If you think the devil is in the details, you’re not alone: Local events rental firm Eventide strongly agrees. For your special day, these folks want the décor, from bowers to umbrellas, to fit your vision. Whether it’s tables and chairs, linen, cutlery and glassware, service trays, or tents, the firm provides a range of choices on … well, everything.
Who knew there were nine kinds of ice troughs, more than three dozen varieties of platters (wood, ceramic, melamine, and metal), and 21 options for baskets? But Eventide’s objective isn’t to overwhelm you with choices—it’s to provide a wonderfully specific, curated setting for your occasion. The firm’s specialty is its customized wood pieces: bars, bowers, canopies, serving pieces and platters, and decorative items.
When it comes to custom bars, Eventide offers three customizable options. The Belmont features a semi-circular or circular bar, which can be adapted to your wedding’s look/color scheme with variations in color, panels, and countertop—and then accessorized with shelving, food displays, and umbrellas. The more casual Carleton is a two-server bar with more than 20 variations of front panels and countertops to fit your setting, as well as built-ins to provide everything the bartenders need. The rustic Avon features a striking restored wooden canoe with optional display stands, serving as the centerpiece for buffets of charcuterie, breakfast, or desserts.
Eventide was launched about two years ago, as a sister company of The Catering Outfit, a local boutique culinary design firm started in 1999 by executive chef Walter Slawski. While the rental firm started out handling wedding events, it’s starting to build a clientele in corporate events and private parties as well. Eventide just recently moved into a larger warehouse space, and now has a dozen employees.
Charlottesville native Sheri Scaminaci, Eventide’s rental director and warehouse manager, has “been here since the beginning,” she says. With a background that includes restaurants, catering, and carpentry, she would seem to have been custom designed for her job, which includes everything from consulting with planners, designers, and couples to going out on deliveries. And, her father runs the firm’s woodshop, designing and constructing many of its custom products.
Eventide’s current client mix is about 50 percent planners (they have worked with Hannah Rose Design, Day by Fay, Magnum Opus Events, and several others around town) and 50 percent individuals and their designers. “We’re always open to your ideas,” says Scaminaci.
While Eventide doesn’t do total wedding planning, its services are designed to mesh seamlessly with the logistics of your party. Luckily, Scaminaci’s background also includes volunteer firefighting—so she can handle just about anything. “Each event can get to be a lot of work,” she says, “but I love it.”
Choosing a life partner is a really big decision. Having a wedding, on the other hand, is a hundred smaller ones. And for many couples, the primary decision is ‘where?’ Which brings up the question of a destination wedding—how do you decide?
“The first question is, why are you thinking of a particular destination?” says planner Mary Andrews, principal of Mary Elizabeth Events (just back from her own wedding in Tuscany). “Does that place mean something special to the two of you? Or are you seeking an experience you’ll share with you guests? Or do you want a getaway?”
Part of that decision is considering who you want to share in your special day. “A destination wedding may mean lots of people you have invited won’t be able to attend,” Andrews points out. You should consider your guests’ ability to travel (for example, elderly family members or pregnant friends), as well as their financial situation.
One way to include a wider group in your big day, says Andrews, is to hold wedding-related events (such as the bridal shower, or a pre- or post-wedding reception) locally. Or you could borrow a pandemic tactic: livestreaming or video-recording the ceremony and/or part of the reception, like the speeches and the father-daughter dance.
If you’ve decided on a destination wedding, prepare for more decisions. Do you want an all-inclusive resort that provides transportation to and from the airport, accommodations for your guests, a space for the ceremony, and facilities for the rehearsal dinner, post-wedding reception/dinner, and the next-day breakfast or brunch? That kind of convenience is attractive, but usually more costly for both you and your guests.
A more casual, less-structured approach may enable your guests to save money (on hotel rooms, for instance). But the destination you have chosen is key—an all-inclusive resort may be more sensible if you are gathering in the Costa Rican rainforest, while if you’re getting married inside the Eiffel Tower, guests can likely find their own accommodations. Another way to hold costs down is to plan for the off-season, or hold your events midweek.
As with any wedding, “the guest count is one big factor in your costs,” Andrews says. Since guests are paying for airfare and accommodations, they expect you to provide the event meals. Here, your style could help you keep to your budget—having a reception rather than a sit-down dinner, or providing buffet breakfast and a trip to a local winery instead of a formal brunch. And don’t forget to factor in the local economy, everything from hotel rooms to meals, entertainment, and food taxes (for example, VAT in Italy is 22 percent).
Then there are the practical details to consider. If a health emergency arises, are there medical facilities nearby? Do you want a friend to officiate at your wedding? If so, check out the local regulations first thing; in many places, Andrews points out, if you aren’t getting married in a church, you have to marry in a registry office first. And be realistic—is it safe for your guests to travel there?
Now you’re really down to nuts and bolts: Will your guests need a visa or vaccinations? Do they all have current passports or REAL ID cards? What about dietary restrictions (not all destinations have kosher or halal caterers)? How will the bridal party get their dresses there? (As for gifts, Andrews suggest that for a destination wedding, your invitation should make clear gifts are optional, or should be sent to the couple’s address rather than brought to the wedding.)
By this point, it’s clear that one thing you will need is a wedding or event planner who has experience in your destination. This can be someone local (logistically easier, and more likely to understand expectations) or someone who is actually on site at the destination, although that person may be harder to reach given time zones. Another option, Andrews points out; The venue you choose may have relationships with local event consultants.
“People have big dreams [about their wedding day,]” she says. “The challenge is managing those dreams versus reality.” But it can be done. “You need a good understanding of what you want and what’s needed—and a good Plan B,” says Andrews.
Draft horse Big John stands at an imposing 20 hands tall (that’s 6'8"). Like Colby, he lives on the farm as an “organization ambassador,” and won’t be put up for adoption. Photo by Tristan Williams.
Colby’s Crew started with one horse and one decision from the heart.
Colby, a 4-year-old chestnut stallion with white markings, had run out of options. Allison (Ally) Smith, an experienced equestrian studying nursing and training horses on the side, saw an online post about him: “Bound for slaughter. Needs experienced handler.”
