Uncategorized

Hello, conscious-living readers!

Boy, am I excited to be introducing our brand-new blog, Green Scene. I see this as a chance to talk with all of you on a regular basis about things that interest me anyway: everything from figuring out how to set up a rain collection system at my house, to local debates between developers and preservationists.

Erika Howsare | September 3, 2008

Living

September 08: Tangled up in blogs

In real estate, just like the recently completed Olympics, it really is whether you win or lose. (Think Phelps would have had that look of beatific amazement if he’d bombed out on the eighth gold medal?) How you play the game is just a means to an end. And these days, some of the essential […]

Erika Howsare | September 2, 2008

Living

September 08: To make heat

In the fateful year of 1993, Tony and Trew Bennett had already put 21 years of sweat, tears and living into their Nelson County property. They’d bought it in 1972, two young potters from Northern Virginia, and they’d built a yurt for housing, as well as a two-story building with a studio and an efficiency […]

Erika Howsare | September 2, 2008

Living

September 08: Party in the back

Ah, old houses! How do we love your handmade cornices, your characterful proportions, your charmingly slanted floors! Your size, not so much. An addition by STOA Design + Construction makes a decisive stylistic break with the 1930 brick house it expands. Plenty of local homeowners, given the abundance in Charlottesville and Albemarle of well-seasoned housing […]

Erika Howsare | September 2, 2008

News

Fresh shoes for the weary

Never before have I planned a trip to which people’s reaction universally included the word “crazy.” Well, this was the one. I was going to Death Valley in July. My father and his friend Kim—my childhood dentist with the tattooed forearms—were planning to run the Badwater Ultramarathon course, a 135-mile race that starts 282′ below […]

Erika Howsare | August 26, 2008

News

Winneba in line as new sister city

“Ever since I arrived in the U.S., I’ve always had my people back home in mind,” says Nana Akyeampong-Ghartey. The native Ghanan immigrated from Winneba, a university town, 12 years ago, and he’d like to do what he can to shorten the 5,300-mile distance between Charlottesville and his hometown on the West African coast. “I […]

Erika Howsare | August 26, 2008

Living

Your lap of choice

Readers of C-VILLE, when you voted Monticello the Luxury House You Dream of Living In, you revealed that your idea of luxury is, well, complicated. No McMansion, this. No granite countertops, landing strip for private jet, or (in the vacuous parlance of our time) “entertainment center.” No, Monticello is a luxury house of the Enlightenment, […]

Erika Howsare | August 12, 2008

News

Farm Bureau joins the local food party

It was a steamy day for a hot topic. A dog-day haze hung over farm stands piled with tomatoes, squash and other high-summer goodies. August 6, at the Meade Park farmers’ market, the Virginia Farm Bureau was set to launch a PR campaign that would land the group squarely on the local foods bandwagon. “Save […]

Erika Howsare | August 12, 2008

Uncategorized

Kluge-owned eateries close, file for bankruptcy

Locally-connected billionaire John Kluge isn’t immune to a weak economy, at least in the sense that some of the restaurant chains he owns have had to close. According to the New York Times, the national chains Bennigan’s (an Irish pub sort of place) and Steak & Ale (beef and beer, we’re guessing) are facing dire times. Bennigan’s was shuttered Tuesday and has filed for bankruptcy, and Steak & Ale will also close.

Erika Howsare | July 30, 2008