City schools’ new cell phone policy applies to students at Buford Middle School, Charlottesville High School, and Lugo-McGinness Academy. Image courtesy yondr.
With the start of the school year, Charlottesville City middle and high school students are adjusting not only to new classes, but to a new cell phone policy too. Students must have their phones “Off and Away the Entire Day”—something previously only applicable to CCS elementary students—and will eventually be required to seal phones in magnetically locked pouches. While many parents support stricter cell phone policies, the new rule has also raised concern.
Students are now required to put their phones and other personal devices away for the entirety of the school day, including non-instructional periods like lunch. Though teachers continue to remind students to do this, CCS policy dictates that upon a student’s first violation, administration will be notified, the device confiscated, and it will be returned to the student at the end of the day.
In an infographic detailing the policy, the district outlined potential benefits of Off and Away the Entire Day. “Disconnecting from phones will allow us to connect with each other, connect with learning, and connect with calm,” CCS wrote. “Let’s all work together to improve our learning relationships and mental wellness.”
Later this school year, CCS plans to move to “Off, Yondr, and Away,” which would require students to lock their phones in Yondr pouches at the beginning of the day. Several parents and guardians have expressed concern about this because it would make contacting students in an emergency difficult.
In an August 18 letter to the CCS community, Superintendent Royal Gurley said the district would take time to get feedback, conduct more research, answer questions, and make adjustments before implementing the use of Yondr pouches. He also mentioned meetings about the new device policy, which were held before the start of the school year.
“We held those meetings … because we wanted to alleviate any confusion that we will be launching Yondr on day one, and we wanted to answer questions about Off and Away the Entire Day,” says CCS Community Relations Liaison Amanda Korman.
“I think we are still really wanting to make sure we know that it is going to work because our students and families have buy-in and understand the value of the program,” says CCS Supervisor of Community Relations Beth Cheuk. “And that may take a while because people have legitimate questions. And we want to work and do some research and find out how Yondr has worked at other school divisions.”
Though the district does not currently have any additional meetings scheduled to discuss Yondr, Korman encourages families to reach out with questions. “As we are able to get answers to families’ questions and get that buy-in, that’s when we [implement] Yondr,” she says.
While it is still early in the school year, both Korman and Cheuk claim the new policy has already been successful. “We’re just getting some reports that teachers are super happy,” says Cheuk. “[There have been] few discipline reports over phones, just a handful, and the parents have been very supportive of them.”
When asked why the district will implement Yondr pouches despite the claimed success of Off and Away, Cheuk and Korman say the pouches will help students tempted to use their phones regardless of the rules. “At one of the last school board meetings, we heard the story of this student who confessed that even with some of her favorite classes, she would sometimes slip out under the guise of needing to use the restroom … so she could check her phone to stay [caught up] with whatever drama her friend group was up to,” says Korman. “And for a student like that, we hope that she knows that by having the phone in the pouch, that temptation is off the table.”
CCS has already ordered the Yondr pouches. However, the district says it is listening to families’ feedback. If there’s a need to contact students during the day, CCS recommends either emailing the student or calling the front office.
“For the bigger category of those more emergent situations, I think the thing we can do is to turn to other school divisions,” says Cheuk. “We’ve identified at least one in Virginia, but also some nationally … [that] have had lockdowns … [and] emergency situations. I would like to learn from those school divisions and from parents in those school divisions. How did they navigate this world? And what can they say that would make our parents feel better about the situation and understand that they have a good option?”
Albemarle County Public Schools does not currently plan to alter its cell phone policy. According to Public Affairs and Strategic Communications Officer Phil Giaramita, “We prohibited the use of cell phones prior to the 2019-2020 school year in our middle schools, with the intent that the policy would be tested and considered for extension to high schools. High schools limited cell phone use three years later, coming out of the pandemic. Both changes have worked very well and there is no intent right now to make any changes.”
Age of Fire rekindled its ’90s metal sound after founder Greg Brown (center) put some of the band’s early recordings online, and “people listened.” KMS Photography.
If the origin story of local metal band Age of Fire were a rom-com, there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the theater at this point. Put on some Evanescence and try to dig it.
Boy meets girl in South Florida in 1982—but in this case, the girl is heavy metal. After six years of being in love with the girl, something comes of the relationship: a band’s eponymous debut album, Age of Fire.
The boy and girl part ways all too soon. He moves to Charlottesville, Virginia. After 20 years, the boy makes contact with the girl in 2008. But it’s not the same. For the boy, the girl is frozen in time, a memory of his youth. He’s unable to save her from the nothing she’s become (sorry, Evanescence).
