From The Winchester Star dated Tuesday 30 June 2009.
By Val Van Meter
The Winchester Star
WHITE POST -- Local residents dug deep to save a $47,500 state matching grant this month.
The money is earmarked to stabilize three historic buildings at Greenway Court.
Thomas, Lord Fairfax lived there during the 1700s, selling land from his 1,600-square-mile grant in the Northern Shenandoah Valley from the king of England.
"We are very grateful to the donors who responded so generously to this emergency campaign," said Robert Stieg, president of the Northern Shenandoah Valley Branch of Preservation Virginia.
The state grant was due to expire today.
Stieg said county officials had applied for another grant to pay the matching share, but that grant did not materialize.
In 45 days, Stieg and a committee of volunteers raised $68,786, enough to fund $116,286 in rescue work, he said.
The money will help to repair and stabilize the cracked side of the stone Fairfax Land Office, built around 1761, and the foundation under a wooden powder house/meat house from the same era.
Stieg said this will be the first of a two-phase project to rehabilitate and restore the historic buildings, along with a third building -- a carriage house constructed in the 1830s and believed to have been built with materials taken from Lord Fairfaxs guest house at Greenway Court. A pilaster is pulling away from this structure, Stieg said.
That is a building George Washington would have stayed in when he came to the Shenandoah Valley to survey tracts the British peer planned to sell.
Washington was in the Frederick-Clarke county area for 10 years and got his first military and political experience here.
Clarke County holds an easement on the historic structures and the land around them that are part of the Greenway Court property. The easement is also held by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
"We have saved it," said Stieg, who noted that the local nonprofit organization couldnt stand back and allow the grant to fall through, considering that the historic buildings might do the same.
"Somebody had to take the responsibility," he added.
"It was a real rescue effort," said Franny Crawford, a member of Stiegs committee. "People can understand, in Clarke, the value of saving a place like that."
Stieg said many people -- including Crawford, Doug Bartley, Carolyn Farouki, Lucia Henderson, Maral Kalbian, Matthew and Winkie Mackay-Smith, Betty Schutte, and Nancy Talley came forward to help solicit donations.
"It should have been a tough time for this, but it wasnt," said Talley. "Since 1964, when I started working with Preservation of Historic Winchester and the Burwell-Morgan Mill, I have never seen such and enthusiastic or quick response to a problem."
An earlier study identified some $400,000 in preservation work needed for the buildings, Stieg said, but this money will complete the stabilization phase.
Then, he said, fundraising will start to complete the work.
Now, the participants in the process -- the state and county governments, Preservation Virginia, and the landowners -- must agree on the scope of the work.
An architect experienced in preservation and an engineer will be hired to determine the best method of repairing the damage to the buildings, and what can reasonably be accomplished with the money on hand.
Then the project must be offered by county officials for bids.
Stieg hopes the work can begin by fall.
"Were very anxious to get moving on it."
-- Contact Val Van Meter at mailto:vvanmeter@winchesterstar.com