“He was flashy and beautiful, and they were only asking $875,” Ally recalls. She bought him, sight unseen.
Ally’s wife Olivia, who is active on social media, posted a video on Facebook of Colby in the kill pen (where animals are held before being shipped to slaughter). “This was July 2020, the middle of the pandemic, when TikTok was just taking off,” she says, “and the video blew up.”
Thirty days later, the shipper arrived at Ally’s family’s Warrenton farm with Colby. The horse was spirited, she had been told; in reality, he was almost feral. The truck driver was afraid to go into the van, so Ally walked in with a lead rope and brought Colby out. “The shipper’s mouth dropped open,” Olivia recalls. “Ally was yelling at her father, ‘Close the gate! Close the gate!’ because she knew if Colby got loose in the field we’d never catch him.”
That’s when Ally turned to Olivia and said, “I’m going to ride him.”
Ally went out to the paddock 10 times a day, working to build Colby’s trust. He was in poor condition and had clearly been mistreated, kicking and biting at any touch. But Ally’s patience and calm won out, as she and Colby developed a deep bond. Within a month he was letting her ride him. Olivia filmed and posted the whole process, and created an internet phenom. By early 2021, Ally and Olivia decided to take on another rescue; then came two more. And then they met Big John.
“We went to an auction in West Virginia one weekend in April 2021,” Ally recalls. “We were just going to look, strolling around, and I went by this stall and said, ‘Oh my God!’ I hadn’t been around draft horses before—this guy didn’t even fit in the stall.” She ran to get her wife, and when they came back a girl was riding Big John around.
Ally Smith and Colby, the horse she rescued in 2020, who later became an internet phenom. Photo by Tristan Williams.
“I looked up, and up, and up,” Olivia says. (Big John is a Belgian, the second-largest draft breed, and he’s 20 hands—which is 6’8″ at the shoulder.) “He was so lame, and he was exhausted. His feet were in terrible shape, he had scars, he had sores, but he was trying to do whatever was asked of him.”
This time it was Olivia who said, “I’m going to buy that horse.”
She started posting Big John videos and pleas for donations, and her online followers responded: “We had $5,000 pledged in 15 minutes.” Fortunately, their trailer was large enough for Big John (“I was scared at first, but he was so gentle,” says Ally), and a neighbor had a field available for his quarantine. When he was released into the field, the giant Belgian who had been worked almost to death took a long roll and then a good look around. “Then he kind of collapsed,” recalls Olivia. “He had been drugged to get him through the auction.”
That was when the pair decided they wanted to save horses that had reached the bottom.
“We hadn’t started out thinking of this as a career,” Olivia says. “But the internet was pushing us along, saying, ‘You need to start a 501(c)(3).’” Colby’s Crew Rescue was founded in 2021, and in 2022 the couple moved to Keswick to build the organization, while Ally continues her graduate nursing studies at UVA. This year CCR saved more than 600 animals, buying them before slaughter or through owner surrenders.
The two women began going to kill pens as well. They never knew what they would find there. They once discovered 13 Belgians waiting to be shipped. (Draft horses bring a good price when you’re selling meat by the pound.)
Olivia had had it. “I said, ‘We’re buying all of them.’ I went online and stayed online until we had raised enough to pay for the first four to six months of care for every one of those horses.”
A young mare facing severe medical issues, Sterling recently underwent eye and dental surgery. Photo by Tristan Williams.
That has become CCR’s methodology. Getting a rescue horse from purchase through quarantine, vet evaluation and routine treatment, rehabilitation, and training costs on average $4,500; CCR’s online ask is calculated to cover both the animal’s purchase price and its maintenance cost through adoption. Clearly, that figure can increase substantially if the animal has serious injuries or illness, is pregnant, or needs extensive training, so CCR also charges an adoption fee. Still, some animals are just not suitable for adoption, and at any one time, CCR has about 50 animals in sanctuary farms, whether for hospice or retirement. And then there are the 10 or so equines that will stay at CCR as “organization ambassadors”—like Colby and Big John.
Equine rescue, while heartwarming, takes an enormous amount of labor and expert help. CCR works closely with vets at Virginia Tech’s Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg, Virginia, and the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center. (One of the largest kill pens is in New Holland, Pennsylvania, close to Lancaster and Amish country, where a large percentage of the rescue animals come.)
CCR arranges for a vet to be on site to triage animals as soon as they are purchased. Unless they need emergency care, the animals are sent to one of five quarantine farms CCR contracts with for 60 to 90 days of quarantine and further evaluation. If humane euthanasia is necessary, it’s done by a licensed vet.
Every animal gets a vet check weekly (more often if needed); a farrier visit every six weeks for hoof care; and a full wellness check including grooming and lots of love every day. Once it’s fit, the animal is brought to the Keswick facility to be evaluated by Ally and Olivia, who assign the horses to one of CCR’s network of trainers for at least 30 days of training to get them ready for adoption.
Every CCR adopter gets vetted, including home photos and veterinarian references. The adoption contract is strict. Every animal has been microchipped, and will be tracked by CCR; monthly photo updates are required; the adopter has to keep CCR informed of any sale or transfer; and there’s a $10,000 penalty for breaking the contract. For its part, CCR will take back any animal for any reason, and if that animal requires surgery or humane euthanasia, CCR will help cover the cost.
Every Colby’s Crew Rescue horse gets a vet check weekly, a farrier visit for hoof care, and a full wellness check before being brought to the Keswick facility to be evaluated by Ally and Olivia. Photo by Tristan Williams.
Ally’s equine expertise and ability to bond with weary, sick, and traumatized animals is at the heart of Colby’s Crew, while Olivia’s impressive social media skills and ability to capture the pathos and triumphs of its work have made CCR famous. The Crew has almost 4 million followers on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram who donate, share, and devotedly follow the rescued horses. “We raise all our money online, through donations—we don’t do solicitations, we don’t have corporate sponsors,” says Olivia. “Ninety-five percent of the money we take in goes back into buying and caring for our rescues.”
