There’s something extremely clever about creating a space with dual functionality: a place to entertain and park a car. Photo: Kip Dawkins
A garage is often a dank, dusty place, cluttered and cobwebby, smelling of gasoline and grass clippings. It’s the last place most homeowners would choose to create a bright, inviting space that could host, say, a wedding party—but a Farmington couple did that and more, with a contemporary renovation of their three-car garage, an addition to their 1942 Marshall Wells-designed home.
Not everyone was on board with the idea at first. “The builder and the architect thought it was crazy,” the homeowner says. “But they’ve since converted to the concept that we don’t have to waste these spaces; they can be functional.”
Kathy Heiner, founder and principal of Charlottesville’s klh designs, elevated that notion with sleek, stylish choices that turned the garage into an unexpectedly pleasant place to hang out, even though it’s still also used for parking. “The homeowners entertain quite a bit, and they wanted extra space for staging and catering,” Heiner says. “It’s really designed to be able to have a party out there.”
Cladding the walls and ceiling with reclaimed wood conveys both hominess and utilitarianism. Photo: Kip Dawkins
Three sets of double carriage doors open onto a brick and bluestone patio, which allows access to the gardens and pool, and affords an expansive view of rolling hills and distant mountains. Inside, reclaimed granary oak from Ruckersville’s Mountain Lumber frames the space, with planks installed horizontally on the walls and wrapped across the ceiling.“My idea was that it would feel more like a barn than a garage,” the homeowner says.
That theme carries through with sliding panels with top-mounted barn-door hardware to conceal storage areas, while farmhouse industrial pendants with wide metal shades provide plenty of light. The sealed concrete floor reflects the paneling with a warm glow.
A key party-ready feature is the built-in stainless steel refrigerator/freezer; its glass-paneled doors and interior lighting make it as pretty as it is practical. Tall, generously proportioned cabinets—designed by Lori Randle of Dovetail Design & Cabinetry, of Charlottesville and Staunton—surround the fridge and hold supplies for any spur-of-the-moment occasion. The cabinets, garage doors, and countertop components are painted Charleston Green, which Heiner describes as nine parts black and one green. “We really wanted those elements to mostly disappear, while in the sunlight, a nice hint of that green remains,” she says.
A garage, with sunlight? In this case it streams in through windows in the carriage doors. “That’s made all the difference in here,” the homeowner says. “It’s really nice to be inside and to see up the hill toward the mountains.” A wall-mounted electric heating and air conditioning unit keeps the room comfortable year-round.
The project wrapped up just in time for the owners’ daughter’s wedding, and the rehearsal dinner and post-wedding brunch both utilized the space. “We’re already thinking ahead to having our 40th wedding anniversary party here,” said the homeowner.
At this rate, the cars, including a classic Mercedes-Benz, may just have to find another place to stay.
There’s something extremely clever about creating a space with dual functionality: a place to entertain and to park a car. Cladding the walls and ceiling with bright, reclaimed wood conveys both hominess and utilitarianism.
Mike Crabill creates maps based on information from 18th-century surveys, which mark property borders with natural features like streams, rock walls, and tree stumps. Art: Mike Crabill
Centuries before Google Earth and Google Maps, taking the measure of a piece of property was grueling work. A surveyor produced rudimentary descriptions, such as: “Beginning at the white oak, head true north 30 degrees, then east 500 poles to a red oak, then south to the muddy creek.”
Lovingston cartographer Mike Crabill, 75, relied on information like this when he set out, in 1995, to render a map of Nelson County showing land-ownership grants (or patents) made as early as 1722. His work was almost as arduous as the surveying itself, in part because most of the boundary-defining landmarks were impermanent. “Corners were usually a wooden stake, a pile of rocks, maybe a tree with a chop in the trunk,” Crabill says.
He also racked up a lot of miles—and countless hours of research—to get the job done. “Before everything was available on the computer, I had to go to Richmond to look at microfilm of the deeds and print off copies,” Crabill says.
No wonder it took him eight years to complete the map.
Land-ownership grants, or patents, issued before the Revolutionary War served as reference for Crabill’s Albemarle County map. Art: Mike Crabill
Searchable online records helped Crabill with subsequent mappings of Amherst and Albemarle counties, but the process is still laborious and slow. Following descriptions found in patents, he draws parcels at scale, cuts them out, and pieces them together, using landmarks such as watersheds and adjacent properties as guides. Like a puzzle in progress, his maps come into view.
Crabill, like the customers who buy his maps, is interested in the history of the region, and the land patents tell a story of both adventure and greed in the colonies. “The [British] Crown sold patents under certain conditions, such as a promise to improve the land, but it was rarely enforced against the wealthy men,” he says.
And, yes, it was almost always men. Across all three county maps, Crabill encountered only a handful of patents registered to women, and just one to a black man. “The [British] Crown used a ‘headright’ system, where if a person paid for someone else to cross the Atlantic, he received the right to a 50-acre patent for each ‘head’ he brought over.” Upon arrival, those people typically became indentured servants for seven years.
Local residents interested in genealogy look to Crabill’s maps to find their ancestors, and a copy of his Albemarle map hangs in the record room of property deeds in the Albemarle County Courthouse. Crabill used fine art pens to carefully outline each parcel so the boundaries are easy to see, and he mimicked the naturalist style of Audubon to illustrate the borders with indigenous wildlife. He describes his drawings as “folk-y and primitive.”
Will neighboring counties benefit from Crabill’s meticulous detective work? “At my age it’s quite a commitment,” he says, though he doesn’t shut the door.
Augusta? Buckingham? Maybe it’s time to call Crabill.
Need to know
For more about Crabill’s maps, visit crabillmaps.com.
