Month: February 2015

Categories
News

Seven Oaks sells—finally

Seven Oaks sans oaks has a new owner. File photo

After nearly seven years on the market, Seven Oaks, the Greenwood estate owned by Dave Matthews Band manager, MusicToday founder and real estate tycoon Coran Capshaw sold October 31 for $5.5 million. The 100-acre historic estate was listed for $12.5 million when it went on the market in 2008.

The new owner is an entity called Golden Magnolia LLC, which has a main office address in Parker, Colorado, according to State Corporation Commission records. Local attorney Brian Craddock is the registered agent for Golden Magnolia, and he declined to say who the new owners are. Original listing agent Ross Stevens did not return phone calls from C-VILLE.

Capshaw bought the 6,870-square-foot manse in 2000 for $2.25 million. The 1840s house is on both the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register, and features a number of well-preserved dependencies, including a nearly 3,000-square-foot pool house with an outdoor kitchen and vanishing pool. Sadly, most of the original seven oaks have not survived.

Categories
News

Wes Bellamy makes another bid for City Council

Wes Bellamy. Photo: Mina Pirasteh

Wes Bellamy lost to Bob Fenwick in the 2013 Democratic primary for Charlottesville City Council by five votes—a frustratingly small margin, he said. But now, as the 28-year-old teacher and youth mentor launches his second bid for a Council seat, he’s glad he didn’t win last time around. A lot has happened in two years, he said: He’s learned more about the city’s neighborhoods. He’s got two more years at Albemarle High School under his belt. He got engaged to his girlfriend of three years, and will soon be a dad to three—his 5-year-old daughter and his fiancée’s two girls.

“I’m a couple years more seasoned,” he said. “I’ve realized now what it truly takes to get people on the same page and start working together.”

Bellamy was one of the rallying forces behind the December City Council meeting that boiled into a protest over what many called racist policing practices in the city. During the meeting’s comparatively civil public comment session, Bellamy listed community demands he said would help reestablish trust between police and African-American residents. He reiterated several of them last week: independent review of police misconduct issues, a plan for the force’s soon-to-arrive body cameras and an ordinance banning racial profiling.

But he’s emphatic about the importance of a cooperative approach to change. He’s been involved in the development of a series of upcoming roundtable sessions with the Charlottesville Police Department, where members of the community will be invited to discuss rights, responsibilities and efforts to work together to get past issues of perceived bias and other concerns.

“We want to do all these things to let the community know we’re here to build partnerships, but also to let the police officers know we want to work with you, not against you,” he said.

He knows some people aren’t interested in discussion. “That’s their opinion,” he said. “However, those of us who really want to work to resolve the problems—let’s start now.”

Bellamy said the same goes for resolving the contentious relationship between public housing residents and the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (CRHA), tasked with the long-term redevelopment of the city’s deteriorating public housing stock. Bellamy said if elected, he’d get Council more closely involved in the operations of the CRHA.

“I don’t think anyone has malicious intent in terms of uprooting people from their homes,” he said. “However, there’s a disconnect. The residents don’t often know what the plans are.”

He said he also wants to expand the city’s pre-K program and fund more educational programs that will help people get and keep jobs.

Bellamy said he knows the fact that he’s African-American matters to a lot of voters. “But for me, that’s not the be all and end all,” he said. “I don’t want you to vote for me because I’m the black candidate, I want you to vote for me because I’m the best candidate.”

But he definitely does want you to vote.

“I’ve been keeping a tally,” he said. “There’s been 86 people who have contacted me since the last election who apologized for not going out to vote, because they thought I was going to win or whatever the case may be. We literally lost the election by a handful of votes. If you really want to see a change, and you believe in this process, I need you to come out and vote on June 9. No excuses.”

Categories
Living

Wet and wild: Less than one way to clean a cat

Dog bath? Sure. Cat bath? Watch out.

“How often should I bathe my cat?” I’m asked with surprising frequency. It’s a perfectly valid question, but anybody who’s ever bathed a cat will understand that it usually answers itself the moment you dare to try.

I remember my first job at a veterinary hospital in high school. My inaugural assignment? Bathe this cat. In retrospect, I’m sure I was being hazed. The following five minutes were a flurry of soap suds and blood (mine, if clarification is required). I’m not sure the cat came out any cleaner, but it certainly came out wetter. And angrier.