CCR gets some online criticism claiming it is supporting kill pens by buying from them, but the couple doesn’t see it that way. They see their job as saving sentient beings that deserve better than a truck ride to a cruel death. Eliminating the slaughter pipeline will likely take public pressure and political action; last year, the U.S. House of Representatives considered a bill to ban equine slaughter or export for human consumption, and this year animal advocates in Canada are pushing for a ban on the export of live horses for food.
Animal-lovers, of course, know that CCR’s equines are actually rescued. Online scammers post kill-pen photos with pleas for donations to “save this animal” when the horse has already been sold, or killed, or never existed.
Happily, in the last few years CCR has built an enormous community that is invested in Colby, Big John, and all their equine friends. Sure, these fans respond to calls for money—but they also clamor for updates on Sterling, a young mare facing severe medical issues; on Dudley, the newborn donkey who needed emergency care for deformed legs; and Onyx, the big black draft mule whose brother Obsidian was rescued as well. Visitors and adopters who come to the Keswick farm ask to say hello to Big John and his understudy, Big Sam, who is only 18 hands (6′ tall). And they are excited to see each and every animal that will be rescued next.
… It takes a village
Perhaps this area’s best-known equine rescue is Hope’s Legacy, also named for a special horse. “Hope was an off-the-track thoroughbred,” says Maya Proulx, Hope’s Legacy executive director. “She’d been off the track only six months, and I was her fifth owner. She was one of the sweetest mares I ever met.” The organization’s name honors Hope and all the horses that might easily have been written off.
A Nelson County native and lifelong horse person, Proulx founded Hope’s Legacy as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2008. All its rescue animals have been donated. About half are “owner surrenders,” animals at risk of being auctioned off when their owners die, or face serious illness or financial setbacks, while the rest have been seized by law enforcement in cases of neglect or abuse.
“Most animal control offices don’t have facilities for large animals,” Proulx says, “so if there are horses involved, they have to scramble. I wanted to serve as a resource for them.” Hope’s Legacy has taken in neglected animals from the 2015 Peaceable Farm raid in Orange County; a 2016 Nottoway County seizure that included pregnant mares; and a 2023 Shenandoah County case involving 98 neglected thoroughbreds.
The organization also runs twice-yearly training sessions that are open to animal control officers from all over the state. “Virginia has no requirement for equine training for these people, and many don’t know anything about handling horses,” says Proulx.
At the moment, Hope’s Legacy has 74 horses in rescue—35 living on its 172-acre primary farm in Afton, and the rest in foster homes. Proulx credits the organization’s network of vets, fosterers, and trainers, as well as “120 incredibly dedicated volunteers” who do everything from feeding (two shifts every day) and barn care, to working with the horses on being haltered, led, and handled. One of the feeding shift volunteers has fundraising experience, and now works full-time raising money for Hope’s Legacy and its equines.
Hope’s Legacy runs a variety of activities to build community awareness and generate donations, as well as educational programs for kids (including the popular Books at the Barn). “Part of our mission is to end neglect and abuse,” says Proulx, “and that starts with education.”
“We weren’t looking to move,” recalls Britt Davis. It was April 2019, the Davises had recently renovated the kitchen in their house in Ivy, and Davis had been away on a trip. “When my husband picked me up at the airport, he said he had something to show me and drove straight to this house. We came around the corner, I saw this place, and that was it.”
“This place” is a 19th-century farmhouse on 16 acres in Greenwood. “I’d always dreamed about living in an old white farmhouse,” says Davis, so the house—built in the 1840s, added to in several stages, and still full of rural character—was perfect.
Well, almost. It did have five bedrooms, helpful since the Davises have four young children. It did have a pool and pool house, built in the 1990s. It did have a barn—Davis’ husband Jared, a pain management physician, has an avocation for farming (chickens, pigs, goats, and bees). The house and yard were large enough for entertaining (the Davises love to have friends over).
Photo: Stephen Barling
But the layout of the first floor didn’t really work, and the interior “was really stuck in the ’90s,” Davis says. Luckily, she is also a painter and interior designer (her firm is called Art & Adorn), so the Davises began working with architect John Voight and builder Castillo Construction to update the house while keeping its historic character.
In the farmhouse’s spacious foyer, creamy white walls show off the original beams that have been stripped and refinished, and the oak flooring is original. Along one wall is a 10′-long spindle bench that Davis found in a country antique store in Maine. In the center is a vintage round wood pedestal table, holding one of Davis’ own free-form flower arrangements and a 1935 book about local historic houses—including a page about their house having been a Presbyterian girls’ school and the first farm to grow Albemarle Pippin apples.
Photo: Stephen Barling
The dining room next to the foyer mixes old and new, with original beams and oak flooring, but modern lighting (including a lovely new-old Marigot chandelier from Visual Comfort) that still fits the house’s character. The walls and ceiling are papered with a William Morris tapestry-like design called The Brook, a pattern that is 160 years old, almost exactly the age of the farmhouse.
The next room, originally a bedroom that was then used as a living room, has been converted into the heart-of-the-home kitchen. The front wall features a seven-burner Lacanche stove, framed by two window seats. In the center is a large island made with wood from a walnut tree found on the property, topped with Arabescato Carrara marble (this stone, and the soapstone counters and backsplashes, are custom from Albemarle Stoneworks). The vintage-looking Heirloom Gasolier lights over the island are from Devol, as are other lights and fixtures.
Photo: Stephen Barling
Davis and Voight strove to make sure all this modern convenience and style wouldn’t outweigh the house’s historic character. The kitchen beams, of reclaimed wood, have been milled to match the originals; the reclaimed-wood flooring is from The HeartPine Company. The original coal-burning fireplace (the house has 12 of them) has been fitted with a modern wood stove, and behind the firewood niche some of the house’s original brickwork has been left exposed.