The YMCA’s Early Learning Center at the Jefferson School is dedicated to providing high-quality child care to the Charlottesville/Albemarle community. Photo: Eze Amos
Jessica Maslaney remembers trying to navigate the complex maze of child care options before her first child was born. “It’s a confusing process where everything matters, from cost to educational environment to teacher qualifications, and you’re just scrambling to figure it all out.” After toting her baby son to work with her at the Piedmont Family YMCA for his first seven months, Maslaney tried two different in-home care options and a commercial child care center in search of consistent, reliable care.
“The foundational issue is that you feel that nobody can watch your kids as well as you can,” she says, “so you start off kind of resenting the process from the beginning because you want more than anything to be that person. It’s an emotional journey.”
Now CEO of the Piedmont Family Y, Maslaney is part of a team dedicated to providing high-quality child care to the Charlottesville/Albemarle community through facilities like the YMCA’s Early Learning Center at the Jefferson School. While steep demand for affordable care should logically lead to increased supply, the twisted economics of child care can tie providers in knots.
Start with the cost of full-time care. “The average cost of child care for an infant in this area is $13,500 per year, and $11,000 for a toddler or preschooler,” says Barbara Hutchinson, vice president of community impact at the local United Way. At the top end, a handful of smaller centers in town charge upwards of $15,000 per year.
The biggest expense for providers is paying their staff. Because state law requires teacher/student ratios of 1:4 for infants and 1:8 for toddlers, and because child care is largely unfunded by the government, providers can’t afford to pay their staff anywhere close to what public school teachers make. “People who work in child care do not do it for the money,” says Maslaney. “We struggle with teacher retention because our teachers could go to Walmart and make $13 per hour while our pay range is $10 to $12.” That also has an effect on quality—teachers who earn a college degree in early childhood development often choose to teach in public schools, where they can receive higher pay and benefits.
Jennifer Slack, owner of Our Neighborhood Child Development Center, a private daycare near UVA, agrees that finding and retaining good teachers is a serious problem. “Child care is hard work, poorly paid, and poorly supported,” she says. “In a lot of ways, society undervalues it.”
Labor costs also limit providers’ ability to offer partial-day or off-hours care for part-time or shift workers. “Places like UVA Hospital and Sentara operate on 24-hour schedules, and Charlottesville has no child care centers that offer evenings, overnights, or weekends, so there’s nowhere for those parents to go,” says Hutchinson.
Beyond teacher compensation, child care centers have materials, insurance, and regulatory expenses. Facilities must be licensed and inspected to pass standards as specific as the depth of the mulch in the playground, and per-child square footage requirements for both indoor and outdoor space dictate how many children may be enrolled.
Simply finding an appropriate location can be daunting, and Slack calls local building and zoning codes “intense.” “We have been looking for property to expand into for years now but can’t find anything because of the combination of the high cost of commercial property in Charlottesville, the need for outdoor space for children to play, and the near-impossibility of transferring a property from residential to commercial zoning,” she says.
Even upper-income families are affected by the shortage of care. Slack’s center serves 48 children, from newborns to age 3, and charges over $1,600 a month per child (annually, that’s more than a year’s tuition at UVA), yet runs a lengthy waitlist. “There are many families who will never be able to get in, so I’d say it can be hard to find quality care at any cost,” she says.
The severe financial burden of child care expenses on a young family puts an effective lid on how much providers can charge, which makes it difficult for centers to stay afloat. “The crux of the problem is that people can’t work without child care, and child care needs to be high quality, and quality is driven by cost,” says Hutchinson. “It’s a vicious cycle not particular to Charlottesville, but one that exists all across the state and country.”
Addressing this problem is the focus of groups and agencies all across the region, and every step forward is hard-won. The Virginia Early Childhood Foundation advances initiatives such as Virginia Quality and Smart Beginnings to enhance the experience of young children in daycare centers and preschools. “High quality” providers prioritize teacher education, curriculum, and the facility’s environment and level of child interaction.
“If a baby is in child care 40 hours a week, what happens to that baby during those hours has everything to do with his or her developmental trajectory, so those hours need to be high quality,” says Gail Esterman, director of early learning at ReadyKids, a local nonprofit dedicated to supporting children and families and to working with providers to improve quality.
Maintaining options such as the YMCA’s Early Learning Center, where 92 percent of families receive financial subsidies, depends on tapping steady sources of funding. “Child care in my opinion is not financially sustainable on its own,” says Maslaney, “so you have to have diverse funding streams.” The ELC draws resources from the Virginia Department of Social Services, the United Way, and a host of public and private grants.
Hutchinson points to a generous Charlottesville community, noting that this area of the state is in “better shape than average” in terms of funding. “Both private foundations and wealthy individuals have been phenomenally invested in early childhood care, and we are blessed to be a community that has that level of support,” she says.
Families who don’t qualify for subsidized care but still struggle with high costs often look to family-based care, where kids stay in a private home with an in-home caregiver. “One of the most sustainable models for affordable, high-quality care is home child care, but there are a lot of unlicensed programs because the licensure process is so difficult and expensive,” says Slack. Virginia law requires a license to provide home care for five or more children (not including those of the caregiver); below that limit, licensing is voluntary and there are no required background checks, regulations, or inspections.
In the end, Esterman believes child care is a human rights issue, and solutions will have to be addressed as a society. “As long as people are trying to just handle it individually, as opposed to looking at it as a community, the system will continue to be a jumble,” she says. “All children deserve a high-quality start to life.”
Photo: Eze Amos
When school’s canceled—but it’s still business as usual for parents
By Susan Sorensen
Who doesn’t love a snow day? Well, for starters, working parents.