Luckily, cats are fastidious creatures and require very little bathing, if any at all. Naturally, there are exceptions for egregiously dirty cats, or those who have managed to soil themselves with something you really don’t want them ingesting. But by and large, they take care of themselves. I’ve had my cat for 12 years, and she’s endured zero baths in that time, which is best for the both of us.

Dogs, on the other hand, delight in accumulating the most noxious filth they can find—the deader the better—and usually benefit from a good scrubbing now and then. But there’s still no magic answer when it comes to frequency. I advise that people bathe their dogs as often as is needed to keep them clean, which is admittedly fuzzy but entirely fair. A short-haired couch dog may hardly need to be bathed at all, while a long-haired mud-lover may need weekly attention. It’s true that some dogs can dry out with overly frequent bathing, but so long as you don’t see evidence of that happening (like dandruff and itchy skin), have at it.

Regardless of how often you need to bathe your pets, it’s always wise to brush them out first, especially if they have long fur. Knots and mats only get tighter and more stubborn once they’re wet, and if they get too well-established, there may be no way to abolish them without shaving down to the skin. But even with short-haired animals, the more fur you brush out beforehand, the less you have to fish out of the drain afterwards.

It’s also worth a bit of caution to prevent water from getting in your pet’s ears, especially if she has a history of ear infections. Remember swimmer’s ear when you were a kid? Water collects in the ear canal, providing an ideal home for bacteria and yeast. Plugging the ears with a cotton ball can help keep them dry, and rinsing them with a dedicated ear cleanser after the bath can provide another layer of assurance in dogs that need it.

Is bathing your pet a bit of a chore? Sure, but it’s really not so bad. Unless your pet is a cat, in which case…good luck with that.

Dr. Mike Fietz is a small animal veterinarian at Georgetown Veterinary Hospital. He received his veterinary degree from Cornell University in 2003 and has lived in Charlottesville since.

Categories
Arts

A funny thing: Jordan Rock brings fresh comedy to the family name

Younger sibling Jordan Rock takes to the comedy trail that was blazed by his brother Chris. He performs at PVCC on Saturday. Publicity photo

If you’ve never heard of Jordan Rock, who’ll take the stage at Piedmont Virginia Community College on February 28, you can be forgiven. He’s never played Charlottesville, and his Web presence isn’t exactly on the level of an “Ultimate Split.” Come to think of it, his Web presence isn’t really on the level of an actual rock, which has two pretty sweet Wikipedia entries attached to its search returns: 1) it’s music and 2) you know, the stuff Earth is made of.

Rock’s star is rising, though, as the 24-year-old South Carolina native has now been working through the ranks of the stand-up comedy circuit for seven years. It may not be long until he’s on the same Internet stardom level as, say, that guy on The Weather Channel who freaks out about thundersnow.

By this time in our discussion, you might have figured out who Jordan Rock is. Indeed he’s the younger, far younger, brother of Chris Rock, who does come up pretty quick on a Web search.

What you may be asking yourself right about now is: If Jordan Rock has been at it for almost a decade, and he has the advantage of being Chris Rock’s brother, why hasn’t he made it yet?

Good question, but the fact is he’s pretty funny. Case in point: his “Incognegro” bit on the difference between white people weed and black people weed. White people weed comes in glass jars and shit, Rock says. Black people weed? He once bought some in a napkin that smelled like barbecue sauce.

I hear your next objection. Didn’t his brother practically invent “black people versus white people humor?” Good point, but Rock doesn’t seem to use that source of material as a crutch. Most of his bits are infused with pop culture, music and social media references. He riffs on Facebook, Kim Kardashian and his iPhone— “I have a 5 now, and I think they make them so they stop working when a new one comes out,” he said during a recent phone interview.

“You got to live it to write it,” Rock said. “Sometimes I used to try to write about anything and force myself to write. Once I started living life, it got easier to write new material.”

Like most comic bits, Rock’s jokes have evolved over time. He’ll write down pieces of material here and there and come back to them after months or even years to find something new and, hopefully, more humorous to say about them.

Though it doesn’t always work that way. Rock has done his share of bombing over the years. But he said he tries not to let it get to him, taking a “that’s just the way comedy goes” attitude.

