Labor Day is a bittersweet holiday, a day off for many but also the occasion to bid summer goodbye. Out with the cool of ice cubes on the tongue, in with the earthiness of pumpkin in the belly. So long, head-in-the-clouds; hello, nose-to-the-grindstone. But before we all break out our flannels, remember that summer’s end is a gradual process, not an overnight change. Between now and when autumn really sets in is special period that’s one of the best times of year for traveling. With the high tourist season over, crowds thin considerably and cooler weather makes outside activities more comfortable. Travel at this time of year is relaxed and contemplative, even in the same spots that would have felt cluttered and stressful in July. Virginia obliges the early-fall traveler with a wide array of destinations. Three day trips follow. They include two presidential homes, those of George Washington and Woodrow Wilson – one is a major tourist mecca while the other is a little-known but delightful stopover. Also on the menu are the antebellum mountain resort at The Homestead, thriving historic districts in Alexandria and Staunton, mineral baths, European farmsteads and chamber music. Enjoy – and this time, don’t worry about bringing sunscreen.
Minerals and melodies
Relaxation abounds in two Appalachian outposts
The perfect day trip should feel like a brief departure, as though you just accidentally drove your car through a curtain into another world. You can’t force that to happen. But you can stack the odds in your favor by heading to a pair of towns – Warm Springs and Hot Springs – that have drawn travelers to their high perch in the Allegheny Mountains for centuries.
I left I-81 in Lexington and headed west on Route 39, which is also called the "Avenue of Trees." The name calls to mind giant redwoods in California, but here the trees are not so much the main attraction as part of an appealing mix: horse farms, trailheads and swimming holes on the Calfpasture River, and little villages that seem sweetly well-cared for. This is the western flank of Virginia, its most mountainous part, and 39 climbs through several passes, opening onto enormous views, before descending to an intersection with US 220, which connects Warm Springs and Hot Springs.
As their names imply, these towns are historic destinations because natural mineral springs bubble up from their hillsides. In Hot Springs, the waters have been the raison d’etre for local tourism since the 1750s, when small cabins were built to accommodate visitors. The property has evolved considerably since then: It’s now The Homestead, a sprawling resort that nearly matches the scale of the mountains that cradle it.
I strolled onto the property past the spa and gardens and got a table at an outdoor café facing the hotel. It’s a huge brick battleship of a building, with multi-storey wings radiating from a central spire that dates from the turn of the last century. I snuggled into my wicker chair, sipped lemonade and looked out through white columns at brick walkways carving through a sloped lawn.
Golf is a big deal here. Of the constant parade of well-heeled visitors passing my porch, several were observed practicing their swings. In fact, the whole resort is quite pricey. Aside from lunching, strolling and people-watching, there’s not much here for the budget traveler. Still, the hotel’s maze of carpeted corridors is worth a look, leading past shops, a theater and fine restaurants. And if you do have hundreds of dollars a night to spend on a room, activities from falconry to caving will be at your disposal. The Homestead dwarfs its hometown, but Hot Springs does have a block or two of shops and restaurants.
Five miles north, Warm Springs is a bit more down to earth, and has a more direct connection to the tourism of yore. The Jefferson Pools (named for – you guessed it! – our very own Thomas, an enthusiastic soaker at the spot in the year 1818) are enclosed by gentlemen’s and ladies’ pool houses dating from 1761 and 1836, respectively. Technically part of The Homestead, they have an entirely different feel. Simple wooden structures right on the roadside, their peeling white paint and crumbling foundations make them endearingly ramshackle. They also make the $15 fee for an hour’s soak a bit steep.
Still, if you’ve driven all the way into the mountains, you may as well splurge. The pools are a wonderful experience. I was issued a fluffy towel and a styrofoam "noodle" for floating before stepping into the eleven-sided ladies’ pool house. Nearly five feet of 98-degree water were circled by a narrow wooden catwalk, onto which opened curtained dressing rooms. The bottom of the pool was made of irregular stones, like a riverbed, and in the center of the high ceiling was a large skylight, allowing natural light to sparkle on the clear-green water. It was a delicious combination of natural elements and minimal human enhancement, and it took about three seconds to relax once I descended the staircase into the water, which is said to have restorative powers. Floating on my back and watching clouds drift over the skylight, I felt like I’d fallen completely under the spell of this quiet, pristine corner of the world.