Finally, three decades after first falling for the girl, the boy decides he’ll do whatever it takes to get her back. He wins the girl’s affection again, and their torrid love affair resumes.
The boy here is Greg Brown, founding member of the now-resurgent Age of Fire. In 2018, after re-releasing his band’s debut album for the second time in 30 years, he decided to grab fate by the collar and re-form. Just five years later, the band is touring to support its second album. They’ve played Atlanta, Birmingham, Myrtle Beach, and several dates in Europe. They’ve announced a streaming show on September 5 from In Your Ear Studios in Richmond, and will head to L.A. to play the Whiskey a Go Go, opening for Burning Witches, on December 6. And in the meantime, they’ll be back in the studio this fall to work on the band’s second full-length album—on Sliptrick Records—since getting back together.
“I’m laser-focused on what we are trying to do,” says Brown. “Richmond has been great to us—really embraced us. In this town, metal doesn’t seem to be very well supported. It’s a different beast.”
Charlottesville’s metal scene has been beset by recent losses, both of venues and promising acts. And while Brown admits he operates in “a bit of a bubble,” he’s never given up on the genre, even while pursuing others after Age of Fire disbanded in 1993.
Brown returned to metal around 2012, after a cancer diagnosis. With a chemo port implanted in his chest, the classical guitar he had come to favor became impractical. The smaller body on his old electrics didn’t rub against the port, and the less technical ax work made playing easier, given his limited mobility.
“I was always into the shredders: Metallica, Megadeth,” Brown says. “But that’s actually the same thing that attracted me to classical and flamenco, the virtuosity of it.”
Working mostly from old-but-never-released recordings, Brown put together a new Age of Fire LP in late 2018, the same year he released the band’s debut for the third time. He “threw it up on the web,” he says, and people listened.
The 10-track Obsidian Dreams, Age of Fire’s first new record in 30 years, caught the attention of Sliptrick Records. Delighted, surprised, and humbled, Brown put together a band. He found a local bass player in Mike Heck and joined forces with a new lead vocalist, Laura Viglione. In 2020, Age of Fire released its first album of all new music since the band formed in 1988: Shades of Shadow. A European tour followed. It was more than Brown could’ve dreamed of when Metallica’s Kill ’Em All first made him fall in love with metal.
Heck and Viglione left the group after the Shades of Shadow tour, but Brown was undaunted. He found local bass player Ric Brown and drummer Bill Morries and decided to retake Age of Fire’s lead vocals. The latest iteration of the band independently released an EP, Through the Tempest, last year, and it’s been well received by indie pubs.
Brown says Age of Fire still has a strong following in Europe, and he’s optimistic about the future, including the forthcoming album on Sliptrick. “Metal is starting to pick up,” Brown says. “It’s still huge overseas. In the United States in the ’90s, we went grunge, but the rest of the world didn’t.”
Age of Fire’s music has been described as dabbling in various heavy metal subgenres, including thrash, symphonic, melodic, and progressive. But for those who grew up with the ’90s shredders like Brown, it’s Metallica they’ll hear first.
Now, what’s old is new again. Age of Fire has been played on more than 1,000 traditional and satellite radio stations around the world after an unheard of four-decade hiatus. The band has attracted attention from media outlets from Portugal to Slovakia to Norway, and endorsements from Solar Guitars, Scorpion drumsticks, and Dirtbag clothing.
Still, Age of Fire isn’t Brown’s full-time gig. By day, he’s an educational services representative for Guitar Center’s Music & Arts. He says working with music teachers to develop in-school programming frees him up to make his own tunes on weekends and during summers.
As Brown tries to help kickstart the local metal scene, he looks back on his career and thinks of all the young musicians who could use a push toward his favorite music genre.
“I feel bad. … I ran a music store in this town for many years, and kids would come in playing Pantera licks or whatever,” he says. “I would think, ‘Where do these kids play?’ There doesn’t seem to be a supported infrastructure in this town for this type of music, and I would have been lost without it my entire life.”
Kindlewood hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony and celebration in recognition of the first residents moving in to their new homes. Staff photo.
To commemorate the first wave of residents moving in to new buildings, the Kindlewood Advisory Committee, Piedmont Housing Alliance, and National Housing Trust hosted community members and stakeholders at the redevelopment site on August 19.
Following a procession from the Second Street SE entrance to the new parking lot near the intersection of Sixth Street SE and Monticello Avenue, celebration attendees heard remarks from resident, redevelopment, and area leaders.
Developed in 1978, the 12-acre Kindlewood—formerly known as Friendship Court, and before that Garrett Square—was created following the destruction of the predominantly Black Vinegar Hill neighborhood under the guise of urban renewal. The site of the Kindlewood community has a complicated and disturbing history that began long before the razing of Vinegar Hill, with a plantation that enslaved at least 51 people formerly occupying the land, which was stolen from the Monacan Tribe.