“Sometimes it’s rhythm, sometimes crowds just don’t hit the same way,” he said. “It’s interesting because you might watch a set and be like, ‘That was a good set,’ but it’s comedy. You tell jokes, and they laugh or they don’t.”

Most of all, Rock’s bits have evolved because he spends so much time field-testing them. For the past year, he’s jumped headlong into stand-up, doing shows almost every night and trying out new material three or four times a week.

“I’ve been doing this for so long, since I was 17,” Rock said. “Now it is just about taking it more serious.”

Where does his newfound work ethic come from? He credits big bro for one of the most important pieces of advice he’s gotten about being in the comedy game.

“When I started doing comedy, Chris said, ‘You are going to have to work. You can’t be the Lil Wayne of comedy,’” he said. “Probably three years after that, I figured out what he meant. Lil Wayne doesn’t rap, he just freestyles. In comedy, you got to rap.”

Chris Rock turned 50 on February 7. That fact should make you realize two things. One, you’re old. And two, he’s more than twice as old as his youngest brother. When Jordan Rock was born in 1991, his older brother was already a regular cast member on “Saturday Night Live.”

Still, the younger Rock said his relationship with one of the world’s greatest comedy icons has always been standard big brother-little brother fare.

“He’s been a big brother. I don’t see it any other way,” Rock said. “He’s there for advice. He’ll take me out and talk to me. It’s hard to explain the dynamics of the relationship, but he and my other older brothers looked out for me and raised me. I like my brothers being that much older than me. I could really look up to all of them.”

Rock said he typically tries his new material only on weekdays and reserves his best stuff—what he calls “the hits”—for Fridays and Saturdays. Charlottesville gets the young comic on a Saturday night. We’ll see how well he sings the hits.

Jordan Rock takes the stage at PVCC on Saturday, February 28.

Categories
News

Hearings set: Accused Rugby Avenue slayer Gene Washington in court

Gene Everett Washington. Photo: Charlottesville Police Department

The man accused of killing a mother and daughter in their Rugby Avenue home before torching it was in court February 19 for a preliminary hearing for the murder of Robin Aldridge.

Gene Everett Washington, 30, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Robin, 58, and her daughter Mani, 17. Both were discovered dead in their home after a December 5 blaze that destroyed much of the house. Police said they died of blunt force trauma.

Washington, clad in a striped jail uniform with tattoos visible on his neck, appeared in Charlottesville General District Court with his attorney, Lloyd Snook. Judge Robert Downer agreed to transfer the hearing to Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, where the preliminary hearing for Mani Aldridge’s murder will be held on June 11, because she was a minor at the time of her death. If both cases are certified to the grand jury and go to trial, they will be heard in Charlottesville Circuit Court.

“The juvenile court has subject matter jurisdiction in a case in which the victim is a minor,” said defense attorney Adam Rhea, who is not involved in this case. Rhea noted that while the preliminary hearings for each of the two murder charges were initially set up to take place in separate courts, moving Robin’s hearing to the J&D court streamlines the legal procedures and, if they pass the preliminary hearing stage and a grand jury issues indictments, the charges will eventually be tried simultaneously in Circuit Court.

While many hearings in J&D court are closed, Washington’s hearing will likely be open, Rhea said, since the juvenile victim in the case is deceased.

Snook, noting that his client has been in jail for two months, requested a date earlier than June 11 for a preliminary hearing. He said the autopsy and DNA evidence was not back from the lab. “We object to having it last that far out,” he said.

Robin Aldridge, a popular teacher at Hollymead Elementary, and Mani, an 11th grader at Charlottesville High who was known for her love of music, were not discovered until hours after the fire was put out. Police said Mani knew Washington, but have not described their relationship other than to say their last known contact by phone or text was in late October, more than a month before her death.

Aldridge’s light blue 2003 Toyota Matrix was discovered the day after their deaths at Barracks West apartment complex, where Washington lived, and police said a television belonging to the Aldridges was found in his apartment. He was seen on Prospect Avenue earlier on the day of the Aldridges’ deaths, police said. Washington was arrested December 8 and has been held at Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail without bond.

While Snook has declined comment on the case or his client, Gene Washington insisted on his innocence in a letter sent to C-VILLE postmarked December 29.

