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“Way Out” In The Eastern Panhandle
by Jeanne Mozier
MAIN STREET RISING
Sustainable design is the new buzzword in the city planning world. Trendy architects searching for creative living/working population units are finding the answer in historic blueprints: Traditional towns, just like those in every corner of West Virginia.
That's right. folks -- once again the Mountain State is cutting edge. And the lack of development during the last half-century, when slash-and-burn was the preferred method of urban renewal, means we have lots of sturdy, affordable building stock organized perfectly around streets, squares and parks.
This is the vision inspiring the most creative couple Martinsburg has encountered in several decades, a pair practicing what they preach to the betterment of the downtown they've chosen to revive.“Grove and Dall'Olio Architects” is finely lettered on the glass windows of the downtown storefront Matt Grove and Lisa Dall'Olio bought and renovated. They live upstairs in an expansive duplex with a curved wood staircase and original wood floors. Out back is the raw material for a courtyard - someday.
“We only paid $10 a square foot for all this space.” Lisa said in the awed tones of a woman born and raised in a New Jersey suburb on the outskirts of Manhattan, where people pay that kind of rate for daily parking.
Matt Grove hails from Martinsburg, where his father was an accountant and his grandfather was choirmaster for a local church. Grove went off to school and then to work for a large architectural firm in Manhattan where he met Lisa. Once a family became a future possibility, they started casting around for a better environment. “We'd come home to visit my family. and I saw how the town was backsliding." Grove said about Martinsburg in the 1980s. "When we decided to come back here for good. we committed ourselves to making it a livable cultural Mecca.' The route they chose was reviving downtown.
And in less than five years, their dedication and vision are showing results. They began by losing a battle to keep the county from tearing down several 19th century buildings on the square. Then the victories started. Grove and Dall'Olio restored the old train hotel, reincarnating it as the Caperton Train Station. They led the fight to save the historic Roundhouse property, which promises to do for Martinsburg what the waterfront restoration did for Baltimore. And they've pushed, prodded and cajoled Main Street Martinsburg from a series of low-energy talk fests into a can-do organizational success.
There are still a few empty storefronts under the turn-of-the-century cluster of streetlights on the four blocks of Queen Street north of the library, but there's no smell of decay or impending death. Instead. the signs in those storefronts read,'This building is not empty. It's filled with opportunity.' And that's how it feels.
Janie Henry at Queen Street Gallery is following the Grove/Dall'Olio model. She bought a downtown building to house her frame shop and gallery; she bought the one next door to help pay the bills. Someday, she'll transform the upstairs into a posh city apartment where she and her husband Greg can live. Queen Street Gallery is jammed with local art, including masks from Hedgesville, paintings and prints from Martinsburg and Berkeley Springs and glass from all over the region. One of Henry's unexpected big sellers is affordable African sculpture imported from Zimbabwe by a friend.
The litany of businesses on Queen Street reflects Matt Grove's commitment to making this a 'real' downtown. There's Southwood Books with three rooms filled to overflowing with used and new books, next door to Fannie's Cafe. R. Lewis Clothiers bills itself as The Tuxedo Headquarters, and young Randy Lewis is another Main Street Martinsburg workhorse. The historic Market House Grill serves tasty food visible through appealing arched windows in the beautifully restored Oddfellows Hall built in 1846. Patterson's Drug Store has long been a Queen Street mainstay and still serves up ice cream sodas and grilled cheese sandwiches at as original lunch counter. Rockwell's Business Supplies is another favorite golden oldie on the street. The newest addition to the Queen Street mix promises to be a tourism magnet. Charlie Casabona bought the former 5 and 1O store and turned it into De Fluri's Fine Chocolates. The front section of the huge space is filled with display cases of Casabona's exquisite product, from almond bark to chocolate dipped Spanish orange peel to raspberry truffles. As an aficionado of dark chocolate. I can vouch for the several pounds I recently purchased and ate, without sharing. In the cavernous back of the store. Casabona stirs up delectable chocolate in huge stainless steel vats.
Not everyone understands the value of a vibrant downtown, though. The big money boys think tourism is all about selling hamburgers to passersby on 1-81, while the local paper runs features calling on folks to send in their wish lists for chain restaurants not yet on the 1-81 strip. City fathers spent decades ignoring Moncure Chatfield Taylor`s brilliant restoration of former mill buildings into the Blue Ridge Outlet Center, allowed the Post office to move from downtown because of whining about parking, and are currently resisting efforts to develop the Roundhouse area.
Matt Grove is not giving up. The arts are exploding as a force in Martinsburg and he believes the necessary critical mass of talent and buyers of downtown buildings -- is just around the corner. From Parkersburg to Logan, civic leaders should keep their eyes on Martinsburg and be ready to copy that model for success.
(Just this week, the Martinsburg City Council managed to outdo any previous stupidity. The council chose not to reappoint Matt Grove to the Planning Commission and Lisa Dall'Olio to the Historic Preservation Commission. Taking this double-barreled action on the same night, councilmen cited the 'need for new blood.')
218 West King Street • Martinsburg, West Virginia 25401
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