Addressing the crowd, City Councilor Michael Payne acknowledged Charlottesville’s historic lack of investment in Kindlewood. “The city had committed great sins against this community [over the course of] decades,” he said. Despite the long history of city wrongdoings, Payne is optimistic that Kindlewood’s resident-led, zero displacement approach to redevelopment will be “view[ed] not as a one-off, but as a model.”
While a number of local leaders spoke at the celebration, the most impactful remarks came from former and current Kindlewood residents. As a resident member of the Kindlewood Advisory Committee, Crystal Johnson dedicated hours of her time to improving her community and ensuring that residents were at the forefront of the redevelopment effort. “Kindlewood will be a thriving, inclusive, and diverse neighborhood because of your contributions,” she said.
“I am purposely stopping, pausing, to just breathe the preciousness of the air, calm our minds, calm our spirits, and take this moment in,” said former resident and current KAC member Myrtle Houchens. “Behold the beauty, there are no words. … Every tear that I shed today is happiness, tears of hopefulness, tears that we made it, and there’s so much more to come.”
With her fellow KAC members and residents surrounding her, Houchens cut a bright red ribbon to celebrate the 20 families moving in to the first section of new housing. Move in officially began on August 14.
“The [look] of these buildings makes us so excited, bring[s] us so much excitement,” said resident and PHA employee Maryam Bayan. After living in Kindlewood for four years, Bayan is ecstatic to finally be in her new home. Speaking about everyone involved in the redevelopment, she said, “they are so diverse, so working hard, and we appreciate them.”
“It really means a dream come true to me. It’s a big day,” said resident Towheed Zaki. “We have been waiting for this for almost three years now.” Speaking about his experience living in Kindlewood, Zaki expressed his gratitude to specific members of administration and leadership. “Miss Houchens, Miss Marcy, Miss Arlene from the office—they have been wonderful to everyone, they have been kind to everyone.”
Kindlewood’s redevelopment will continue with the demolition of empty units and construction of new housing over the next eight years.
Monticello’s “Behind the Scenes” tour offers a fuller picture of life at Jefferson’s iconic home. See the first floor (TJ’s rooms and the public spaces), then take the narrow spiral staircase up to the rooms used by daughter Martha Randolph and her family, guests, and enslaved workers. A highlight is the light-filled circular Dome Room with the children’s “fairy palace.”
On August 18, Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced more than $111 million in funding earmarked for Virginia community projects passed as part of Senate Fiscal Year 2024 draft funding bills. A portion of the appropriations would go to Charlottesville projects organized by the Piedmont Housing Alliance, the University of Virginia, and more.
While it’s a good sign that the bills passed the Senate Appropriations Committee with bipartisan approval, the Virginia senators indicated they will work to ensure funding for local projects is included in the final version of the legislation. The current version includes more than $1 million for Charlottesville programs, including $650,000 for PHA to construct a permanent location for the Charlottesville Financial Opportunity Center + Housing Hub and $367,000 for UVA to purchase and equip a mobile health van for underserved communities.
“We are working to ensure the government funding bill looks out for the needs of Charlottesville residents,” said Kaine and Warner in a joint statement to C-VILLE. “After hearing from the Piedmont Housing Alliance about the need for a permanent location for the Charlottesville Financial Opportunity Center + Housing Hub, we went to bat for the project and successfully secured federal dollars for it in the latest draft of the government funding bill. This support would help Charlottesville residents get financial coaching, find housing, and prevent evictions. We’ll keep working to get this crucial funding across the finish line to help the Charlottesville community.”
Back Together Bash
In preparation for the new school year, local organizations teamed up to host the Back Together Back to School Bash at the Cherry Avenue Boys & Girls Club on August 19. The event offered central Virginia students free haircuts, hairstyling, backpacks, and shoes.
Organized by Amanda Burns from the #100Cuts Initiative, the event brought together numerous local partners and sponsors to help kids look and feel their best at school. In addition to getting back-to-school essentials, students celebrated the upcoming school year with a DJ, food, and branded swag.
Haircuts and styling were provided as part of the #100Cuts Initiative, led by Fernando Garay, owner of House of Cuts Barber Studio, and Daniel Fairley, president of 100 Black Men of Central Virginia. The group brought in dozens of barbers, braiders, and stylists for the event, and hopes to continue providing free haircuts throughout the year with the support of local partners and donations.
Supplied photo.