“I’ve spent years dreading that 5:30am call/text message from ACPS,” says Elaine Attridge, a mother of three and medical librarian. “My husband’s job isn’t flexible, so it’s up to me to cobble together half-baked plans that are the best of my poor options” when school is unexpectedly canceled.
Like many moms and dads who have to show up for work on days when the flakes are falling and schools are closed, Attridge has been known to load her children up with electronics and bring them to her office. She’s lucky, she says, because “I’ve had some very tolerant bosses, but multiple days of [my kids at work with me] is hard on everyone.” You can ask friends for help, but, as
Attridge points out, “How often can
I do that and keep the friendship?”
She says she’s rescheduled work meetings and taken vacation days to stay home with her children, adding that she’s still reeling from 2013. There were so many snow days that year (some courtesy of a March blizzard that dropped 16.5 inches on the area), Attridge refers to it as the “winter of my discontent.”
Some big local employers, like UVA and S&P Global, have recognized the problem and offer employees access to back-up child care. But if yours doesn’t, here are a few suggestions for when school is shuttered.
Plan ahead! You usually have some warning before a snowstorm (or a teacher work day), which means you can line up child care in advance. If you don’t have a regular sitter (or a relative who’s willing to step in), consider Hoositting (hoositting.com), a network of UVA students who will provide babysitting on short notice.
ACAC to the rescue. On scheduled school days off, as well as some of the unscheduled ones, ACAC’s Adventure Central (978-7529) offers a summer camp-like experience (arts and crafts, sports, and other structured activities) called Kids Day Off. Cost is $55 per child for members, and $65 for nonmembers, and hours are 8am-5:30pm.
Network with your neighbors. Create a snow-day babysitting co-op where every family takes the others’ children in turn. If you have, say, four families, you’ll only have to cover one in every four days off of school. Bonus: The kids will take some of the burden off you by entertaining each other.
Pamela Margaux started her sparkling wine importing business 25 years ago, selling cases from the trunk of her station wagon. “I like this,” she remembers saying. “Let’s find more wines.” Photo: Jon Phillip Sheridan
As they peruse a restaurant wine list or browse the shelves of the local wine shop, do most imbibers know how all of those foreign bottles made their way here? From finding a promising producer in the European countryside, to navigating a logistic and regulatory thicket to usher the product into the U.S., to presenting and distributing it to retail customers, a knowledgeable wine importer makes it all happen. Here are three of Charlottesville’s hard-working, hometown importers, always ready to bring it.
Sparkle and shine
Pamela Margaux (above) spent 25 years in the Sonoma Valley restaurant business before she and her husband, French winemaker Claude Thibaut, moved to Virginia. “I learned a lot about wine in Sonoma, but as my palate grew I began to prefer the balance and earthiness of French wines over the jammy California wines,” says Margaux. When Thibaut’s business partner Manuel Janisson (together the co-creators of the Thibaut-Janisson line of Virginia sparkling wines), asked Margaux if she would try her hand at importing French wine, she was game.
“In 2005, I received my first container of champagne, which is 600 cases,” she says. “I leased a temperature-controlled storage unit on Pantops, and went out every day with 10 cases in the back of my station wagon, selling it to restaurants and retailers.” The trio expected it would take Margaux 18 months to sell it all, but she was done in three. “I like this,” she remembers saying to Janisson. “Let’s find more wines.”
“Pop!” culture
Pamela Margaux recommends these imports of hers, most available at Wine Warehouse, Market Street Market, Tastings, or Foods of All Nations.
Champagne Guiborat Blanc de Blanc NV (from the Cremant region of Champagne) J Fritsch Lieu-Dit-Altenburg Pinot Gris (from Alsace) Chateau La Croix Taillefer 2014 (from the Pomerol region of Bordeaux) Roland Tissier Sancerre 2017 (“A most delicious Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley”) Domaine de Bel Air La Fosse aux Loup Chinon (“A really earthy Cab Franc also from the Loire”) Xavier Chateauneuf du Pape 2015 (“A Rhone Valley Classic”)
Now she imports and distributes “really pure and regionally correct” small-producer French wines throughout Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., and she distributes Virginia wines as well. Local winemakers such as King Family, Pollack, Cardinal Point, and Gabriele Rausse look to Margaux for cost-effective statewide distribution.
“Some wineries don’t make enough wine to hire a distributor,” she says, “so they might choose to self-distribute or simply to sell all their wine from their tasting rooms. But others feel that it’s an important part of their marketing plan, and they want to get out to other regions in the state.” While distributors typically charge a 30 to 35 percent markup for their services, they handle all the logistics and hassle of keeping up with demand from dozens or hundreds of accounts.
Margaux buys from 60 different producers in France, traveling to the region two or three times a year and constantly looking to “freshen her book,” or update the portfolio of wines she offers. The process is a balancing act that has to allow for up to eight weeks to receive an order from France before she can even begin presenting a new wine to clients, and it’s an expensive one, involving licensing, taxes, a sales force, vehicles, storage costs, and more, but Margaux’s reputation has made her the go-to gal for her special selections. “It’s really quite an exciting business,” she says.
Though he didn’t grow up in a family who drank a lot of wine, Didier Simonin taught himself about the beverage (and the industry), eventually—for a while, at least—becoming Charlottesville’s sole importer. Photo: Amy Jackson Smith
French connection
While many importers begin with a familial connection to the food and beverage industry to spur their interest, Didier Simonin’s Parisian family did not drink much wine. “I was raised between Perrier and orange juice,” he says with a smile. “I started drinking alcohol when I was 25.” Even then, he did so for work rather than pleasure
As a commercial realtor, Simonin was often asked to choose the wine for a table full of bankers and developers, so he taught himself how to enjoy it. “I started buying wine and opening some every day, spitting it out, tasting all the different types,” he says. Eventually he went to the Burgundy Wine School in Beaune, France, to learn everything about the process from the vine to the bottle.