In it, he claimed he was at friends’ houses and in multiple stores at the time of the crimes and blames the media for stating “false information to communities as if I’m some monster…I did not do this,” he wrote, “and I’m not going to stop telling everyone my innocences!”

Categories
Magazines Real Estate

Get ready for the spring real estate market

Traditionally spring is the time of year when many people put their homes on the market, and buyers come out to see what is available.  There are many reasons for this.  The holidays are over, the air is warmer and landscapes are alive with blooming plants and trees.  Children are still in school in the spring so families are at home, unlike the summer months when many people are on vacation.

Spring is also a great time for outdoor projects like repairing and staining decks or cleaning out the garage, all necessary tasks for getting a house ready to sell.  With the warmer weather gardeners are out putting down fresh mulch, trimming hedges, putting in bedding plants and making their yard look its best.

Not only does spring present a pleasant opportunity to be out and around, it is also a good time for families to find their next home.  A spring purchase means a June or July closing, and that gives them plenty of time to get settled into their new home before school starts.

If you are planning to buy or sell a home this spring, now is the time to get started.  Sellers should spruce up their homes, while buyers should talk to a lender about qualifying for a loan and determine the type of home and neighborhood that best suits their needs and their budget.  Both parties should call their REALTOR® to advise them on how to best take advantage of this special time of year.

Why Spring is a Good Time for Real Estate

“It’s the most beautiful time of year,” said Bob Headrick with Nest Realty, “and historically it is the time when most people are in the market.  It’s also the time when property looks its best.”  Of course with more homes on the market during the spring, buyers have many more options to choose from.

The school year is another factor that drives the real estate market.  Headrick explained that families with children like to be out looking in the spring so they can close and get into their new home before the school year starts.  Moving in the summer also gives their children time to make friends prior to the first day of school.

“First time buyers and empty nesters are less spring market driven,” Headrick continued.  However he explained that they may still choose to look during this time of year because with more homes on the market they have more options.

“A lot of purchases are tied to the school year,” said Inessa Telefus with Loring Woodriff Real Estate Associates.  “Parents often don’t want to move their kids in the middle of the year,” she continued.  Also, many people don’t enjoy getting out in rain, snow and cold so unless it is urgent to move sooner, most people will wait until spring to sell their home or look for their next one. Of course enjoying the flowers and dogwoods that bloom in the spring makes house hunting that much more pleasant.

This year’s lack of snow and ice may be encouraging people to get out sooner.  Although the spring market typically begins in March, Telefus said that it seems to be starting earlier this year.

Headrick agrees that the market is busy now, and that the activity is due in part to this year’s lack of significant snow or rain.  However, he expressed concern over the lack of inventory since many of the spring sellers have yet to get their homes on the market.

Michael Guthrie, Principal Broker and CEO of Roy Wheeler Realty Co., described the current market as active.  “The last 11 days of January the pace picked up a lot,” he said.  His company had a home buyer seminar at the end of January and all of the participants were very pleased at the interest and the turn out.  He added that “the holidays are over and people are ready to do the next thing, like put their house on the market. Also spring is a time when fewer people are on vacation and kids sports have not started so there is extra time to do things like look for a new home.”

The tax year may also have an impact on spring real estate sales.  It’s not uncommon, Guthrie said, for first time buyers to look at the taxes they are paying and decide, “Maybe it’s time to buy a house for the deductions.”  Of course, these same buyers may also have a tax refund to look forward to which they can put towards a down payment.

From an agent’s perspective, the spring market is a time when they see a goodly percentage of their total sales.  “It’s usually quiet in the summer with people on vacation, then we see a bump in the fall until things slow in the winter,” Headrick said.  He offered statistics for last year that showed that a third of closed sales happened during just three months, May, June and July.  Since it usually takes between 45 and 60 days to go from a signed contract to closing, many of the May closings reflect the activity of buyers and sellers out in March at the traditional start of the spring market.

There are some other factors which are driving sales this spring.  Interest rates are still very low, and while prices haven’t gone up fears that they are about to do so may bring out more buyers.  “Buyers are recognizing it is a good time to make a purchase,” Telefus said.  She is anticipating multiple offers as the market heats up.

Prepare Early for the Spring Market

All the agents agree it is critical to prepare your house to look its best before putting it on the market.