In brief
Climate concern concert
Voicing their support for electrifying city buses, the Green Grannies of Charlottesville sang “It’s All ’Bout the Bus” at the Charlottesville City Council meeting on August 21. For 10 years, group members have advocated for climate justice by performing in their signature green costumes and large hats at local events, including rallies, elections, legislative hearings, and more. The proposal for switching to more climate-friendly electric buses is part of a long-term regional transportation plan discussed by Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization, Moving Toward 2050.
Hard-hitting news
On August 18, UVA Health announced it will open a youth concussion clinic as part of its orthopedic center on Ivy Road. Rather than basic diagnostics and treatment, the clinic will focus on helping young people and teen athletes experiencing persistent concussion symptoms, including dizziness, headaches, brain fog, and balance issues. Patients will have to be referred to the clinic by either a health care provider or an athletic trainer.
Jones waives hearing
During an August 21 appearance in Albemarle General District Court, Christopher Darnell Jones, Jr., who allegedly killed three UVA students and injured two others, waived his right to a preliminary hearing. Jones faces three counts of second-degree murder and multiple gun charges in connection with the November 13, 2022, shooting on a bus that had returned to Grounds following a university field trip. The case is scheduled to go to a grand jury on October 2, when jurors will determine if there is enough evidence against Jones to proceed.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year—and with the first day of school comes a fleet of teachers starting new jobs in city and county schools. We talked with some of the educators who are preparing for their first year, and learned why they’re excited about stepping into a new classroom. These interviews have been edited for space and clarity.
Tim Hamlette
Career specialist Albemarle High School
Supplied photo.
Talk about your process in becoming a new teacher.
I started off doing a work-based learning retreat with the other career specialists in the county. We got together, we had a retreat, we talked over what our strategies will be, we talked over what worked last year, which I couldn’t contribute a lot to, since this is my first year, but we talked about what we want to do going into this year. And that was exciting. And now, starting new-teacher orientation, I’m just excited to see what we’re going through, see how the vision and mission work out, so I’m excited to see how that goes.
Tell me about your excitement, and, if you’ve talked to other teachers, what they’ve been saying as well.
Yeah, I’m excited. We’re all going to be working with students in some type of capacity, some different type of capacity, being able to learn from them, being able to teach somebody else something. So being able to come together, work as a team, whether you’re in Lakeside, whether you’re in Albemarle, whether you’re in Monticello, we can all learn and grow from each other. So being able to be here, connect and have this community of ACPS, I think it’ll be beneficial for the students that will be coming in this year, and also for us to grow as new teachers and specialists as well.
How important were teachers and specialists for you when you were growing up?
So being able to have that relationship was something that was very beneficial for me, being able to go to somebody at school to talk to when maybe you were feeling lonely, maybe you didn’t have anybody to talk to, you had that teacher there. And for me, personally, I didn’t have many male or Black male teachers or specialists in school. So, me being able to come into the school and be a Black male, able to be a face, or be somebody that can relate to somebody that they may not be able to see, is something that I’m super excited about. Being able to help point somebody in their career wherever they want to go is something I’m excited for, being able to build those relationships, being able to connect with different students. Because everybody’s going through something, you don’t know what they’re going through, but when you just show them that you really care, when you show him you’re there and build those relationships with them, I think is key for success.
Why did you take this new position?
I love working with the youth. I was in Richmond working with the youth, I was in Lynchburg working with the youth, and then being here in Charlottesville, I wasn’t in the students’ buildings, I wasn’t with them. So I felt like I needed to get back in there. And Albemarle High School is the biggest school, most diverse, being able to reach different types of people, different ethnicities, different types of students. That’s what really drew me there and being able to build up relationships, like I was saying, and being able to connect with different students. You get to see all aspects of Charlottesville in Albemarle High School, I feel, and that’s what led me there.
Ryan Robinson
Culinary arts Charlottesville-Albemarle Technical Education Center (CATEC)
Photo by Tristan Williams.
Tell me about the subjects and grades you’re teaching this year, and what makes you excited about it.
We offer a culinary arts class in part one and then we have a part two. So, I’ll be teaching students 10th through 12th grade. What makes me most excited about teaching? The opportunity to make a positive impact, really. In my case, food is the hook that gets the students interested in coming in and being a part of what we do. From there, that’s where I have the opportunity to make that impact. I leverage food, but it’s about making an impact on each kid as individuals. So that’s what I’m most excited about. It’s a challenge. That’s what we [the teachers] have been talking about the last week, all the challenges that teachers want to be ready for throughout the school year. You always have challenges, but to me that’s when it gets fun. Making that connection with each student.
When did you begin teaching, and what inspired you to teach?
