First class: A Waynesboro couple upgrades their airpark home

Leslie and Rich Hock, a real estate agent and commercial pilot, respectively, live the way many of us can only dream of. In the garage beside their home at Eagle’s Nest Airpark, in Waynesboro, they stow their Beechcraft Bonanza, a single-engine four-seater. When they want to visit their daughter, they wing down to Austin, Texas. […]

Roof with a view: Well, it’s actually the third floor, but outside the glass doors the scene is all sky and mountains

An interesting housing experiment called Lochlyn Hill is taking shape about two miles east of the Downtown Mall, on the Charlottesville-Albemarle line by Pen Park. Five custom builders currently have a stake in the development, which the promotional material is careful to describe as a neighborhood or community. The architectural portfolio includes country-style homes with […]

The View: River of history

Upon finding the source of the Jackson River, parent to the James River, Earl Swift writes in Journey on the James: Three Weeks through the Heart of Virginia: “From this trickle grows a river that offered sustenance to Indian and early colonist, carried pioneers to new lands of the West, bloomed red with the blood […]

Devils’ dogs: Adventure dogs are on everyone’s mind

Many years ago, in a different life, it seems, I steered a little aluminum boat with an outboard motor across the glistening surface of a lake. The memory is so vivid that it includes the oily smell of the exhaust swirling around my head and mixing with piney puffs of the soft summer air. In […]

Happy return: Sweethaus is back with a new name

When Sweethaus abruptly closed last December, the year ended on a sour note for fans of the bakery’s cheerful confections. But the new year turned out sweetly for Charlottesville, as former manager Billy Koenig and his team opened Vivi’s Cakes and Candy in the former Sweethaus space on Ivy Road, with the same recipes and […]

Spotlight: Wisdom Oak Winery

Jason Lavallee would like to thank everyone for being so nice. It’s not what a guy expects when he parachutes into town and opens a winery with his wife, and they’re total newbies to the industry, and he starts knocking on doors and asking established winemakers a lot of questions. “I was pretty open, like, […]

My favorite bite: Pirate’s bounty

“It will be two years in July since I had this meal, and it was great not only because of what I ate, but also because of the beautiful setting. I was traveling with seven friends, two from Palermo, Italy, and the rest from the Charlottesville area. I remember it was very hot, about two […]