Headrick advises sellers to start getting ready as early as possible.  “If someone has been living in the same house for thirty five years, they may need to start a year in advance of listing it, and no later than the previous fall.”    He explained that sellers need to be prepared to clear out, put excess stuff in storage, paint and repair.  He also recommends a pre-inspection to uncover any repairs that the seller may not be aware of.  The buyer will get their own inspection of course, but a pre-inspection allows the seller to take care of any outstanding issues when they don’t have the pressure of completing the project prior to an upcoming closing.

When the house is cleaned up and staged, it is common for agents to have a professional take photos.  In addition, depending on the price of the house, they may also utilize professionally done floor plans, Headrick explained.  “Many of our buyers don’t live locally and they can’t drive by the house.”   For that reason good photos and detailed information about the layout and dimensions of rooms are critical.

Guthrie described spring as a time when there is a lot more competition from other sellers, part of the reason it is important to get your house looking its very best.  However, another source of competition is new homes.  “Builders are feeling confident and there are new homes being built, and many new communities,” he said.  While some buyers are willing to wait for the advantages of being a home’s first owner, others don’t have the 4 to 6 months it takes for new construction.  Guthrie advises that sellers who want to appeal to these buyers need to have their home in the best possible shape.

Some sellers aren’t inclined to make required repairs, even something obvious like a broken seal on thermal-pane windows that makes them very cloudy, Guthrie explained.  However, invariably buyers will have an inflated view of what it will cost them to do the work.  This could mean they don’t make an offer at all or will make a low offer based on their evaluation of repair costs.

“Your house needs to show perfectly,” Telefus said stressing the importance of spending the time and money it takes to get it that way.  She also emphasized the importance of curb appeal, which means well maintained landscaping and exterior maintenance as well as the importance of “preparing every showing.”

The good news is, in most cases “homes that are nicely staged and appropriately priced sell quickly,” Headrick said.

Buyer Preparation

Serious buyers also need to prepare for their role in the spring market.

An important first step is to talk to a lender and determine if they qualify for a loan and if so how much house they can afford.  The lender will then generate a letter stating what they qualify for.  Headrick explained that when the buyers decide to make an offer on a house, some lenders will create a specific letter for that address.  Either way, the agent can use the letter as part of the negotiation, offering assurance to the seller and their agent that the buyer is a solid prospect.

Buyers also need to do homework on the area as a whole, on specific communities and on the type of house that will suit them best.  If privacy is highly valued, for example, they may want to find a home in the country surrounded by a few acres.  If they want to walk downtown, they need to check out close in communities like Belmont or The Woods at Burnet Commons.

Buyers coming from out of town need to adjust their expectations to our local situation.  Headrick explained that part of his job when working with these buyers is to educate them on our region and the benefit of all the different areas within it so they can focus on what will best suit them.  He added that the out-of-towners are often surprised when they discover that there are only 3 or 4 homes to look at rather than a long list of 10 or more which is more typical in a large city. If he is working with families that have children he also refers them to resources for researching the local schools.

“Buyers also need to find the right agent,” Telefus said, which means in part finding someone they trust. She described the current market as one which is “strong and fast” which means if buyers are indecisive they can lose out.  Therefore it is important to work with an agent they trust enough so that they move forward on an offer quickly when their REALTOR® advises them to do so.

Whether you are a buyer or a seller spring is a great time to be in the real estate market.  Not only is it beautiful and a wonderful time to be out, but buyers have many more options to choose from and sellers can look forward to many more showings if their house is priced appropriately and looks its best.

Celeste Smucker is a writer, blogger and author who lives near Charlottesville.

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge Danticat, as a Haitian woman living in the U.S., is a strong voice among the many writers of the Caribbean diaspora. Publicity photo

Author Edwidge Danticat weaves stories of strong women overcoming hardship and forging new identities in unfamiliar places. Born in Haiti, Danticat moved to Brooklyn when she was 12 years old, and the experience of transporting from one culture to another has since informed her writing, which is dominated by characters that have their feet in two worlds: their Caribbean home and their new American surroundings. She also addresses harsh aspects of her nation’s history and fights for the voices of her people to be heard.

Friday 2/27. Free, 5pm. Nau Auditorium, South Lawn, University of Virginia. 924-6675.