I started with Virginia Beach City Public Schools in 2022. I got just under two years under my belt of teaching in a formal classroom setting. And what originally drew me to the classroom was, I did recruiting for about three years for the Culinary Institute of Virginia. When I was recruiting, I was in the classroom every day throughout the week. I saw the opportunity to make an impact. I hate to be redundant but I really did. In that short engagement where you have one class session with those kids and then you gotta leave, then it’s the next group of kids that come in. It’s a short form engagement, but I really saw the opportunity there. And teachers inspired me just as much as the students. Seeing teachers educate at a high level and make an impact in a student’s life, I wanted to be a part of that.
What is your cooking background? You said that you were in recruiting, but how did you get into the culinary arts?
I graduated from the Culinary Institute of Virginia in 2013, and I went right into the industry. My foundation really was in hotels and country clubs, private country clubs. So I spent about six or seven years doing that before I got into recruiting. But I’ve done a little bit of everything, man. One of my passions for food is healthy cooking. I actually started gardening for that country club that I was working at, Cavalier Golf & Yacht Club in Virginia Beach. We started a small garden, the members loved it, we were able to use that produce in the kitchens. For me, it was my first leadership role, which is significant, because I was able to actually hire for the garden staff. And I would also recruit people who worked in front of the house or back of the house who wanted to come out and help us. And so that was my first leadership role. That’s where I kind of got the bug for where I am now—leading people and making a positive impact.
Having gone into culinary arts as a student yourself, how do you inspire kids who are making the choice to go the technical education path, which maybe they’re not seeing a lot of their peers do?
It’s all about meeting the kid where they are, and that’s why I’m talking about making that connection with the kid. So if every day, you come to class, and I see you doodling a little bit, then I’m gonna ask, “Hey, Amanda, what are you drawing? That looks cool. What is it? Really, you draw? Did you take art at your school?” And it’s just making that connection. And we might not get everything that I need from you in that one day, right? Because I got 18 other students, I’m probably going to spend about a good minute and a half with you. But also I want to meet you where you are. Week one or week two, you might not be ready to tell me your life story yet. But I’ve made that connection. I know that you started when you were 11, I know that your older brother taught you—alright, boom, we got something. So that’s something for me to build on. I believe that students have within them who they want to be or what they want to be. Once you know the person, you can help them with all sorts of stuff. You know, that’s the goal. And that’s why I say, food is the hook to guiding the student where they’re gonna be a productive citizen of society. It’s not just about creating chefs. It’s not just about a job title. It’s about the fulfillment, and pursuit of happiness. You want to be happy. That’s success.
What do you love about teaching? And what would you like to see grow or improve in education?
Well, I think CATEC is doing it. I think about helping students get jobs, and things of that nature. I think that’s important with education, not just giving them the diploma, but helping them with their next step. Every student is at a different level. You might have a student that just barely graduated high school, right? We all know those kids. He just made it. Counselor was on him like the last two weeks of school. He passed that last SOL he needed to pass and then got his attendance together, didn’t come half the school year. So we all kind of know where this kid is gonna go, right? There’s a reason why he missed so much school, and there’s a reason why his test scores were down. He has a chance to get into trouble … or he’s probably gonna go into one of those entry-level jobs like fast food or something. How can the education system get better? In my opinion, I think it’s about helping kids with that next step. Maybe every school should have a career services department or something like that, something to help kids for that next couple years.
Alison Mutarelli
Fourth grade Venable Elementary
Photo by Tristan Williams.
What makes you excited about teaching fourth grade?
I am so excited to teach fourth grade. I taught it for my student-teaching placement and it was such an awesome opportunity. They’re at an age where they have that personality, they have a spunk, and they’re really ready to learn and grow. They’re starting to get some intrinsic motivation and take accountability for their learning and accountability for others. I’m also super lucky, my cohort is really, really small. They’re a cohort of 40. They have been together since first grade, they know each other really well. So I’m excited to have a classroom family that has been together. I’m also excited because in Venable, or in Charlottesville City Schools, fourth grade is the top of our elementary school. So I’m preparing my little babies to go off to upper elementary, which then trickles into the middle school. So this fourth-grade year is going to be a lot of preparation for taking accountability for your own actions, your own learning, your behaviors. That way, they are prepared to go on to the upper levels. But there’s still a little elementary school where I get to baby them, and I get to love on them. But getting them ready for that next step is really exciting for me.
So they’re going to be graduating?