In 1999, he moved to Charlottesville with his then-wife, a Charlottesville native, and set about meeting the town’s wine influencers. “When I first met Bill [Curtis, owner] at Tastings just after I arrived here, I told him I was interested in being in the wine business, and he said, ‘Don’t do it! Never do it!’” says Simonin, laughing. “But that’s the worst thing you can tell me, because then I really have to see if I can do it.” Curtis and Vincent Derquenne of Bizou, now long-time friends of Simonin’s, were valuable early mentors who share his unquenchable curiosity about wine.
Drink local
Didier Simonin points to a couple of favorite selections at restaurants around town. Champagne Soutiran, found at Fleurie, Common House, Tastings, Petit Pois, Bang, and Bizou Fratelli Grasso (Italy), Barbaresco, found at The Alley Light, Tastings, and Fleurie
For the first six years, Simonin was Charlottesville’s sole importer, and found he liked creating brands for wines, making them memorable for buyers. “I was always good at marketing, it’s what I love. If you give me a rock, I can find a way to promote that rock and make it the best rock that you don’t have but wish you had.”
Beginning with 10 French producers, he now imports dozens but prefers to work mostly solo. (He recounts that his first hire in 2004 was Will Richey, now mega-owner/manager of many popular local eateries.) Simonin still drives a round-trip distribution circuit through D.C. three days a week, as he has since 2001.
Though he loves Paris, Simonin’s heart belongs here now. “There is something so dynamic about the culture, I think it’s the intellectual nature of Charlottesville, always thinking, questioning,” he says. “It is absolutely amazing to have three importers based here, all bringing wine to this tiny town.”
Williams Corner Wine CEO Nicolas Mestre convinced his business partners to focus on natural wines—those that use organic and biodynamic grape-growing techniques. Photo: Amy Jackson Smith
Au naturel
Nicolas Mestre grew up in the Haute-Savoie region of France where his dad worked in the restaurant business, and good food and wine were ever-present. “My memories of growing up are of people sitting around the dining room table drinking and eating, talking and laughing,” says Mestre. He began working at Tastings in Charlottesville when he turned 21, learning about importing and distribution as well, and soon linked up with fellow connoisseurs Andrew Greene, Toby Beard, and Ted Burns in their labyrinthine wine cellar underneath the Downtown Mall.
“It was a vast space they rented under the old Williams Corner Bookstore [now the Virginia National Bank building], where they stored their wine collection.” says Mestre. “We spent a lot of time down there drinking wine, and it was there that we first got the idea for the business.” It was also the inspiration for the name of the business, Williams Corner Wine, where Mestre now serves as CEO.
Peak placement
Nicolas Mestre, CEO of Williams Corner Wine, highlights a few choice placements on local menus.
Prime 109 Dirty & Rowdy 2017 California Mourvedre “Unfamiliar”
C&O Yohan Lardy 2016 Moulin-a-Vent “Vieilles Vignes de 1903”
Tastings of Charlottesville Domaine Aux Moines 2015 Savennieres Sec
Turning away from conventional mass producers, Mestre became increasingly interested in wines made with a more eco-friendly approach, using organic and biodynamic grape- growing techniques. When he didn’t find such wines being imported to the U.S., he convinced his co-founders that “natural wines” should be Williams Corner’s focus.
“The mass use of pesticides and herbicides, while giving producers the ability to achieve higher yields and quantities of finished wine, also ends up diluting that sense of place and authenticity of the product,” says Mestre. This “terroir,” the characteristic flavor imparted to a wine by the environment where it’s produced, is the unique aspect Mestre is working to preserve.
An importer is a kind of agent, pairing delicious discoveries in one part of the world with receptive palates in another. “It’s like being a curator,” says Mestre. “I have a certain style in my portfolio that’s not going to appeal to everyone, but I really believe in it.” At the same time, an importer’s job is to expose the market to new tastes. “Importers are at the forefront of influencing the arc of taste in the industry. Often we try to bend the market toward the types of things we’re interested in bringing to it.”
Mestre sees natural wines slowly gaining a following. “There’s a re-thinking—did we lose something in the industrialization of wine,” he says. “Lots of growers are, as with the farm movement, examining how they make their product, preserving authenticity whether it be of place or style, and to me that’s very interesting.”
Jenée Libby hosts the food podcast Edacious, which features face-to-face interviews with people in the local food scene.
Photo: Amy Jackson Smith
Back in 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs declared that podcasting was “the next generation of radio.” When the company began supporting podcasts on iTunes that same year (so users could easily download the audio shows onto an iPod, where the name originated), the medium gained steam, and lately podcast consumption has exploded. Last year Apple Podcasts reached 50 billion all-time episode downloads and streams, soaring from 14 billion the year before.
Though it’s taken a decade for podcasts to fully capture the public’s attention, Charlottesville producers have been riding the rising wave: the city now boasts more than two dozen home-grown podcasts, from independent hidden gems to long-established flagships.
“A lot of the first and most successful podcasts out there are repurposed radio shows,” says Nathan Moore, general manager of UVA-based WTJU radio. “A podcast is like a radio show you can take with you and replay anytime.” In 2017, he launched the station’s online podcast network, TEEJ.fm, which now hosts more than a dozen locally-produced shows.
Many national broadcasts such as NPR’s news and conversation shows are now available as podcasts, and local stations like WINA post most of their programs in online subscription form as well. But an increasing number of independent producers skip the radio step entirely.
“It’s a funny medium because it’s so democratic that people can do it with almost no budget,” says local host Lorraine Sanders. Armed with a recording device (like a smartphone), and access to an internet platform to host the show (like a personal website or an app such as SoundCloud), anyone can dive into podcasting.
