Vacation Year-Round at Lake Monticello

By Celeste M. Smucker– There’s a reason why Charlottesville is prominent on so many “Best Of” lists like 50 Best College Towns,  Top 50 Best Cities for Entrepreneurs, Top 100 Best Places to Live and many more. Those of us who live here know it’s an all-round great place to call home.  So what to […]

Fluvanna County: Relax and Enjoy

By Celeste M. Smucker– Want to attend events in Charlottesville but still see the stars at night?  Maybe you love both  privacy and a laid-back country lifestyle but fear you’d have to go too far off the beaten path to find them.  The good news is, when you move to Fluvanna,  you can have all […]

Autumn’s Paintbrush: Virginia’s Fall Foliage

By Ken Wilson Suddenly all the gold I ever wanted Let loose and fell on me. A storm of gold Starting with rain a quick sun catches falling And in the rain (fall within fall) a whirl Of yellow leaves, glitter of paper nuggets. Robert Francis, from “Gold” You can take a drive, take a […]

Volunteers Serve Our Community

By Marilyn Pribus – Volunteers are always at the heart of any community from folks giving time to their church or children’s activities to those helping persons escape domestic violence to the musicians who mounted the Concert for Charlottesville last month. In fact, the catalog of local volunteer efforts is nearly endless from working with […]

How Green Sells Homes

By Ken Wilson – “If you have two exactly identical homes side by side, and one of them makes a $1,000 worth of power a year, and the other one doesn’t, shouldn’t that thousand dollars count?” Coming from Greg Slater, Associate Broker with Nest Realty, that’s no idle question. Slater is on a mission—an educational […]

Price Your Home to Sell

By Celeste M. Smucker – What is the best price for your home and how do you know? When all is said and done, the price is what the buyer is willing to pay and the seller is willing to accept. However, before the negotiation can begin, the home must go on the market, get […]

Join the Fun!  54th Annual Parade of Homes Continues this Weekend

By Celeste M. Smucker – The best of the best of Charlottesville’s new construction is on display again this weekend—Saturday and Sunday, October 7 and 8 from noon to 5:00 p.m.—at the Blue Ridge Homebuilders Association’s (BRHBA) 54th Annual Parade of Homes, featuring  41 homes from 17 builders. Everyone is invited and even if you […]

Fall Family Fun:  Orchard Hopping in Central Virginia

By Ken Wilson – Fall colors and fall flavors go together. Fall is when we go leaf-peeping and pumpkin picking, when we make apple sauce and pumpkin butter, when we enjoy stunning colors by day and mouth-watering pies at night. Fall is also festival time at area orchards, of which we have aplenty. “Apples have […]

Drinking Local: Distilling Spirits in Central Virginia

By Ken Wilson – As an underage college kid, Ian Glomski made “crappy” beer in his mother’s house. As an adult he makes whiskey in an alternative school—a former school, that is. Let’s not get the wrong impression. What Glomski is up to in the former Henry Avenue Learning Center in Charlottesville, and what an […]