Yes, they’re going to be graduating out of elementary school. They go off to Walker, which is the upper elementary, and then that trickles into Buford, which is middle school, seventh and eighth grade. And then obviously, move on to high schools. So this fourth grade is like, they’ve been here, some since pre-K. So it’s been a long journey, and then once they move out, it’ll be, I’m sure, emotional for many. I definitely have some fun activities planned for the end of the year. I would definitely want to do a field trip for the graduation ceremony where all the parents can come, just to celebrate not only fourth grade, but your entire Venerable journey, including all the teachers that they’ve had in the past. I’m a big part of their fourth-grade year, but I wasn’t here the other years to see how much they’ve grown. But you know, if there was a first-grade teacher that’s still here, I would love them to get to see how much they’ve grown.
You’re gonna leave such a big impression on them.
I’m just so grateful to have the opportunity to make a lasting impression on our young students. I have a really big sign that says “The future of our world is in this classroom,” because that’s what it really is. These are our future leaders, our future doctors, our future teachers, our future nurses—everyone is in here. They will be fostered to grow in that way. So I’m really excited to have that impact on them. I want nothing but positivity. I love all of them unconditionally and I don’t even know them. I didn’t have the best elementary school experience. So I’m gonna change the narrative. I’m really excited to do that.
When did you begin teaching, and what inspired you to teach?
This is my first year teaching. I am so excited. I just graduated from the University of Delaware. When I was at Delaware, it was obviously during COVID. So I had to take some other paths in order to get the experience. I taught in a preschool. And that was such an amazing experience, those little babies just loved you. It was COVID, so times are really tough. And they were just so happy to see you. So their little faces just made my days. I tutored and I student taught, I’ve had a first-, a third-, and a fourth-grade class during my student teaching. This will be my first class of little babies—I cannot wait, we’re going to learn together, that’s what my big message to them is. As an adult, I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even consider myself an adult sometimes. I’m only 22. So my students are learning, but I’m learning with them. They’re gonna know that it’s okay to say, “Hey, Ms. M, this lesson didn’t really work for me. How can we go about doing this in a different way?” They’re going to advocate for themselves. That’s something that’s really important. I didn’t learn that until I was 20. And even then, it’s still really, really hard for me. I want my students to be able to advocate for themselves, tell someone their needs.
What do you love about teaching? And what would you like to see grow or improve in education?
So what I absolutely love is seeing my students grow. And I’ve only seen it in a limited time, because I’ve only had my little babies for short increments. But the students that I had, in the beginning of my six months, were not the students that I had at the end. Seeing them grow, and in some aspects, just learning to trust me. For some students gaining that trust is really, really hard. And I acknowledge that, I don’t expect them to trust me on day one. But seeing them grow and develop—that light bulb when you’re teaching a lesson and it clicks. That is the most exciting feeling. Having a student who really really struggles and seeing them like, “I get it, I get it now,” is the most awesome feeling. I love my relationships with my students.
Going to be very sad that they’re going up to Walker and I won’t be going with them to see them in the hallways. But I know myself and I know I’ll go up and visit. I also am definitely gonna be putting an emphasis on building those relationships with my parents. I’m asking all my parents for any sports schedules or instrumental schedules. I only live 15 minutes away from here, so I really want to go to the sports game so my students can see I’m a real person and I don’t just care about their math skills. I care about them as a person.
The grand Swannanoa estate on Afton Mountain currently offers public and private tours, and hosts a program of events that Sandi Dulaney hopes will help the property stay self-sufficient. Photo by Jack Looney.
The recent passing of James F. “Phil” Dulaney, the third generation of a family important in the Charlottesville area’s post-World War II growth, has spurred speculation about the future of several properties. Some of the family’s holdings, like the Charlottesville Oil site on Ivy Road and the derelict Afton Inn and Howard Johnson’s at Rockfish Gap, have been considered “blighted” for years. But one of the largest—the Swannanoa estate atop Afton Mountain—has always been a place of romance and fascination.
No one knows this better than Sandi Dulaney, Phil’s widow, who has been running Swannanoa since 2015. Dulaney, one of the few people who can say they have lived at Swannanoa, refers to the house as “she”—perhaps from the spirit of Sallie Dooley, for whom it was built, and whose portrait is featured in the 10-foot-tall stained glass Tiffany window that presides over the foyer’s grand staircase.
In 1912, Richmond businessman, millionaire, and philanthropist James H. Dooley built Swannanoa as a summer home for himself and his wife Sarah “Sallie” May. (He also had Maymont, their Richmond mansion which is now a museum and public park, built for her.) Their “summer retreat” is Italian Renaissance Revival in style, clad in marble from Georgia and lavishly decorated inside with Italian marble, ornate plasterwork, pastel frescoes, and inlaid wood. At about 23,000 square feet, the house is twice the size of Monticello.