On a side note, more natural wonders can be found in Douthat State Park. About 20 minutes from Warm Springs, the park is another highlight of the region. Its Depression-era cabins are a thoroughly charming and less expensive alternative to the inns and hotels of Hot Springs and Warm Springs. Hiking its trails or boating on Douthat Lake gives a closer look at the natural setting that, in the towns, serves more as background.
But back to Warm Springs. The day wasn’t over yet. I still had one more stop: the Garth Newel Music Center, a converted farm at the top of a precipitous driveway off US 220. Once the country home of a wealthy couple, the center now boasts a 30-year history of chamber music performances in its complex of white wooden buildings on a steep mountainside. In the summer concerts take place on Saturday and Sunday afternoons in a barnlike building called Herter Hall, and various musical programs are scheduled most weekends throughout the fall into October. With exposed beams, wooden floor and large windows, it’s a much more casual setting for classical music than the usual velvet concert hall.
When I realized I could get a glass of wine and sip it during the concert, I decided I’d landed in the most civilized spot on earth.
True to the relaxed setting, the musicians were conversational and helpfully explained some history behind the pieces they played. Their performances sparkled, especially that of a guest clarinetist, Richard Faria. While the day’s program featured lesser-known composers (Rebecca Clarke, Darius Milhaud and Ernest Chausson), most pieces are by classical music’s big names, from a variety of eras. Saturday concerts are followed by gourmet set-menu dinners, and post-summer there are occasional weekends of music throughout the year. You can even spend the night on the grounds.
On my way out of town, a gas station attendant addressed me as "Milady," the area’s last extravagant gesture of hospitality before I left. I took a different way home: Route 42, a laid-back valley road that led north into a dramatic summer storm and on to Staunton.
View from the Valley
Staunton is an appealing flipside of the coin
It’s easy to overlook a place like Staunton. It looks so unassuming from the interstate that it doesn’t exactly scream "day trip." But Staunton is, in many ways, Charlottesville’s fraternal twin: We’re so closely related that our differences become all the more intriguing. And, with the cost of living rising steadily on this side of the mountain, Charlottesville and Staunton may soon become even more intimately linked, as artists and others flee Valley-ward. Now’s the chance to get some impressions of Staunton before its hipification gets underway.
Decidedly pre-hip is the city’s main claim to fame, the Woodrow Wilson Birthplace. Yes, I know: You don’t care about Woodrow Wilson. But stay with me. The museum is worth a visit even if the Fourteen Points are the last topic you care to explore.
The president who would lead the country through World War I was born here in 1856, and spent only his first two years in this Greek Revival-style Presbyterian manse before his minister father was called to another church. The museum freezes this upper middle-class household in that antebellum moment. Because it’s neglected by the madding crowds, the excellent guided tour through its dozen rooms is an unhurried look at the Victorian age – when, for example, sewing machines were so newfangled and expensive that if you had one, as the Wilsons did, you put it in your front window so passersby could admire it.
This was a period – like our own – of rapid technological change, when plumbing and paved roads were changing society. Staunton, as a railroad town, had access to all the newest inventions. Our guide painted a vivid portrait of the Wilson’s brand-new range woodstove (so called because it actually offered a range of temperatures for cooking – imagine!) being unloaded at the station, then hauled up Gospel Hill to the manse.
After we’d been through most of the house’s dozen spacious rooms, we gathered on a second-floor balcony and looked across the street to Mary Baldwin College, named for a crafty Civil War-era headmistress who hid supplies under her hoop skirts during Union raids. Today, the school is a women’s college. Looking down, we could see the formal gardens where, in the Wilsons’ day, chickens would have roamed through vegetable patches – even wealthy city homes were mini-farms at the time. And even the well-to-do bathed only once a week, using the same tub of water for the whole family.
When the tour was done I checked out the nearby museum relating Wilson’s biography through photos, keepsakes and his 1919 Pierce-Arrow limousine. He was an interesting man – probably dyslexic, but one of the most educated presidents, serving as president of Princeton University and writing numerous books. His White House tenure from 1912-1921 saw major changes in this country: World War I made the U.S. an international power, women got the vote and the eight-hour workday became standard.
