If the open road is calling you—or if you’d like to spend a few nights communing with nature without, you know, getting eaten by any part of it—Outdoorsy’s here to help. The online service matches owners willing to rent out their pop-ups, Casitas, trailers, and RVs with road-warrior vacationers. Launched in 2015, the company has […]
The fundamental nature of art,” says Tate Pray, “is that it has no use.” But the Charlottesville-based designer seems bent on proving that maxim wrong, crafting wooden furniture that’s both functional and reflective of his playful sense of humor. Pray seems to thrive on contradictions. He uses traditional woodworking techniques to give his stylish Modernist […]
Sommeliers may take offense, but canned wine is a booming business. In January, Crozet’s King Family Vineyards popped the top on this trend by rolling out its first cases of canned Crosé, its popular rosé wine. As winemaker Matthieu Finot explains, King’s been making a dry, fruit-forward rosé since 2003, and now harvests Merlot grapes […]
Chef Mark Gresge missed making soup. From 1992 to 2014, Gresge ran the beloved local French restaurant L’étoile. “To me,” Gresge says, “French country cooking was the perfect cuisine. Depth of flavor, locally sourced product, a true sense of region in the cooking.” L’étoile had always run catering alongside its restaurant operations, but the growth […]
Two days into training camp with the Chicago Bears, Maurice Covington’s hamstring tore—and took his future plans with it. “Being focused about football and wanting to make it to the NFL and then having that taken from me,” says the former UVA wide receiver, “that transition was terrible.” A decade later, Covington has turned that […]
A teacher changed the course of chef Antwon Brinson’s life. Now, as he trains Charlottesville residents for kitchen careers, he’s trying to do the same for his own students. Brinson says he never thought he’d become a chef. He enjoyed cooking growing up, but didn’t consider it a career until high school. “I had a […]
In 2017, renewable energy generated 18 percent of U.S. electricity, doubling its share from 2008. Here in Charlottesville, a growing cluster of companies is developing and building projects that draw power from the wind, sun, waves and more. And the bulk of those booming businesses, according to many in the industry, owe their existence today […]
Before they could build a place to bring people together, the founders of Common House had to keep it from falling apart. Five years ago, longtime friends Josh Rogers, a creative director, and Derek Sieg, a filmmaker, returned to their hometown with a desire to help people in Charlottesville’s burgeoning creative community connect. “People are […]
Since its construction in 1896, 1515 University Ave. has been a drugstore, a bookstore, a boarding house, the Cavalier Diner and many more incarnations. The building, which opened in mid-March, now pieces together fragments of all its previous incarnations, giving UVA students a new place on the Corner to call their home away from home. […]
It’s tough to squeeze the entire planet into one classroom. But Western Albemarle High School and architects VMDO have come as close as possible with the school’s new Environmental Studies Academy building, which blends indoors and outdoors, classroom and greenhouse. On a 40-year-old Crozet campus last expanded in the ’90s, “there was just no way […]