Running along the back side of the original farmhouse was a screened porch that was later enclosed as a kitchen, and renovating this into a working/storage space that Davis calls “the scullery” was her three-year pandemic project. The counters and cabinets are more walnut from their own tree, and the antique terracotta floor tiles are French. While this space is separated from the kitchen with a wall of interior windows, the two areas are unified with the same warm gray-green (Benjamin Moore Sandy Hook).
Built in at one end of the scullery is a floor-to-ceiling storage cabinet, built by Jeff Cherry of Creative Construction. At the other end, just off the back entry/mud room where Davis has her flower-arranging space, is a breakfast area; using another William Morris design called Blackthorn for both walls and ceiling helps create that cozy “nook” feeling.
On the other side of the house, left of the foyer, is a room a 1970s resident had paneled in a warm dark wood. This room (“the parlor”) shows the eclectic taste that is Davis’ hallmark—a Federal eagle convex mirror over the fireplace, 19th century-style landscape paintings and some of her own abstract oils, a round marble-topped side table from Artful Lodger, and a huge wood-block coffee table from Green Front.
Photo: Stephen Barling
Beyond is the study, a small room Davis has recently painted with walls and ceiling in terracotta. Past that is the 1990s addition, which houses a bedroom and a fieldstone-walled screened porch; upstairs is the primary bedroom suite. The main house’s second floor has the other three bedrooms and the kids’ bath/laundry room.
The result is a home that feels both of the past and of the present. The house still has its authentic touches: the beamed ceilings, the heart pine flooring upstairs, the cubbyhole spaces under the stairs and in the attic. But the home isn’t meant to be a period re-creation. The rugs on the wood floors are one-of-a-kind pieces from Holdingforth, a local supplier of quality imported textiles. Davis’ go-to décor stores are Eternal Attic and Patina in Charlottesville, Greenwood Antiques, and Revival in Richmond. The artwork comes from the family’s travels, as well as from local women artists and Davis herself.
And then there are the pieces that tell the Davis family history. The teacups in the larder are from the couple’s respective grandparents; the breakfast table is maple from one of the farm’s trees, mounted on a trestle that has been in Davis’ family for generations; a dainty secretary in the parlor belonged to her great-grandmother. Davis has boxes of large framed black-and-white photos by Amy Nicole Photography documenting their children’s growth—she just needs to find the time to display them in the stairwell, in between painting and decorating and entertaining and school shuttles. But then, that’s part of family history, too.
Daniel and Meghan Edwards dreamed of building their own home. As committed environmentalists, they wanted it to be both livable and sustainable. Their budget was minimal, their commitment unwavering, and after almost 10 years, they have settled outside Stanardsville on their own little patch of land—in a home built of earth.
“It’s is the first compressed earth block house in the state of Virginia,” says Meghan proudly.
“We wanted to build sustainably,” says Daniel, “to make an impact on the world. We looked at Earthship homes and cob houses, but CEB was the best solution.” Its advantages: Earth block is cost-effective and energy-efficient to construct; contains no toxic materials; reduces energy costs for heating and cooling; and resists rain, rot, and natural disasters.
Compressed earth blocks are the size of bricks but made of sifted subsoil with a little binding agent, and they are shaped like LEGOs, only larger (the “interlocking” part removes the need for mortar). The Edwardses made all blocks they used out of the soil they excavated on site—so, no carbon emissions from transportation.
The block walls are reinforced with steel rebar, while the structure’s front and side walls have what Daniel calls “buttresses” (external block columns for additional strength), and the rear of the house is built back into the hillside. The insulation on the exterior is sealed with earth-toned stucco that gives the house a Taos Pueblo look—or, with its grassy living roof and garden of plants and wildflowers, the house could just as easily be in Hobbiton.
Photo: Stephen Barling
Building this home was not only an environmental statement, but also a four-year DIY project. Daniel, who has a background in project management and is also a personal trainer, did almost all the building himself—during which his training background really helped. He’s also quick to credit the support the couple got from family and friends: “Meghan’s father helped, my father did all of the electrical work, and our mothers watched the kids while we were working.”
Daniel learned how to run an excavator, and how to safely take down the trees that had to be removed. When he couldn’t find a local CEB supplier, he rented a compressing machine and operated it himself. “I absorbed as much from other people as I could,” he recalls, “but doing anything new takes four times longer—all these variables come up, and then of course you make mistakes.” (Early block efforts that didn’t quite make the grade have been used for landscaping.)
Daniel worked with an engineer to make sure the structure was strong enough, and with an architect to make sure the house met permitting requirements. Meanwhile Meghan was running her own eco-friendly swimwear business (she sold it in 2020); helping Daniel on site; and having two children (a great motivator, says Daniel. “It made me want to get the house finished.”) Their third child was born in 2022, two weeks after the family moved into their new home.
Inside, the Edwards’ house is one large central space with exposed earth-block walls, an open structural steel roof, modern appliances, a huge concrete kitchen island (“my command center,” says Meghan); and comfy sitting and dining areas. “Our friends tell us we look like a Starbucks,” she says.
The light tan of the unfinished block walls gives the interior a warm, cozy feeling, and the large windows facing southeast provide lots of light. The hand-rammed earthcrete floor, finished with a cement-based self-leveler, is smooth for bare feet. Decorating was Meghan’s project. Most of their furnishings—soft sofas, colorful rugs and hangings, wooden-slat doors, even the bathroom vanities—are secondhand or salvaged, as part of the couple’s environmental ethic.
On each side of the main room are doorways to the bedrooms, office, and bathrooms. At 1,350 square feet, the house is not large, but with the open layout and the robust front yard, it has everything the young family needs. While Daniel laid the two patios, Meghan did all the landscaping; the flowers beds are rimmed with tan quartz stones removed in the excavation, and she’s working to fill out the garden with native and salvaged plants. Next year: a rooftop vegetable garden with a chicken coop.
Daniel and Meghan are delighted with their CEB home. One bedroom may eventually be a little small for three children, but “for now, the kids are always in the big room with me—or outside,” says Meghan. They may add another room later, or convert her office space. The couple even talks about what they would do if they were to build another CEB home: “Next time we’d put the HVAC into the walls … next time, we might make the roof a block dome instead of steel beams.” Clearly, they are up for the challenge.