The birthplace is right in the heart of Staunton’s downtown, so it’s natural to take off on a stroll after getting your history lesson. I walked past the appealing Mary Baldwin campus, with its cluster of cream-colored buildings, then headed for Beverly Street, the main drag through Staunton’s historic downtown.
Here is where comparisons with Charlottesville become tempting. Both cities are rightly proud of their thriving, well-preserved downtowns, and both feature brick Victorian facades graced by tidy details. But whereas Charlottesville resurrected its Main Street by banning cars and cultivating the arts, Staunton’s downtown feels more down-home. Perhaps it’s the agricultural bent of its Shenandoah Valley setting, which tends more toward corn and poultry than showhorses. Gift shops along Beverly Street – of which there are many – offer antiques and dried flowers rather than the Vietnamese pottery or artisan jewelry you’d find in Charlottesville.
That’s not to say that Staunton is inhospitable toward the arts. It’s the home of the Blackfriars Playhouse, for example, and Beverly Street houses several galleries. Architecture fans will find lots to look at, from an imposing neoclassical bank to an English half-timber structure to a theater with Art Deco tile mosaics. Lots of buildings had signs of their original uses – "YMCA" or "Elks Club" – still bricked into their facades.
I poked around in funky Zelma’s, a secondhand store, then had lunch at the Pampered Palate, one of many cafés in the area. It boasts a huge menu of quiches, sandwiches and salads and a potpourri-and-antique-dolls sort of atmosphere. Again, a different brand of charm than Charlottesville offers, but no less inviting.
Down the hill in the Wharf District, another cluster of shops and restaurants lines up along the railroad tracks. The tone of this development seems just right – good smells and appealing storefronts co-exist with, rather than overpower, the romantic melancholy of the railroad station. Staunton is doing a great job of re-inventing itself without sacrificing a palpable sense of its history.
The town’s other major attraction, which I’d visited on a previous trip, is the Frontier Culture Museum, just off I-81. The idea here is to illustrate how three major immigrant cultures – German, Scotch-Irish and English – blended in the Shenandoah Valley during the 1700s (when the area was considered a frontier) to create a new American rural society. The lesson is elaborately presented: Four separate farms have been moved here from their original European and Virginian locations and reassembled along a half-mile path, which you stroll at your own pace.
From the wattle-and-daub German farmhouse to the whitewashed Irish cottage, costumed interpreters are ready to explain what they’re doing. And since these are working farms complete with livestock, there’s lots to be done: making cheese, shearing sheep, threshing grain. I appreciated that the interepreters, though very knowledgeable and friendly, spoke of their characters in the third person; I always find it awkward when interepreters say "I have to go out and saddle up the horse" as though they didn’t drive to work like everybody else.
Like other authentic historical sites, the museum can be appreciated in an academic sort of way, or as a purely sensorial experience (read: kids will like it). If history’s your thing, though, you can’t beat a visit with the granddaddy of American history, George Washington himself.
Return to fatherland
At home with the original George W.
Living in Charlottesville, you might start to believe that Thomas Jefferson founded not only UVA, but the whole darn country. And that Monticello, somehow, is the very birthplace of democracy. Well – ahem – one million annual Mount Vernon visitors beg to differ. George Washington’s home near our nation’s capital (what was it called, again?) is a major American destination.
When I visited Mount Vernon, I took my favorite route toward D.C. (20N to Route 3 east to I-95) and exited into suburbia south of the city. Sanitized housing developments march right up to George’s door, but once you arrive at Mount Vernon you know you’re in tourist-land: The license plates in the parking lot are from all over our great nation, and everybody’s sneakers are brand new.
As I waited in line to buy a ticket, a soccer mom-ish woman stopped her SUV at the curb and pulled from the backseat a curving, four-foot-long bugle. She stood by her car, played a rousing little tune to no one in particular, replaced the instrument, and drove off. As it turned out, such weirdly anachronistic scenes are the norm at Mount Vernon. Mostly because there are so many 21st-century visitors around, the 18th-century elements have to compete for the attention they deserve.
