Carol Diggs, Author at C-VILLE Weekly

It’s hot out there

Looking to buy a house in or around Charlottesville? Get ready: “This real estate market is a perfect storm,” says Sasha Tripp, owner of Story House Real Estate. The local area has always been an attractive real estate market, even with relatively high prices and limited inventory. Now, with rock-bottom interest rates and pent-up […]

Carol Diggs | August 12, 2021

News

Digging down

“How do you lose a president’s house?” That was Highland Executive Director Sara Bon-Harper’s reaction when a 2016 archaeological dig conducted at James Monroe’s plantation turned up a discovery that completely reinterpreted the site. The research uncovered part of the foundation of Monroe’s original 1799 home, under the front yard of the existing Victorian-era Massey […]

Carol Diggs | July 28, 2021

aerial photo of Albemarle county office building

News

Working it out

You get to wear slippers all day. You don’t have to commute. You have more flexibility with childcare. After a year of remote work, is the office a thing of the past? A high local vaccination rate makes the return to in-person work feasible for many area businesses, but that doesn’t mean everyone is headed […]

Carol Diggs | June 23, 2021

Abode Magazines

The pit and pool: A vacation home evolves with the family

Sometimes the solution to your problem means redefining your goals. That’s what happened when James Hazel decided he had to deal with his lawn’s erosion issues. Twenty years ago, James and Sally Hazel were looking for a weekend place to get their young family away from the pressures of Washington and his job as a […]

Carol Diggs | June 14, 2021

Abode Magazines

In the green: A former writer’s retreat becomes a luxurious retreat in the Waterperry gardens

After spending 25 years turning Waterperry Farm, her Free Union home, into a horticultural showpiece, what did Katherine Kane see as the next step? “I wanted to bring people to enjoy the garden,” she says. “And I’d always wanted to have a bed and breakfast.” When Kane and her husband, Dr. Olin West, bought the […]

Carol Diggs | June 14, 2021

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It comes naturally

I scoop up a quart of dark pond water and debris in my cloth net. As the muck drains, my partner Claire sticks her hand into the mess. She grabs a glob of mud the size, shape, and color of a miniature York peppermint patty—except it’s wiggling and has a tail. A bullfrog tadpole! We crow […]

Carol Diggs | April 21, 2021

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Civics minded: Local groups help citizenship applicants prepare for tougher test

U.S. immigrants have faced an amazing array of challenges during the last four years, but as of December 1, 2020, the outgoing administration left them one last present: a significantly more difficult citizenship exam. The exam, something immigrants must pass in order to become citizens, has an English language and civics portion, and the civics […]

Carol Diggs | January 6, 2021

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Pandemic pivot: How local nonprofits have adjusted to strange times

“When the pandemic set in, it rendered our model impossible,” says Jayson Whitehead, executive director of PACEM, a local nonprofit that partners with area houses of worship to offer overnight shelter and meals for the homeless during the winter. Close contact in church buildings became unsafe. So did the buffet dinners served by congregation volunteers. […]

Carol Diggs | December 2, 2020

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It’s a wonder: Blue Ridge Tunnel trail opening is more than a century in the making

It’s dark. It’s damp. It’s cold. And it’s so cool. The newly opened Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel trail lets you walk under the Blue Ridge—under Rockfish Gap, under I-64, under the Appalachian Trail and Skyline Drive. More than 700 feet above, drivers sweep through forested hillsides while you peer at walls of hewn rock […]

Carol Diggs | November 25, 2020

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Ash disaster: Local ash trees face their own pandemic

As if COVID-19 weren’t enough, central Virginia is fighting another plague, only this one—the emerald ash borer—threatens our trees. The beetle may look like a tiny jewel— it’s a bright metallic green, small enough to sit on a penny— but it’s been scything down local ash trees like a malevolent Paul Bunyan. “No ash tree […]

Carol Diggs | October 14, 2020