When Peter Hunter was growing up in Cismont, his father would take him out driving along the back roads in the Southwest Mountains, where the young boy felt drawn to the old derelict houses scattered through those woods and fields. Years later, Peter took his son Blake along on his drives through the Blue Ridge and the Shenandoah, searching for the same abandoned treasures. Now Peter and Blake are the go-to team for reclaiming a taste of the past.
Peter’s love of reclaiming old materials began with salvaging run-down or derelict buildings; “I learned to build by unbuilding,” he says. As a young man, he lived in an abandoned house and fixed it up; over the next decade he worked for a cabinet-maker and a stonemason, and on new construction to gain those skills as well. He bought 20 acres in Batesville, using it to store the salvaged materials he was collecting all over central Virginia. After marrying his wife Debbie, Peter built a home on his land out of an old cabin from a friend’s property and materials he’d salvaged, including a homestead chimney and chestnut logs from a livestock pen on his property. “I was gathering these great materials—unbelievable craftsmanship, and the skills that were passed down. And I couldn’t afford to buy new materials, so …”
By the late 1980s, Peter was becoming well-known for his cabin restorations—and on the side, playing in a band called Cabin Fever. “Back then, there were no restoration stores,” he recalls. “But people had the money [to pay for restoration], and there was a sense … a love for old things.”
Soon Peter was tapping in to a community of people interested in reclaiming and reusing. “Yes, you need the materials,” he says, “but you also need the craftsmanship, and the environment in which you’re allowed to do it.” He could have built a company just doing restorations, but Peter wanted to keep his hands in the work, and train the next generation. “I want to share what I know,” he says, “and I can spot a young person who has the feel for it.”
“He’s constantly training, to pass the knowledge on,” says Blake—who knows first-hand. At age 11, Blake started helping his father out, going on salvage trips and gathering materials. “I remember we had these big piles of slate [shingles],” he says. “We were taking the slate off a UVA frat house roof, getting in before it was demolished.” Blake worked for his father every summer through high school, and during a gap year before college built his first stonework chimney. (“It’s still standing,” he says with a grin.)
But Blake had also inherited another of his father’s passions: “I was going to be a musician.” He went to music school in Boston, coming back every summer to make money working for his father. After graduation, Blake and his band, Trees on Fire, came to Charlottesville to live in a cabin and work for Peter—and stayed. Blake is still playing gigs around Charlottesville, now with a group called The Gatherers, but he’s also launched his own business, Feather Stoneworks.
Father and son have found that doing what they love, creating something both old and new out of historic materials, requires a special kind of client—someone who loves craftsmanship, and has both the money and the time to have the job done right. One client who shares his passion is local software engineer Matt Lucas; he brought the Hunters in on the restoration of his family’s 19th-century house in Free Union a decade ago, and has had them working since on projects from a Revolutionary-era cabin in Crozet to a barn restoration. “It’s a really good marriage,” says Peter—after all, Lucas is a dedicated salvager, with his own barn full of historic building materials.
These days, Peter is consulting on design and construction, while Blake wants to incorporate what he’s learned about craftsmanship into his stoneworking and design firm. “I hope to continue moving towards building more creative outdoor living space designs with stone, while incorporating reclaimed material and a traditional design aesthetic,” he says.
And there’s no question the old skills are still needed. A dry-laid stone wall Blake recently built along a section of creek in downtown Batesville, with steps up to a backyard patio, withstood the summer flooding after Tropical Storm Debby. Blake’s pretty proud of that work—it’s built to last a long time.
It’s late afternoon on a soccer field, at the tail end of summer. The sinking sun is casting long shadows, and the last of the mosquitoes are homing in on anything with blood. But the women on the field don’t notice the little buzzers; they’re concentrating on their drills.
Running, passing, tackling—but this game is played with a ball shaped like a honeydew melon, and passing is two-handed, underhand, always backward. To tackle, two arms full-body grab the ball carrier. The women also practice binding (a following teammate leans a shoulder into the ball-carrier’s hip) to drive through an opponent. Then three players use these skills to get around two opponents. “Call for the ball! Talk to each other!” yells Coach Clare O’Reilly. Water break, and some work on ruck skills before actual playing time.
No, you are not in Australia. This is Charlottesville, and you’re watching the Blue Ridge Bears, our local women’s rugby club.
Women’s rugby is having a big moment. If you paid attention to the Paris Olympics, you likely heard about the American women’s rugby sevens team beating powerhouse Australia to win bronze, with a heart-stopping last-minute full-field run to goal by center Alex Sedrick. And you probably saw a host of social media posts from Team USA’s center Ilona Maher promoting rugby, strong women, and body positivity. Not many women’s rugby players have been contestants on “Dancing With the Stars,” or cover models for Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue, but Maher has the attitude—and the killer red lipstick—to pull it off.
“As soon as the Olympics started, our email blew up,” says Blue Ridge Bears Club Administrator Angela Sorrentino. “We got a huge influx of players—we have from 20 to 30 members now.”
Charlottesville’s women’s rugby team is growing in size—and power. Photo by Tristan Williams.
But it’s not just Maher and the medal. Rugby, and women’s rugby in particular, has been among the fastest-growing sports for the last decade, both in the USA and worldwide. In 2019, World Rugby launched a global campaign promoting young female players as “Unstoppables,” and developed a toolkit called Try and Stop Us to help clubs drive recruitment. As of last year, according to World Rugby, the number of active registered female players increased by 34 percent, to just under 320,000; the number of female participants (someone who has tried rugby in school programs or clubs) grew by 52 percent, to more than 1.3 million young women and girls.
In the U.S., the growth of collegiate women’s rugby in the 1970s (helped by Title IX) led to the formation of a U.S. national team in 1987. Nicknamed the Eagles, the team won the inaugural 1991 Women’s World Cup, and finished second in the two subsequent World Cups. More recently, high-profile events like the Olympics have helped drive interest in the sport.