For its time, Swannanoa featured all the modern conveniences—indoor plumbing, central heating, electricity (supplied by its own power plant, since it was the first house in Nelson County to have electricity). With an elevator, a dumbwaiter, parquet floors, extensive gardens, two corner towers with spectacular views over both sides of the Blue Ridge, the mansion exemplifies a grander age, a time when (paraphrasing F. Scott Fitzgerald) the very rich were different from you and me.
After the Dooleys died in the 1920s, the house passed to his sisters. A Richmond real estate consortium’s attempt to develop the estate unfortunately coincided with the 1929 stock market crash. When development plans fell apart, the mansion sat empty for 12 years until Skyline Swannanoa, a group of investors led by A. T. Dulaney, bought it in 1944. (The U.S. Navy considered buying and renovating Swannanoa as a secret wartime interrogation center, but decided Congress would hesitate to purchase a marble mansion for that purpose.) In 1948, the property was leased for 50 years to artist and mystic Walter Russell, whose University of Science and Philosophy, constructed around his personal cosmology, was headquartered there until 1998.
Time has taken its toll. The trees around Swannanoa have grown up, blocking much of the famed views. After the Russells’ lease expired, Phil Dulaney spent $3 million to replace the terracotta tile roof, clean and repoint significant areas of the marble façade, do extensive work on the interior, and replace the antiquated gutter system. But such a lavish house requires a lavish maintenance budget, and years of vandalism, curious intruders, and paranormal fans breaking in to search for “spirits” have done as much damage as time.
Dreams, however, die hard. Sandi Dulaney says her husband always wanted to open a bed-and-breakfast, but while the house’s lovely main floor is in decent shape, the upstairs rooms need extensive work. Seeking grant money or donating the property to a preservation organization, Dulaney says, would mean “losing control. The family wants to keep this place. I’m a steward here.”
Her plans are to allow access to Swannanoa in ways that enable the public to enjoy its beauty while still protecting the property. Currently, public guided tours are offered the second Sunday and fourth Saturday of every month (reservations required). Private tours can also be arranged, and the site is popular for photo shoots and micro weddings.
The house and gardens can also be rented for private events. A recent fundraiser for the Shelter for Help in Emergency, sponsored by Autumn Trails Veterinary Center, recalled the house’s early days by having “The Howling ‘20s” as its theme; Dulaney’s toy poodle mix Lady Grace served as greeter. Dulaney and Adrianne Boyer, Swannanoa’s marketing and events director, have also developed a regular program of events, from Zen@Swannanoa Mindfulness Workshops to the Halloween Spooktacular, Christmas with Santa for children (and dogs), and an Easter Eggs-travaganza. “We’re trying to introduce this place to a new generation,” says Boyer.
Interest in Swannanoa has grown in the last few years as the house has become more accessible, Boyer says. “Our staff is growing, we have more volunteers helping out—it’s really a labor of love.” The current plan is to have tours and events generate income to cover maintenance, taxes, and salaries while possibilities for implementing the much-needed complete overhaul (several years and $50-60 million, according to Boyer) are considered.
“I tell people that she’s 111 years old, and isn’t going to get any younger,” says Boyer.
Henry Hoke will appear at New Dominion Bookshop to discuss Open Throat with author Jocelyn Nicole Johnson on August 25. Publicity photo.
A queer mountain lion in “ellay” is the narrator of Open Throat, the new novel by Charlottesville’s own Henry Hoke. If that doesn’t pique your interest, we interviewed Hoke to take a deeper dive into his fifth book, which has garnered widespread attention and acclaim, and tops many of the year’s best-of lists.
C-VILLE: The mountain lion narrator of Open Throat has a name from their mother that is “not made of noises a person can make” and later comes to be called heckit. The character was based on the real-life mountain lion who was known by his wildlife tracking identifier number, P-22 (though Indigenous tribes found this too similar to dehumanizing numbering used in residential schools). Combined, this points to the power of identity-affirming names. How does your work explore this?
HH: The core of all my writing seems to be identity exploration, and the futility of truly capturing a place or being, whether it’s my infamous hometown, or the gender journey of a puma. I love how literary work can refract and warp our perceptions and allegiances. In my practice I tend to find some (often bizarre) constraint or conceptual approach as the engine for creation: a memoir of Charlottesville told through 20 stickers, or this feral animal voice to access and engage with the kaleidoscopic chaos of L.A. These approaches feel less authoritative, and more truthful to my limitations, which I strive to embrace.
As someone whose time in Los Angeles overlapped with P-22’s heyday, how did you experience that phenomenon, and did you have him in mind as a protagonist even then?