Categories
Magazines Real Estate

Six ways to trim your household expenses

As a homeowner, one of your challenges is figuring out ways to reduce your regular monthly bills. These continuous expenses can leave a big hole in your monthly budget, essentially leaving you with less money to invest for the future, and even less money to spend on more leisure pleasures. When you find yourself short on cash, in fact, before it gets to this point, here are six ways you can cut your monthly household expenses, and get your financial budget back under control.

Install Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs)

Compact Fluorescent Lights provide longer lifespan and considerably less electrical usage. Although CFLs are significantly more expensive than old-style incandescent light bulbs, sticking with old bulbs cost consumers far more money over the long run. In an interview with Noah Horowitz, an environmental engineer and director of the center for energy efficiency at the Natural Resources Defense Council, he stated that because CFLs use far less electricity and last longer, when someone switches they can expect to save anywhere from $30 to $50 on their electric bill. In fact, you should use the lumens numbers to compare bulbs and not the equivalent wattages. Lumens indicate the amount of light given off by the bulb.

Install a Programmable Thermostat

Programmable thermostats allow you the option of presetting the heat or air-conditioning just before you get home rather than paying to keep an empty dwelling comfortable when no one’s occupying the premises. According to the Department of Energy, lowering your thermostat by 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit for eight hours during the day in winter can save 5 percent to 15 percent on your heating bill. During the summer months, you can follow the exact same strategy by lowering the thermostat setting to 78 degrees Fahrenheit only when you are home.

Unplug Unused Electrical Devices

Pulling the plug on unused items such as cell phone chargers, the television in the guest bedroom, or any other electrical devices can help conserve energy. According to energy.gov, the average charger is consuming .26 watts of energy when not in use and 2.24 watts when a fully charged device is connected to it. In addition, your cable box consumes an average of 17.83 watts, even when it’s powered off. Essentially, what this means is that even if you left your cable box plugged in for one year and never turned it off, it would still add $17.83 to your electrical bill. Furthermore, if your cable box comes with DVR capabilities, your total doubles to $43.46. It’s time to unplug those “energy vampire” electronics.

Install a Blanket for Your Hot Water Heater

Homeowners can expect to pay an average of $400 and $600 a year in water heating costs, according to aspenpikin.com. Because the hot water heater is a major energy drain—mainly because the water is kept hotter than most people ever use—insulating a water heater is one way a homeowner can help cut this cost. Aspenpitkin.com says that installing an insulation blanket on a water heater tank is inexpensive and relatively easy. You can purchase pre-cut jackets or blankets available from around $10 to $20. They also suggest that you purchase one with an insulating value of at least R-8. By dropping the temperature down to 125 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, in addition to installing a blanket, a homeowner should see significant differences within a year.

Air Seal Your Home

Homeowners can help prevent drafts simply by air sealing their homes. Air that leaks through your home’s envelope such as doors, windows, walls and other openings waste an excessive amount of energy and aids in increase utility bills. By simply air sealing and insulating your home, you can fix some common problems like: reduce noise from outside; less pollen, dust and insects entering your home; better humidity control, and lower chance for ice dams on the roof in snowy climates, according to energystar.gov. In fact, energystar.gov says if you were to add up all the leaks, holes and gaps in most homes’ envelope, it would be the equivalent of having a window open every day of the year.

Bundle Your Services

If you have Internet, phone and cable service, it might be time to move your accounts to one provider. You can visit www.lowermybills.com to find out which company is offering the best deals. Lowermybills.com is a free online service for consumers to compare low rates on monthly bills and reduce the cost of living. If these charges are draining your household savings, it might be time to make the switch and save.

Homeownership Shouldn’t Be a Financial Burden

When you are a homeowner, you can’t escape the fact that the plumbing will eventually need repairing, your washer and dryer might need to be replaced, and at some point the car will need new tires. However, owning your home shouldn’t become a financial burden, which is why the savvy homeowner creates a monthly budget that helps avoid major financial pitfalls.

By Janet Thomson

Janet Thomson is a freelance writer, copywriter and military wife residing in Charlottesville.