Another factor has been the increasing sense of empowerment among young girls and women—the feeling that they can be big, strong, athletic, and at home with it. UVA women’s rugby Head Coach Nancy Kechner, who began playing rugby at UVA and has been a volunteer coach for the club there for 27 years, calls it “the most empowering sport for women.”
“Its rules are exactly the same as for the men’s game,” she says. “It’s for women who want to do something different, and challenge themselves. This game is all about flow, about moving as one, and there’s a lot of decision-making on the fly.”
What draws players to the Bears, Sorrentino says, is the opportunity to keep playing a team sport into their post-academic lives. “It may seem kind of crazy to start with rugby—there’s a lot of misconceptions about it. But for rugby, physical attributes don’t really matter. Small players can be fast, and really good at tackling; some large players may think they can’t run, but there’s a place for everyone.”
No question, though, that rugby is a contact sport. O’Reilly stresses that many of the drills, and the laws (rugby has laws instead of rules, she says, because they are “open to interpretation”) are focused on safety. Tackling a ball player above the sternum, or shoving instead of grabbing with the arm, is a penalty. And there is no blocking or running interference like there is in football. Kechner, who has coached O’Reilly and several other Bears players, says rugby is about “contact, not collision.”
The teams form a scrum to restart play during their September 28 game (the Bears’ first win of the season). Photo by Tristan Williams.
For many players, rugby’s free-form nature is part of its appeal. Teams can play on a football field or soccer pitch, and there’s no special equipment beyond a mouth guard, cleats, and maybe a scrum cap. There are two versions: rugby sevens (seven on a side, playing seven-minute halves) and rugby 15s (15 on a side, playing 40-minute halves). Players are basically forwards or backs—with some interesting specialty names like scrum-half, hooker, and loosehead or tighthead props—but there’s no hierarchy, and any player can score. The ball is always in play, and the game only stops for penalties, out of bounds, and serious injuries—after which most players get bandaged up and go back in.
O’Reilly is a case in point. On the evening that I observe practice, she has an inch or so of stitches near her eye. “Yeah, I got injured,” she says, no big deal—apparently her eye and a teammate’s hand ended up near the ball at the same time. But none of the women at practice seem too worried about injuries.
The team is a real mix. Almost everyone here tonight has participated in sports for most of their lives, but only seven have played rugby before, four of them at UVA. They range in age from early 20s to early 50s, from tall to short, from thin to stocky. There are plenty of tattoos and a good bit of brightly dyed hair, and T-shirts ranging from “Ireland Rugby” and “Cape Fear Sevens” to “Queen City Unity” (a Staunton-based nonprofit) and “National Geographic.”
Bears player Kelly Graves, 22, participated in a range of sports in high school: cross country, track, softball. She started playing rugby at Christopher Newport University. “My sister played rugby, and I wanted to try it, but CNU didn’t have a women’s rugby team until my sophomore year,” she recalls. When she moved to Charlottesville after graduating last December, she was happy to find the Bears. “This is the most inclusive sport,” Graves says enthusiastically. “There’s a place for everybody, literally. You need sprinters, you need tacklers. Taller people can be harder to tackle, and playing the sidelines you need to be faster.”
Saoirse Teevan-Kamhawi, 23, grew up participating in tennis, karate, and rowing, and when she came to UVA, a colleague in her running club got Teevan-Kamhawi into rugby. She’s now working in Harrisonburg, where there’s no rugby club, so she was excited to find the Bears. “It’s a great group,” she says. “People who play rugby are just the nicest; they’re easy to be around. In rugby, you have to be willing to look a little silly and fall on your face sometimes—and we teach people how to fall. But you also have to be willing to put your heart into it. The whole game is about supporting your fellow players.”
Courtney Russ, 37, is a little older than her club mates but found the Bears for similar reasons. An athlete all through school—soccer in high school, field hockey in college—she says she “was looking for a team sport, and found this team just before the [August] call for new players. I’m new to Charlottesville, and was looking for a way to meet people.” (The group makes an effort to socialize—beers, bowling, group workouts.) As a beginning player, Russ appreciates O’Reilly and fellow coach Taylor Torro focusing on skill development: “They’re good about pairing a new person with a veteran.” The best part? “Rugby is a different way to use your body. Everyone finds a way to feel powerful and strong.”
UVA women’s rugby Head Coach Nancy Kechner says rugby is about “contact, not collision.” Photo by Tristan Williams.
That’s the goal of another recent recruit, Jen Truslow. At 53, she is the oldest Bear, but she’s not new to rugby. She was a high school exchange student in Australia, and learned Aussie rules rugby there, but when she came back to the United States, there was nowhere to play. “When I was a kid, women’s sports were second-tier,” she recalls. “No one encouraged me, girls weren’t trained to be aggressive.” But she kept her interest in the game, and after a recent weight loss, “I was feeling good and decided to try it—I’m not getting any younger—and these women have been kind and welcoming,” Truslow says, as she heads out for more drills after the water break. “And I’m pretty tough!”
Some athletes who started playing rugby in college found other college sports too competitive—meaning it was hard to get on a team because there were so many skilled players that coaches could afford to make cuts. After college, outlets are limited, especially for team sports. And full-time employment doesn’t leave a lot of hours for athletics. But all these women want to stay active, and enjoy the social interaction of being on a team. The club welcomes all comers 18 years and older. There’s a rookie skills clinic every month, and no one gets cut.
Sorrentino, who started playing rugby in 2017 at college in upstate New York, came to Charlottesville in 2021 for an internship at UVA (she’s a pediatric dietitian). She decided to stay, and began looking for a rugby club. At that point, just after the pandemic, the Bears were inactive, and Sorrentino took on reviving the club. Last year, she recruited another player to be social media director. As of this year, the Bears are an official nonprofit, and players will start paying dues to support the outfit.
The Virginia Rugby Football Club, Charlottesville’s men’s rugby group—founded in the 1960s, it’s “the oldest rugby club south of the Mason-Dixon line,” according to its Facebook page—has been supportive, Sorrentino says,
“When we were getting started, they invited us over to practice with them, which was nice but a little intimidating,” she says. The Bears now use the same practice field as VRFC, behind the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1827, two evenings a week.
