pool and magnificent views from the Bull Run to Blue Ridge Mountains. $3,200,000

Stone posts and walls mark the entrance to the 133 acre country state of Landmark. as the driveway gently rises, curves and then circles in front of the handsome two-story stone manor house, one notices that the home is sited perfectly to enjoy the expansive mountain views from the Bull Run to the Blue Ridge. The setting for this four bedroom, four bath residence is further heightened by the massive $3,150,000 boxwoods and the stately trees.

RidgeView FaRM

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25+ acre Horse Property in 2 Parcels. Lovely and light filled 2 level home, perfect for 1 level living.

Renovated 8 years ago. Kitchen opens to the family room and breakfast room. Main level master bedroom suite with sitting room & stunning new bath. Stone terraces lead to the beautiful gardens & heated pool. 9 stall barn, riding ring, 6 paddocks, 2 bedroom tenant house. Tremendous ride out $1,450,000 potential!

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impeccably maintained, this is an exquisite 118 acre horse farm with ten fields and paddocks of 4 board fencing, gently rolling land and panoramic views of the Blue Ridge Mountains with glimpses of Skyline drive. in addition to the stucco and stone main residence, there are guest and tenant homes, numerous barns and run-ins to house 25 horses comfortably, and an indoor dressage ring. $2,750,000

The lovely 22.8 acre Ridgeview Farm offers a private, 4 bedroom residence sited on a knoll, with spacious rooms and views into the trees that border Little River. Located in prime orange County Hunt territory the horse facilities include a 6 stall barn with tack room and wash stall, machine shed, run in shed and 4 beautiful board fenced paddocks, fields and round pen. VoF easement. $1,095,000

540-270-0094

MaRKHaM~ 76.8 acres with great Mountain Views. 3 Bedroom 1 Full Bath, 1 Half Bath home could be main house or guest House. Pond, Fencing, Privacy and more. Please, No drive throughs. $699,000

www.Thomas-Talbot.com

Country Spirit • September 2017 Offers subject to errors, omissions, change of price or withdrawal without notice. Information contained herein is deemed reliable, but is not so warranted nor is it otherwise guaranteed.