Categories
Living

Getting tanked: AquaFloat promises physical and mental relaxation with sensory-deprivation flotation therapy

The flotation tanks block light and sound, providing a sensory deprivation experience that AquaFloat owner Ted O’Neill describes as a “help-all.” Photo courtesy of AquaFloat

It looks a lot like a spa or massage parlor upon first glance. Relaxing is something I’m not especially skilled at unless a beach-side bar is involved, but when I entered the AquaFloat lobby with its soft, aquamarine-and-sand-colored decor, sounds of nature playing in the background and friendly staff who immediately offered me a cup of green tea, I could feel my tension begin to dissolve. That is, until I saw exactly what I was getting myself into: an enclosed tank with about a foot of water that blocks virtually all light and sound.

AquaFloat Charlottesville, which opened last fall, offers customers a relatively new form of meditation, relaxation and, they claim, even relief from chronic pain. Flotation therapy is exactly what it sounds like—step into a tank full of salt water, shut the lid and float on your back. Owner Ted O’Neill was the head pharmacist at Meadowbrook Pharmacy when he discovered flotation therapy. He drove to Chesapeake for his first float a couple of years ago, and never looked back.

“There’s no such thing as a cure-all, but this is a help-all,” O’Neill said.

Each tank contains up to 1,000 pounds of Epsom salt—magnesium sulfate—giving the water a 25 percent salinity. The water is warmed to 93.4 degrees, which staff member Oliver Beavers said is a neutral temperature to the skin receptors. That combined with the lack of gravity allows for a whole new level of relaxation.

“Even if you’re relaxing on a massage table, you still have gravity applying pressure, but in here you don’t,” Beavers said. “So over the course of 90 minutes your body has a chance to sort of experience what it’s like without that, and parts of your body will just loosen up.” The experience will set you back $60 for a single session or up to $400 a month for unlimited floats.

Meditation, Beavers pointed out, is usually intentional. Quieting the brain’s constant jabber takes deliberate effort, and for most people, it isn’t easy. I enjoy meditating, but I’m terrible at it. So even with my slight anxiety about claustrophobia, I was eager to see what floating on my back in pitch black and dead silence would do for my ever-chatty brain.

“You get the same benefits as intentional meditation in here just by allowing your body and nervous system to respond to the tank,” Beavers said. “I’m not telling you to try to think no thoughts or try to relax. Just allow yourself to get out of your own way.”

With his instructions fresh in my mind, I prepared for my float. Each tank is in its own little room with a shower stocked with body wash, shampoo and conditioner, plus towels and a robe. I’d assumed ahead of time that I’d need a bathing suit, and felt a little silly when I asked over the phone, “So, what do I wear in the tank?”

Oh—nothing. Got it.

Once in the tank with the lid closed, I spent the first few minutes fidgeting, trying to figure out what exactly to do with my limbs. With my arms bent and hands comfortably floating near my face, I took a deep breath and turned the light off.

Beavers had been right when he told me it didn’t feel like floating in a tank—it felt like floating in the universe. The pitch dark eliminated any feeling of claustrophobia, and with my ears underwater, it was just me, the water and my thoughts.

Then, it was just me and my thoughts. The skin-temperature water seemed to seep into me in a way that made me lose track of where my body stopped and the water started. For what I perceived to be the first half hour or so, my brain chugged along as usual—impending deadlines, e-mails to send, what to make for dinner, everyday worries and fears, etc. I distinctly remember thinking, “This is O.K., but 90 minutes is an awfully long time. I feel like I’m going to be in here forever.”

After that, it gets a little hazy. I found myself in that asleep-but-awake state, and it felt like I was watching my thoughts instead of actually thinking them myself. Next thing I knew, a soft light filled the tank, informing me that my float was over and the automatic filtration system would soon kick on.

Back in the lobby, Beavers greeted me after a few minutes with another cup of tea. He nodded and laughed in understanding when I struggled to string sentences together. I was loopy, almost high in a way, yet wide awake and acutely aware of my surroundings.

Upon arriving home I immediately dove back into work mode, which, unfortunately, may have impeded some of the post-float glow I’d been basking in. Beavers said floating is all about what happens afterward, not necessarily what happens in the tank. Maybe next time I’ll give it a try on a weekend, when I don’t have another four hours of work waiting for me.