I always felt a kinship with the big cat, because we moved to L.A. around the same time—me coming south from my suburban grad school, him crossing the 405 freeway from the Western mountain ranges—and spent the better part of that decade roaming in parallel. I first became fixated on P-22 when he was found living under a house in my neighborhood. I thought how remarkable it is to have this apex predator chilling quietly, undiscovered, right on the fringes of L.A.’s wild urbanity.
Though this is an L.A.-focused book, the themes are universal: parental estrangement and chosen families, human destructiveness and despair, environmental disasters and climate collapse, and even the what-could-have-been of old crushes. Were these intentional or did they emerge along the way?
The lens of the lion really allowed all the environmental, societal themes to emerge organically, so I didn’t set out to thread those, just trusted they’d be present. And, of course, some larger story beats were based on P-22’s real-life journey (even the attack on a koala at the L.A. zoo). The family history, queer desire, and particular arc of vengeance were what I brought to the table and ran with, so those were the core for me as creator.
There’s also an undercurrent of exploring the tension between needs and wants when it comes to survival, personally but also from community and global perspectives. Why was it important for you to empower the lion to ultimately give in to desires?
My lion’s internal journey becomes one of accepting that, by prolonged exposure to people—our language and our encroachment on the natural world—they’re becoming a bit of a human themselves in regards to their own agency, accessing deeper desires, behaving against their own survival instincts. To quote heckit: “this is not about need / no this is want / it’s a terrible choice but I’m making it / just like a person.” It was fascinating to get inside the mind of a powerful hunter of an animal, who is still deeply out of control when it comes to their own circumstances, confused and isolated. There’s something deeply human about that struggle in this global moment. I think we all feel our impact on the world, but have no idea how to shift the destructive trajectory, to right past wrongs.
Thinking about the lion’s vocabulary that’s been gleaned from passing hikers, how do you think about oral tradition as a narrative device but also as a degraded aspect of life in the Anthropocene?
That’s a big, haunting question. Assembling meaning from fleeting, concentrated bursts of language emerges as my lion’s key mission, and curse. I felt, and feel, similarly in our era of full informational deluge, of attention spans slipping. This book is my first monologue, where I inhabit an uninterrupted first-person-singular voice throughout. In that way—and especially listening to the beautiful audiobook performance of my reader Pete Cross—I thought very much about carrying on a direct, oral storytelling tradition. A natural voice bearing witness, cataloging, and roaring out to whoever will listen and remember.
You mentioned in another interview that your editor encouraged you to add asides and digressions—like a reverie about when “all the people were gone”—as a way to add texture to the text. These are also some of the most hope-filled moments in the book, where the lion imagines a life less defined by isolation and “scare city.” What’s an unexpected wisdom that you’ve learned through writing this book?
That breathing room, gracefully allowed and encouraged by my editor Jackson Howard, was key in letting Open Throat’s potential bloom. The narrative intensity, the nonstop, was important in getting me through my drafts and getting it out there, but on the other side of the sale, it was such a gift to work with someone who prompted me to allow more air into the equation, to weave, to imagine even more. I learned that even in a succinct book like this one, there’s never a moment where it can’t sharpen or explode with focused revision.
Finally, what’s it like to have one of the most talked-about books of the summer, with an official T-shirt no less?
It’s been overwhelming! I’m attuned to and holding onto all the surreal moments of being known: Mia Farrow tweeting about The Washington Post review. Taking a Lyft home with the windows down and witnessing a group of people outside a closed Brooklyn bookstore pointing inside at my lion’s face. My U.K. publicist wore the T-shirt on the day of our London event, and a stranger approached him on the Tube to say how excited he was for Open Throat. Later that day, in a completely different neighborhood, we ran into the same stranger and I got to shake his hand. I may get burned out, but I’ll always be grateful for the booksellers and readers who’ve championed this wild story, and all the new friends I’ve made.
Indie Appalachian folk band Tina & Her Pony uses sweet harmonies, complex arrangements, and thoughtful instrumentation to queer the American folk tradition. Formed in Asheville in 2010 as a duo, the band is now led by frontwoman and classically trained musician Tina Collins. Her first solo release, Marigolds, is a fluid record about the cyclical nature of change, and of death and rebirth as initiation. The 12 songs incorporate cello, tenor banjo, and pedal steel, while dabbling in influences of pop and soul.
Thursday 8/24. Free, 6pm. Blue Moon Diner, 606 W. Main St. bluemoondiner.net
Will EvansandAngelica X take listeners on a sonic journey through the frenetic and explosive highs and simmering and tranquil lows of avant-garde jazz and indie rock. The ensemble of young musicians is fronted by Evans on trumpet, with a rotating cast of performers that includes Tim Turner on saxophone, Brett Jones on guitar, Daniel Richardson on drums, and Kris Monson on bass.