The Bears are still in the building phase, as are other clubs in the region. The group schedules scrimmages and friendly games with the women’s teams from UVA and Virginia Commonwealth University, as well as clubs from Richmond and Raleigh, North Carolina. They also play in local tournaments—the Cville Sevens last June, and the Christmas Sevens tournament in Glen Allen. O’Reilly is excited because the influx of players means the Bears may be able to field a team to play rugby 15s next year.
New players are always welcome to come out for the monthly skills session—if you’d rather watch than play, fans are welcome too. And get ready: March 2025 will see the launch of Women’s Elite Rugby, the first U.S. professional women’s rugby league, followed by the Women’s Rugby World Cup in England in August. In the meantime, Sorrentino is looking for a few good Bears sponsors. Consider having your organization’s logo on the backs of these strong women. As Kechner said about Ilona Maher, “She’s a great role model—one big gorgeous badass!”
Is it a gourmet shop? A neighborhood grocery? A stop-by convenience store? A deli? A gift store? A coffee shop? A lunch spot? Foods of All Nations is all these things—and a Charlottesville institution that’s has been serving local customers for almost 70 years.
Stroll through Foods and you’ll find a range of quality produce and birthday cards, fresh sushi and baby gifts, a bottle of wine and dish soap, handmade chocolates and pet food, MarieBette baked goods and Caspari paper products. The store covers all these categories because its customer base runs the gamut, heavily influenced by its location next to UVA and on the west side’s main route in and out of town.
“We see lots of UVA athletes and students, faculty on their way home from UVA, parents picking up their kids from St. Anne’s-Belfield, and then there’s the Farmington/Bellair/Boars Head crowd,” says Butch Brown, Foods’ interim store manager. The outdoor seating is mobbed during nice weather, especially on UVA football game days. And, he adds, “This is a food town.”
Foods caters to foodies. Jams, jellies, and condiments from mustard to harissa fill one side of Aisle 4; Aisle 5 features foods from Greece, Indonesia, Asia, Spain and Mexico, the Middle East, India, and Africa. Toma, the sushi chef, draws a devoted clientele. The selection of wines, cheeses, and chocolate is amazing—many of them local (Foods stocks products from dozens of local businesses and “the widest selection of Virginia-made food and products” in town, says its website). Many customers come in every Sunday for their New York Times or Washington Post.
Foods was launched in 1955 by local businessmen Don King and Watt Jones; their first store, on Preston Avenue in Rose Hill, was called the Seven Day Shopping Center. A few years later, the store moved to Meadowbrook Shopping Center, and by 1970 it had settled at its current location in Ivy Square, with a new name. There was a metal sign on the roof, Brown recalls, proclaiming “Foods of All Nations: An Asset in Any Community,” although he doesn’t recall where that name or slogan came from.
A company associated with the UVA Foundation bought the Ivy Square Shopping Center in 2021, but Brown is confident that Foods will be around for a while yet. “The Foundation has been very supportive,” he says, including of the breakfast-and-lunch spot Foods operates at UVA’s North Fork Discovery Park.
That eatery is one of several adaptations that Foods has made over the years. A 1994 renovation expanded the back office and bakery space and turned the store’s original entry into a café offering tea, coffee, and pastries. The new entry and the space next to it became the flower and gift shop. In a nod to promoting local, that space is shared between Caspari products (the company is based here and its president is a Foods customer) and Alight Flower Farm in Keswick, which stocks the fresh flowers, indoor plants, and gifts.
“Foods was our main market when we started the farm in 2016,” says Alight’s owner Liz Nabi, “so when their florist left in 2020, Foods asked us to take over.” When it comes to the gift selection, she says, “I pick things that I like and am drawn to—colorful, often nature-themed.” Shoppers find it convenient to pick up hostess gifts, Christmas stocking stuffers, baby gifts, and birthday presents. “Because Foods has such consistent repeat customers, we always want to offer something new,” Nabi says.
While the store has adapted over the decades, one of its consistent features is its long-term staff. Brown has worked there for 35 years, Cindy Barker, the grocery manager, for 30 years, and deli section employees know customers by name—or by their favorite prepared food, specialty cheese, or cut of meat.
One long-time customer says he and his wife have been shopping at Foods for 50 years plus. “They carry real specialty European stuff,” he says. “It’s the place to go in Charlottesville for that. And it’s like a coffee house or café in Paris, or an English pub—you see students, grad students, faculty, elderly people, all the locals.”
Grocery manager Barker says she’s always looking for new products that her customers might be interested in: “I like to carry local products—our customers like to buy local—but I also try to get products from other countries.” Customers often ask her for specific products, and she does her best to oblige because she appreciates their loyalty. “We have the best customers ever,” she says.
And Foods’ clientele seems to reciprocate. The long-time customer we spoke with recalls picking a German hot chocolate mix off the shelf, but he couldn’t tell how much sugar was in it. “One of the staff came over and checked the German label ingredients for me—not many stores where that could happen,” he says.
Ready for an afternoon catch-up over a glass of wine, but not up for a bar? Looking for a quiet place to meet your friends downtown, but they like wine and you don’t drink alcohol? Feeling like a pot of tea and a good book on a rainy afternoon, but need to get out of the house?
Welcome to Ethos Wine and Tea.
This new spot on West Main, in the space that Guajiros Miami Eatery just vacated for its new joint on 10th Street, is a lovely mixture of congenial and Zen. As you walk in, you can look over the bookcase of wines and snacks for sale, as well as some used books for sampling. You can step up to the small curved wine bar, or find your table along the window or out on the patio—two-tops for intimate conversations, moveable for grouping. There’s a small menu of snacks, sandwiches, and sweets to help your energy match your conversation.
Ethos Wine and Tea is the joint venture of two people with different backgrounds but like minds. Kylie Britt turned her degree in chemistry into a career in wine (which fits, if you think of winemaking as a chemical experiment) via the lab at Michael Shaps Wineworks and a stint as wine director at The Wool Factory. Tiffany Nguyen, who came to Charlottesville 16 years ago, juggled work in event-planning with raising four children (another form of event-planning, actually).