But while the barriers to entry are low, creating a successful podcast that attracts a following of loyal subscribers requires long-term planning and knowing your audience. Sanders hosts Spirit of 608, a widely-followed podcast that offers creative and media advice to aspiring fashion industry entrepreneurs. But she got into podcasting when she and a friend created a short-lived show called Underclothes, dreamed up on a whim over a glass or two of wine. “We said to ourselves, ‘we’re hilarious, people would love this, we should start a podcast,’” she laughs, “but of course it’s much more difficult than you think to make it good.”
Feed your brain
Podcasts can vary widely in both length and style. From a sixty-second music snippet to an hour-long interview, from almost wordless meditation to shrill political argumentation, from esoteric science reporting to immersive episodic fiction, there is truly a podcast for everyone. More than one, apparently—last year the average user listened to seven different podcasts each week.
For UVA neurologist Ted Burns, producing a podcast has become an extension of his teaching. “In 2005, I wanted to help the neurology residents maintain their education once they’d moved on, and then I read that college students were taping their lectures and putting them on iTunes,” says Burns. “I thought, ‘well, that’s the answer.’”
He created a show, called simply Neurology Podcast, that features interviews with researchers who share their latest findings and insights, and allows its (physician) listeners to gain continuing education credit. In 2007, the research journal Neurology agreed to host it, and since then its audience has grown steadily, now boasting 45,000 downloads each week, over 18 million since its inception.
While some of the content is fairly technical, Burns also features relatable stories, such as his interview with Robin Williams’ widow on how she dealt with her husband’s dementia, and his own experience dealing with a sinus cancer diagnosis in 2013. He sees learning opportunities everywhere. “Our next goal is to be part of a voice-assisted ‘Tell me about my day’ type app,” he says, not entirely in jest. “As in, five minutes of NPR, the weather forecast, and then two minutes of neurology news.”
Ted Burns, a professor of neurology at UVA, started his podcast to help neurology residents maintain their education. Photo: Eze Amos
Community connection
While national shows often cover wider themes and larger events, local shows can cater to the more immediate community, and some try to do a bit of both. For instance, several limited podcast series recently focused on the events and aftermath of August 12th, such as A12, a six-episode series created by UVA professor Nicole Hemmer for the Miller Center, which explored the larger history behind the clash, and The Trial of James Alex Fields, local activist Molly Conger’s daily chronicle on TEEJ.fm of the court proceedings in the emotionally laden case.
Two long-standing, internationally-acclaimed radio shows produced by Charlottesville-based Virginia Humanities have successfully transitioned to the new medium. With Good Reason is an award-winning weekly broadcast carried on public radio stations nationwide that focuses on Virginia scholarship, culture, and history as well as topics of broader interest. Though the radio show has been established for more than two decades, the production began being distributed as a podcast a few years ago, bringing the elegantly crafted program, hosted by Sarah McConnell, to an on-demand audience.
Kelley Libby, the show’s associate producer, distinguishes between simple podcasting and “audio storytelling.” “A podcast can be just you, broadcasting your thoughts to the world, whereas audio storytelling makes an effort to relay a narrative,” using features like ambient sound, music, interviews, and historical context. Even a news show like the New York Times’ The Daily, “does a good job at transmitting the news through really awesome storytelling,” she says.
Libby is keenly interested in the possibilities of experimental forms of podcasting, and she’s been trying out new modes on her own podcast series American Dissent and UnMonumental, the latter of which features no narrator, only the voice of the interviewee. “I’m very interested in community storytelling, and [this style] feels more like a collaboration with the person, not as extractive,” she says. “It feels less like I’m taking ownership of a person’s story and more like I’m helping amplify a person’s own story through editing.”
UVA history professor Brian Balogh, co-host of Virginia Humanities’ second podcast, BackStory, remembers his show’s inception in 2008. “We laughed at the idea of anybody listening to three historians talking about history, and we’re still amazed,” he says. But people did tune in to the show, which was eventually picked up by over 200 public radio stations and now has moved to a podcast-only platform. “There’s more flexibility in terms of timing with a podcast,” he says. “A show may run 40 minutes or 60 minutes depending on the topic, and that’s fine because it doesn’t need to fit into a radio time slot.”
Balogh loves both radio and podcasts, and marvels at how much he himself has learned by making BackStory. “We try to convey our own struggle to understand the history of any topic,” he says, “so we hope not to come across as talking head experts but as fellow explorers of the meaning of history.”
Captain Bob Abbott hosts Coming Home Well, which addresses the mental well-being of soldiers returning from deployment.
A sense of purpose
Many podcasts venture far beyond news and entertainment to tackle deeply serious subjects for both the host and the audience. Support-oriented podcasts for victims of illness and trauma, for people grieving loss or battling addiction, serve as critical gathering places to listen, find help, and feel understood. Charlottesville podcaster and former Air Force Captain Bob Abbott’s weekly WINA radio show, Coming Home Well, which is also distributed as a podcast, addresses the mental well-being of soldiers returning from deployment.
“I started the show after returning from Afghanistan with PTSD and seeing a need, quite honestly, to do something to prevent veteran suicide, both for others and for myself,” says Abbott, who interviews veterans and specialists on topics like veteran homelessness and discrimination against females in the military. Abbott’s subject matter is close to his heart, and a powerful motivator. “So many people who start podcasts quit after a half-dozen episodes because they haven’t figured out why they are doing it,” he says. “My ‘what’ is veteran suicide, but my ‘why’ is my friends who have died. I know I can’t quit, because if I quit, I die.”