I walked uphill a short distance and came upon one end of the mansion’s wide lawn, or bowling green, which was mowed with scythes in Washington’s day. At the other end was the familiar, almost barnlike house: red roof, black shutters and white wooden siding, topped by a cupola. I joined a long line stretching backwards from the door.
Up close, it became obvious just how wealthy the Washingtons were (the money, by the way, came from Martha’s family, not George’s). Their imposing home, built gradually over the second half of the 18th century, presides over an entire little city of outbuildings, slaves’ quarters, and riverfront along the Potomac – 200 acres now, 8,000 in George’s day. There’s even a special building just to house the servants of the Washingtons’ many houseguests.
Unfortunately, during my visit the inside of the mansion was so packed with visitors that it was next to impossible to really see it. The situation wasn’t helped by Mount Vernon’s assembly-line guide system: Instead of leading a defined group through the house, guides stay put and spout a continually repeating stream of information at whoever happens to be shuffling past. Like any normal human being would, they start to sound like robots, and visitors must patch together a narrative from disconnected fragments. If this is the postmodern approach to historical interpretation, I’ll take mine the old-fashioned way.
Still, I did catch interesting glimpses: George’s deathbed, his presidential chair, the key to the Bastille (a gift from the Marquis de Lafayette). In the kitchen (a separate building, minimizing the risk of fire) wild turkeys and ducks hung from the ceiling, and beautiful stoneware jars lined up along brick shelves. Everything is restored to its 1799 appearance, the year Washington died, and is as luxurious as you’d expect.
Back outside, I joined the ranks of amateur photographers lining up to frame the most familiar view of Mount Vernon: its wide porch overlooking the Potomac. Frustrating as the house tour had been, there was still lots to see around the estate. I peeked into the smokehouse, stables, and dung repository (how often do you get to see one of those?), visited Washington’s grand tomb, and wandered the kitchen garden. Looking with interest at the pre-industrial gardening techniques used there, I reflected that Mount Vernon could accommodate deeper inquiry into lots of different topics: architecture, agriculture, slave history. Visitors who want to go beyond the surface should plan on a whole day and take advantage of the estate’s specialized walking tours, and now, in the off-season is the perfect time to do so.
The one quick way I found to gain insight into Washington the person was in the small George Washington Museum, which showed that Washington, like Jefferson, was a man of many talents. Even before the American Revolution, he was an accomplished surveyor and held several public offices. Also, unlike other founding fathers, he freed his 316 slaves upon his death. I couldn’t help but long for the days when presidents were competent outdoorsmen, social progressives and avid, self-taught scholars.
What better remedy for historical nostalgia than a little shopping? I headed north 15 minutes to Old Town Alexandria, a delightful port city that proudly preserves its colonial architecture while layering it with modern consumerism. If you have money to blow, you can do it on the King Street corridor, via Thai food, shoes, or furniture. If you don’t, you can still wander brick walks for hours admiring details of the old buildings. The city seems perfectly symbolized by one very old brick and stone structure, now jarringly occupied by a national coffee chain which shall remain nameless. The bastards.
On Alexandria’s very pleasant waterfront, the Torpedo Factory Art Center is the big draw. It’s a flashier, bigger version of Charlottesville’s McGuffey Art Center; it actually was a torpedo factory from 1918 through World War II, and now houses the studios of 160 artists who are billed as eager to chat with visitors. I felt a flush of hometown pride when I realized that McGuffey houses, on average, much better art than the more urban "Torp." Much of what I saw there was fairly commercial, and artists were actually using most of their studio space as mini-galleries.
Though I preferred McGuffey’s edgier aesthetic and paint-splattered authenticism, I still found some gems throughout the Torp’s three floors. Robert Roselle’s ceramic sculptures, for example, were highly original and magically evocative. Another plus here is that much of the art is quite affordable.
If you want to continue following Washington’s trail, you can do it in Alexandria by visiting Market Square, where City Hall is flanked by several historical attractions. Washington actually shopped at the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary, and Gadsby’s Tavern Museum dates from his era too. Both offer tours.
Any of the above three trips make for a great one-day getaway, and plenty of other fantastic sights and scenes can be found across Central Virginia. Now’s the time to grab a map, get in the car, and get away.