Categories
Arts

Winning it back: Songwriter Robin Wynn returns with a musical departure

Robin Wynn stepped back from a successful music career for motherhood. She returns Friday, playing old favorites and her newfound bluegrass, at BON Café. Photo: Martyn Kyle

Robin Wynn said Google might lead you astray if you’re looking to find out what she’s up to these days. A C’ville-based songwriter who toured extensively from 2005 to 2008 and saw one of her songs get attention from NPR’s “All Songs Considered,” Wynn recently licensed a tune to the CW show “Vampire Diaries.” Put her name in a search engine, and that’s likely to be one of the first things to pop up.

It’s not that Wynn has anything against “Vampire Diaries.” But the song the show’s using for its promo is from the days before she took five years off to focus on family. When she takes the stage at BON Café, a block off the Downtown Mall on February 27, “Vampire Diaries” fans may be disappointed.

“I’m not even playing that kind of music anymore,” Wynn said in a recent C-VILLE Weekly interview. “One of my songs was on ‘One Tree Hill’ years ago. The CW must still have me in their music library somewhere.”

Wynn made her name locally and regionally by applying her pitch perfect voice to her own down-tempo rock and pop country tunes. A singer-songwriter in the mold of Sheryl Crow, she released three albums and did somewhere around 600 shows, playing venues from North Carolina to New York, during that productive period between 2005 and 2008.

Then a son came along—with a little help from her husband (and fellow musician) Mark Goldstein. She decided to focus on family and took a break from music. Just over a year later, she and Goldstein welcomed a daughter to their family.

With the kids gaining independence, Wynn figures it’s time to get back in the game. But things are different now. She’s not as interested in the radio-friendly tunes she was writing in the past. She spent a year living in the mountains, she said, and her latest work, a six-track EP called Song from the Hills, a story from beginning to end, has a more bluegrass bent.

“This is a big departure for me, because this whole album is one story.” Wynn said.

For those who remember the old days, Wynn said she plans to take the coffee shop stage with her husband on guitar and do older tunes for roughly the first half of the performance. Then she’ll shift into the newer stuff, welcoming to the stage Peter LaBau on banjo and possibly Jeff Vogelsang on mandolin. Goldstein, a multi-instrumentalist who teaches music at Tandem Friends School and plays with LaBau in the Bent Mountain Trio, will shift to upright bass during the second half of the show. Emily Gary will add background vocals.

Whatever the crowd’s reception of Wynn’s newer songs, which she said she may sprinkle with a few covers, one thing certainly hasn’t changed for the songstress. She’s been a singer since she could talk, she said, and it’s the silk of her voice that brings her tunes to life.

“I definitely am a singer first,” said Wynn, who picked up the guitar as she entered her 20s and started writing her first songs four or five years later. Most of the songs she writes start with a melody and rely on simple chord structures, she said. She follows what she calls the “storyline” in her mind to flesh the tunes out. “I really like to use my voice, so it’s all about melody for me. I usually sequester myself, and the song comes to me over a week or so.”

Wynn released her first album, Oblivion, in 2004, and it was a sleepy little track called “Pyre” that caught the attention of National Public Radio producers. After the NPR exposure, Wynn said she got some national play on smaller radio stations. It was an honor she said, and she was delighted for the attention. But that isn’t her goal this time around, she insisted. Wynn recognizes the tunes she’s writing at this point in her career don’t have the same commercial appeal as her older stuff. Still, she said she sees this as being her future as a songwriter, and if she has to sacrifice her dreams of stardom, so be it.

“I feel like I can tell more of a story in this genre,” she said. “It is a more patient genre than what I was doing before. It feels more expansive. I can play this forever. At this point, I want to do what I love.”

In the years since she left music to raise her kids, Wynn has taken on a day job. She’s doing it part-time for now, and she expects to keep it that way for the foreseeable future. Rather than go after singing and writing music full-time again, she said she’d like to focus on playing a few good shows to attentive audiences in listening rooms and hitting the road with her family to play summer festivals.

“About halfway through 2006, when music was my full-time job, I was making it, but half those gigs were rough,” Wynn said. “I’m open to whatever comes along for sure, but I feel like this time around it is less pressure and more about the love of the music.”

She almost left it at that. But she couldn’t resist adding, “If it got to that point, I would do it.” Old habits are hard to break.

Robin Wynn plays at BON Café on Friday, February 27.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5Do_vwacR4