For those compelled to tell a story, why start a podcast instead of, say, writing a blog, book, or newspaper article, filming a video, or posting to Facebook or Twitter? One answer lies in the visceral impact on listeners of hearing voices and music through headphones or while driving. “Audio is a very affective medium, because our brains process sound information in a physical way,” says WTJU’s Moore. “Relying on audio alone produces a more emotion-driven experience.”
Sanders agrees, and points to latent psychological effects as well. “Before starting my own, I became obsessed with podcasts from a listener standpoint,” she says. “For me personally, it’s the most intimate form of media that exists. It’s more impactful than anything I read online in terms of how much I remember and the actions I take after listening, like going to look something up or making a purchase.”
Ellen Daniels, co-host and producer of Apropos of Something at WPVC radio, is motivated to communicate the stories of local people with a particular focus on social justice issues. “It’s a very creative process for me,” says Daniels, who has a journalism background. “I love to learn a person’s story, talk about what they’re doing, and then to try to bring that story out in an interesting way.” AOS is a rare live show, which means no do-overs or edits, and Daniels is proud of their 69 episodes thus far. “We do a lot of up-front research and pre-interviews so we can bring energy to the stories,” she says. “We’re really promoting our town.”
Most podcasters tend to be natural storytellers, extroverted and verbose, and passionate about their specialty. “When I was a kid, I had a Mr. Microphone, and I used to read the newspaper out loud,” says Jenée Libby, host of the food podcast Edacious (an archaic word meaning ravenous). “I always wanted to be a broadcaster.” Libby began writing a restaurant review blog called “Edible Charlottesville” in 2008, but quickly found she was more interested in the stories of the chefs than in the actual food. She wrote long chef profiles which she posted on her blog, eventually recording them in her voice, and finally made the leap to podcasting interviews of local and regional food industry people.
“I started by asking my friends in the industry to be on the show, and then asked them who I should talk to next,” says Libby, who only conducts face-to face-interviews. “Distance interviewing creates a bit of a wall where the connection to my guest isn’t as strong. I like to talk about deeper things, triumphs and challenges, where do you see yourself in the future.” Though she does all of her own post-production and distribution, Libby recently joined the TEEJ.fm network, hoping to find a group of other local podcasters to “meet up with and bounce ideas off each other.”
In 2017, WTJU general manager Nathan Moore launched the station’s online podcast network, TEEJ.fm, which hosts more than a dozen locally-produced shows. Photo: Eze Amos
Drop the mike
Nathan Moore is aiming for just that kind of vibe with TEEJ.fm. “Our network of podcasts hopes to sustain a model of community storytelling rooted in a place; everybody who’s involved here has a tie to UVA or Charlottesville or both,” he says, noting that joining the network is open to anyone at no cost and comes with great perks like studio space, training, and distribution for fledgling productions. “There’s a long tradition of documentary and idealistic storytelling in the public radio world, and the power of stories to bring us together informs a lot of what I want to do with TEEJ.fm.”
As smart cars, smart home speakers, and optimized mobile apps make podcasts easy to integrate into everyday life, usage stats are beginning to tell the tale. Last year, one quarter of all Americans over age 12 listened to podcasts regularly (one-third of 25- to 54-year-olds), and 12 million people tried a podcast for the first time in 2018. Producers believe there is enormous potential for reaching many more.
“There are lots of micro-audiences—groups who share a common set of values or interests or a physical place—that podcasters could consider when they’re thinking about their target listeners,” says Kelley Libby of Virginia Humanities.
For his part, Dr. Burns likes to envision the far-reaching ripple effect of educational podcasts. “I’ve been motivated by this idea that if we can make neurologists around the world smarter and better, then they can provide better care to their patients, and that’s pretty damn impactful,” he says.
For podcasters raising their voices, the world seems eager to lend an ear.
Crissanne and Elizabeth Raymond started selling NoBull Burgers at Charlottesville's City Market, but now the company's reach expands as far west as Colorado, with California in the owners' sights. Photo: Martyn Kyle
Crissanne Raymond developed an original veggie burger recipe more than 30 years ago in her hometown of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Riffing off of her mother’s lentil soup recipe, she built a burger from a lentil and barley base, flavored it with roasted vegetables and tamari, and used it to feed her growing family.
“Fast forward a few decades and five kids later, and she was living in Charlottesville and running her own catering business,” says Raymond’s daughter, Elizabeth. The family had long mused about a veggie burger enterprise, and after selling her stake in local catering company Glorious Foods, Raymond teamed up with daughters Elizabeth and Heather to launch NoBull Burger in 2011. The venture, like the burgers, began organically.
“Mom had experience installing a kitchen and getting it certified, so we set one up on East Market Street, and our first sales were at the farmer’s market,” recalls Elizabeth. “We had a grill, gave out samples, and sold sandwiches and two-packs. Those first sales gave us a spurt of affirmation that this was something we could really do.” Their younger brother came up with the name NoBull as a triple entendre—alluding to no meat, no nonsense, and the “noble” aspect of an organic, gourmet product.
Raymond, a UVA graduate, had waited tables downtown all through school and had restaurant contacts willing to put the burgers on the menu, where they garnered good reviews. “At the farmer’s market, we met the owners of Bodo’s as well as a coordinator of the Whole Foods local program, plus lots of local chefs, which were great connections,” she says. Bodo’s features a NoBull sandwich on its menu (tip: Topping it with a fried egg is a fan favorite).
From there, things picked up speed. The sisters went door-to-door with samples, placing NoBull in Rebecca’s Natural Food, Integral Yoga, Market Street Market, and in restaurants like The Nook and now-defunct Positively Fourth Street. “We took lots of sales trips to Richmond and D.C.,” says Raymond, “and by 2015 we had our burgers in 22 Whole Foods including Virginia Beach, northern Virginia, and Maryland.” Now their reach extends as far west as Colorado with an eye toward California markets.