From different directions, Britt and Nguyen had developed an interest in building community through offering a gathering place. Britt says her growing desire to educate people about wines “got me dreaming of creating something more wine- and beverage-focused.” Nguyen discovered that her event skills were based on “wanting to gather people in a welcoming space—but I wasn’t ready to start a venture all on my own.” Then fate, in the shape of Charlottesville’s small-town network, stepped in.
At last year’s Two Up, Wine Down Festival celebrating Virginia wines and winemakers, self-confessed foodie Nguyen was chatting with friends who happened to know Britt and her dreams of starting a wine-focused café. The two started talking, one idea led to another, and by January 2024 the concept for Ethos was born. Through July and August, co-owners Britt and Nguyen eased into operation—opening a few days a week while they recruited staff and refined their offerings. By late summer, the spot was fully launched.
Britt, as wine and operations director, handles wine and staffing. The wine menu covers the full range (sparkling, white, rosé, red) and Britt plans to rotate the offerings about every six weeks. “I go for local, natural, and innovative wines,” she says. “I’m not super strict about organic, but I need the wine to be both good and good for the Earth.” She’s a fan of Virginia wines, obviously, but also particularly devoted to wines from the Shenandoah Valley … “or southwest France. I’m up for any wine with a good story.” (And to be inclusive, Ethos does carry a selection of draft and canned beers and sake).
The Ethos website describes Nguyen as “wearer of all hats.” While she enjoys wine, “I never knew that much about it,” she admits, but when she and Britt got talking about creating a gathering place, “I thought, ‘Why not tea?’ It’s a high-quality product, it’s complex, and [enjoying it] is a communal experience—something you can share.” Her tea menu will not rotate as often as Britt’s wines—tea is less seasonal than wine—but she will always offer a mix of black, green, herbal, and iced. “I’m keeping an eye out for local teas, which would mostly be herbal,” Nguyen says, but she will also offer locally produced kombuchas and sodas. There’s also brined plum soda from Vietnamese culture (“my family loves it,” she says)—refreshing, but definitely for those who have a taste for salty.
The foods menu offers snacks (nuts, olives, bread and butter) for noshing with your beverage, sweets from Splendora’s, and a mix of sandwiches for heartier appetites. Britt wants to feature local suppliers where possible, and she also plans to offer their kitchen for pop-ups from local chefs (“a kind of incubator”). Eventually, she says, they want to offer the upstairs rooms as a space for private events.
Both owners keep coming back to their vision of Ethos as a community space. “This is a place for coming together,” says Britt, “whether it’s two friends or a date or a family, before dinner or after a movie or just an afternoon together.” Nguyen says it another way: “I’ve always wanted to gather people. When you walk in here, I want you to feel welcome.”
Who says that living among the beautiful mountains means you can’t enjoy all the culinary delights of the sea: fresh shrimp, lobster, halibut, salmon, and tuna? Certainly not Jayson Johnson, and he opened Crozet Seafood Supply to prove it.
As soon as you walk into the store in the Clover Lawn Shopping Center across from Harris Teeter, that clean briny smell lets you know this is the real thing. On your left is the glass case of filets, laid out on ice surrounded by fresh kale. Next to that is the display of raw and cooked shellfish and the freshly prepared seafood salads, with a smiling staffer ready to offer you an Old Bay-infused Ritz cracker and a sample; try a favorite, the lobster pasta salad with sun-dried tomato and dill. And among the shelves of seafood paraphernalia—sauces, spices, rubs, marinades, crackers, pasta, rice—Johnson is strolling, ready with information and advice.
Johnson moved to Crozet 12 years ago to work as a neonatal respiratory therapist at UVA. After the stressful times going through COVID at the hospital, he says, “I thought about what I’d want to do for the next 15 years—it seemed a good time to make a change.”
A childhood friend, Joe Skinner, owns Bon Air Seafood in Richmond, and Johnson, a self-described foodie who had owned several small businesses in the past, decided to dive in with Skinner as partner. “I wanted [to start] something local, so I could live and work here, and I wanted to offer the community something sustainable.”
Crozet Seafood Supply was launched in March 2024, and Johnson says the response has been strong. On the Wednesday morning that I visit (“usually a slow time”), traffic is steady. Several customers are clearly regulars. A new customer has stopped by because he’s looking for calamari—“If we don’t have what you’re looking for, let us know—we’ll try to get it for you,” says Johnson. Then a couple comes in, first-timers taking a look. It helps that Johnson is active on social media, promoting the arrival of seasonal delicacies like softshell crabs, as well as the specials on goodies ranging from homemade Andalusian gazpacho to the ever-popular Bon Air cheese balls featuring shrimp or crab.
Both freshness and environmental impact are key for Johnson. “Our prices are a little higher,” he says, “but that’s because we want to offer the best quality and the most sustainable varieties.” Everything is delivered by refrigerated truck straight from the docks at Hampton or in Maryland; that way, Johnson says, he can offer fresh catch from an area ranging from Iceland to Florida. The fresh Scottish salmon is flown into Hampton—it’s farm-raised, he says, but the “farm” is in a loch open to the ocean, so the fish are eating what they would in the wild. There are also frozen options: the Chilean sea bass, for example, is flash-frozen as soon as it’s caught.
Johnson has also developed local partnerships. The store’s lobster rolls (“it’s our most popular offering, hot or cold”) and other sandwiches are served on bread from Praha Bohemian Bakery & Cafe in Crozet, and the supplemental foods, sauces, and rubs are from small specialty companies like Stonewall Kitchen, Firehook Bakery, and Lynchburg’s Scratch Pasta. And since the store just got its ABC license, Johnson will be offering a range of local beverages as well.
An added asset for the cooking-challenged: Right by the door is a display case of recipe cards for the fish and shellfish on offer, including complete instructions and a list of ingredients, all of which are available right there in the store. Johnson says their market research shows “people like seafood, but they are worried about cooking it properly.” So, one less thing to worry about!