The Raymonds attribute NoBull’s steady success to the product’s unique taste and purity. “Other veggie burgers are labeled vegan or vegetarian, but the ingredients are full of oils, fillers, additives, and unpronounceable things, and they taste like cardboard,” Raymond says. “With NoBull, you could go to the grocery store and buy our ingredients. Your grandma would know what they are.”
Having expanded from the original burger to three other flavors—mushroom and roasted garlic, spicy Italian, and tomato and spinach—NoBull is launching a fourth, Madras Curry, in January, along with updated branding and packaging. Raymond is proud of how far they’ve come. “We started 100 percent by ourselves, with no investors, and it has at times been a struggle,” she says. “But we’re resilient and resourceful women, and we really believe in what we’re doing.”
After two decades in business, Max Boxxer founder Richard Crisler says that he's ready to revitalize the brand and capitalize on web commerce. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
Entrepreneur and Max Boxxer founder Richard Crisler is a man for all seasons, but summer might suit him best.
His first business endeavor was Yo Wear, launched at Duke University when he was a student, which produced Duke- and fraternity-themed boxer shorts that sold on campus and through fraternal organization magazines. “After I graduated and moved to Charlottesville, I opened a shop on the mall [where the Spectacle Shop is now],” says Crisler, “and made all kinds of clothing.” He had to learn the retail storefront business on the fly, and as he puts it, “it was absolute torture.”
Seeking a more profitable path, he closed the shop after a year and pivoted to focus solely on selling colorful “vintage’ boxers and Hawaiian-style aloha shirts and tees via wholesale to retail stores and mail-order catalogs. “I had two boxer dogs, and man’s best friend and dependable clothing are both good connotations,” he says. His brand, dubbed Max Boxxer, moved to the head of the pack in 1988. The first 10 years boomed as sales grew to $1 million, with a staff of 13 who produced the garments in Crisler’s long, low-slung warehouse on River Road.
Like the weather, however, changes in the business climate are inevitable. “Due to market forces and just plain inexperience on my part, it all began to slow down,” says Crisler. When sales trailed off, finally crashing along with the 2008 market, Crisler pivoted again, this time to solar panel installation with a new venture called SunDay Solar, and Max Boxxer went dormant. “By 2010 we had given up the wholesale but kept the retail direct to consumers via catalogs,” he says. “We’ve kept some residual customers all along, and now we’re looking to revitalize our brand and improve our internet business.”
Photo: Sanjay Suchak
Enter Stephanie Lugus, a senior at Virginia Commonwealth University, fashion major, and Max Boxxer intern. “What Stephanie has done is to create a sense of organization on our website,” says Crisler, “where before it was a hodgepodge.” Earlier iterations allowed customers to order clothing à la carte, choosing any fabric/garment combination, and sizing was not always standardized across old and new lines.
Lugus, who has particular affinities for branding and digital marketing, tackled the problems at the root. “We went deeply into product development,” she says, “and figured out sizing that fits,” as opposed to the large, boxy styles that used to be en vogue. “Originally, the print collection was based on gift market and holiday wear, but now we have more of an everyday line, including lots of super fun boxers,” with themes from “jungle birds mix” to “spicy hot chilies” and many more.
“The original Boxxer mascot was based on drawings by Doug Payne that feature a very cool, collected, expat dog sporting a suit and top hat, but underneath he’s wearing fun boxers, and that’s what we want people to relate to,” says Lugus. The company is focused on revamping its online presence to streamline the consumer experience, boost marketing, and increase social media exposure. “One struggle is that we don’t yet have any analytics,” she says, “but once we start getting numbers from the new website, we can identify our buyers and go from there.”
The Max Boxxer crew is optimistic heading into the holidays, and plans to launch a women’s line in the spring. Unique selling points include combed cotton fibers, coconut buttons, and hand-stitching all done locally in an entirely solar-powered facility. “This building has 262 solar panels on it,” says Crisler of his production warehouse. “Even the A/C and heating are powered by the sun.” That seems fitting for Crisler, who likes life on the sunny side.
Chris Conklin’s Vintage Swings are made from double-planed white oak and hand-spliced rope. In other words, they’re handmade to last. Photo: Jen Fariello
Chris Conklin grew up in a family that liked to figure things out. He learned at an early age how to restore old cars and farmhouses, and he loved to make things from scratch. So when his photographer wife, Jen Fariello, came home one day from a photo shoot in Ivy and asked him to make her an old-fashioned swing like the wooden one she’d used as a prop at the shoot, he immediately began his research.
“I came up with my own design,” says Conklin. “I wanted nice wood and nice ropes, something that looked good and lasted a long time.” He built a swing and hung it from one of the 200-year-old oak trees in the island of their driveway, and an interesting thing happened. “Everyone who came over would gravitate toward the swing,” he says. “A lot of people don’t have a swing, and it turns out they really like the feeling.”
So Conklin, whose day job is art director at the Daily Progress, developed a prototype and made a jig, and began constructing swings in batches of a dozen. They take two to three weeks to make from start to finish (given time-consuming steps like varnishing, which takes one day per side per coat), but the end result is smooth, strong, and gorgeous. He offers single and toddler versions plus a tire swing, and sells them on his own website as well as on Etsy under the name Vintage Swings.
Photo: Jen Fariello
Conklin’s swings feature some unique elements, starting with their length. “Modern swings are very short,” he says, “but the ones I sell have really long ropes [he has had customers special-order 100-foot lengths], so you can swing high.” The wood is white oak, double-planked for strength, and the rope, which resembles old-fashioned Manila but is synthetic to resist weather and rot, is hand-spliced.
Conklin’s 9-year-old can attest to the enduring joy of a great swing. “My son loves giant pushes,” he says. “I run at top speed and time it so I can push him up over my head, and he goes so high.” Conklin and his son will never forget those moments, and neither will those Ivy homeowners, whose original swing rotted away two years after Conklin’s wife spotted it. “They called me and I made a new one for them,” he says. This time, it’ll be an heirloom.
The all-volunteer Crozet Trails Crew connects the community to the outdoors, and neighborhoods to one another. Photo by Jack Looney
Dedicated to a vision of Crozet as a town connected through greenways, the Crozet Trails Crew is all about forging community links. It’s work that makes them happy. “I love that outside my back door there are paths that follow streams, riparian zones, and wildlife,” says Terri Miyamoto, president of the all-volunteer CTC. “Our mission is to connect people in the community to outdoor recreation, and neighborhoods to each other.”
Founded nine years ago by Crozet residents Jessica Mauzy and Dan Mahon, the CTC has planned, built, and now helps promote seven miles of trails: the Crozet Connector Trail on the east side of town, the Lindy Bain Loop to the west around Old Trail, and the shorter Creekside Trail to the northwest. The group’s aim is to link all three into an integrated system with lots of access points throughout Crozet.
The pathways are wide and rugged, wending through forested areas and along open meadows, snaking between or around housing developments, and jumping creeks via wooden bridges designed by the group’s resident engineer, Phil Best, and constructed by volunteers. Each year, the male and female winners of the CTC’s 5K fundraiser race have a trail bridge named in their honor.
Though mowing, maintenance, and storm clean-up are the most visible CTC efforts, behind the scenes is a maze of property rights hurdles. “A big issue for us is how to get permission to build a trail on a piece of property,” says Miyamoto. “Just because a trail is on the [Greenway] Master Plan doesn’t mean that the easements are there.” That’s where Albemarle County Parks & Recreation steps in.
“We deal with zoning, surveys, negotiating with neighbors, and VDOT,” says Mahon, who is an Albemarle County Trails and Greenways planner. “It takes a mountain of paperwork to build a mile of trail.” Local businesses help with fundraising and trail maintenance where they can. Builder Stanley Martin, for instance, recently installed crushed stone and rock edging along muddier trail sections running between its new developments and Crozet Park.
When dreaming of future trails, the CTC’s focus, as always, is on connection. Besides linking neighborhoods like Cory Farms, Fox Chase, and Chesterfield Landing to the existing trail system, the group wants to “grow the map” to include the Crozet library and downtown area as well as new developments. “I’d love to have more stroller-friendly surfaces,” says Miyamoto, “and to create more alternative safe routes to school for walkers and bikers.”
Encompassing an even wider view, planning for a commuter-oriented Three Notch’d Trail connecting Charlottesville’s Rivanna Trail to Crozet is underway, and an ambitious Crozet Tunnel Trail project is on the CTC’s list as well. Once restored, the mile-long Blue Ridge railroad tunnel at Rockfish Gap could link Crozet trails through Afton and all the way to Waynesboro. It’s a lot to get done, but Miyamoto says the CTC thrives on the energy of its volunteers, and anyone can join in. “We want people who are walking on the trails to know, hey, you’re part of the trails crew!”
Albemarle County’s natural beauty and biodiversity attracts plenty of explorers, and lots of them like to keep track of what they find. iNaturalist.org, an online site (and mobile app) developed by UC Berkeley graduate students in 2008, links scientists and naturalists who want to learn more and share what they know, and plenty of observers from the Charlottesville area are in the mix.
“iNaturalist fits into my naturalist experience the same way that eBird [a birdwatcher site] enhances my birding experience,” says 14-year-old local nature enthusiast Ezra Staengl. “You can see what and where other people are observing nature of any kind, help people identify their sightings, and submit your own. It’s a great way to keep track of your sightings.”
Six-spotted Tiger Beetle. Photo: Ezra Staengl
The iNaturalist website describesitself as a social network whose primary goal is to connect people with nature. Free registration allows members to record observations of plants, trees, insects, birds, and animals in the wild, whether discovered in remote locations or in their own backyard. Observers can include a photo and as much detail and species information as they wish, and their logged sightings are shared and compared with others in the region and across the globe.
Charlottesville 10th-grader Tucker Beamer says the site is inspiring. “The great thing about making observations for yourself is you have somewhere to put just about anything and everything you see, which really gives me an incentive to photograph, identify, and seek out new species of fauna I never knew existed.”
A bit more scientifically oriented than other social media sites, iNaturalist’s social network platform connects like-minded nature lovers who are there to learn. “I think the social aspect of iNaturalist is one of the things that sets it apart from other biodiversity tracking websites like Odonata Central, Butterflies and Moths of North America, and eBird,” says Staengl. “Using iNaturalist, I was able to discuss camera equipment with another young birder, even though he lived in Illinois.”
Bird’s-eye Speedwell. Photo: Ezra Staengl
What if you don’t know what you’ve found? iNaturalist can help there, too, functioning as a crowdsourced species identification system. A member can post a photo labeled simply “bird” or “plant,” and other users can submit an ID for the observation, eventually leveling it up to “research grade.” “It’s really interesting to go in and show people why what they saw is what it is,” says Beamer.
Members can also create specialized lists and projects to organize their findings, and can map their observations. “When I was studying for my birding trip to Ecuador, I could search observations by place and see what Ecuadorian birds I was able to identify from photos,” says Staengl. “I can even search a random country and try to learn a little bit about their biodiversity.”
On the local level, it’s simply fun. “It’s awesome to have all this community activity about nature, something that I’m passionate about,” says Beamer.
