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 […]
Adventure dogs! Nothing beats being in the great outdoors with your best four-legged friend
Science has proven the extraordinary connection between humans and dogs, but perhaps the best evidence of the bond is easier to find—when people and their pups get outside and play. Earlier this year, dogs made headlines for astonishing outdoor-sporting feats, much to the joy and gratitude of their human friends. In mid-March, the story broke […]
Outsider art: Our favorite plein-air murals and sculptures
In a self-styled art town like Charlottesville, you don’t have to step into a gallery to have an art encounter. There are lots of places to see murals, sculptures, and even interactive works from your car or the sidewalk, or while strolling through the IX Art Park. Increasing the accessibility, the Charlottesville Mural Project—which has […]
Rent a road trip: Outdoorsy is Airbnb for RVs
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 […]
Riding lessons: A cyclist learns a lot about himself—and America—on an epic tour
On six-week jaunts over several years, Charlottesville’s Chris Register crisscrossed the country on his bike, interviewing people for his book series Conversations With US: Two Wheels, Fifty States, Hundreds of Voices, One America. The first volume, published in early 2019, is based on his 1,916-mile trip through the Midwest and Great Lakes states. Here, he […]
Trail master: Trek’s Slash 9.8 will get you there—and back
When we asked Shawn Tevendale, owner of Blue Ridge Cyclery, to recommend a killer trail bike to feature, he emailed a link back within a minute to the mechanical wonder you see here. “It’s like a monster truck,” Tevendale says. “It’ll go anywhere you want it to, and crush it.” Tevendale also gives the Slash […]
She’s got the power: Meet Monica Johnson, the strongest woman in Charlottesville
I’ve been doing strength competitions for just about a year and a half, so I’ve worked hard to get to where I am. My current national ranking is second in the women’s amateur heavyweight division. That’s according to the Arnold Corporation, the governing body for Strongman and Strongwoman events. I’m 32 now, and I feel […]
Kids on the loose: Confronting the risks of a free-range childhood
“Go play outside!” is one of those phrases that pops out of parents’ mouths as though it comes from a deep well of universal wisdom. Along with eating your vegetables and not waking the baby, playing outside seems so obviously the right thing for kids to do. Once they cross the threshold into the great […]
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 […]
Concrete decision: Stinson Vineyards ferments in an egg that’s hard to beat
I first encountered an ovoid concrete fermentation vessel at Austria’s innovative biodynamic winery Meinklang in 2004. Actually, there were a few of them, all lined up and looking like 1950s science-fiction rocket ships, held upright by fin-shaped buttresses. A startling departure from the oak barrels and stainless-steel vats I was accustomed to seeing, the eggs, […]
10 hot* new restaurants: A diverse collection of upstarts drives a local dining boom
The restaurant business, like any industry, goes in cycles. Grow, contract, repeat. Here in Charlottesville, our last boom came in 2014, a year that brought Lampo, The Alley Light, Oakhart Social, Parallel 38, Public Fish & Oyster, MarieBette, Rock Salt, Red Pump Kitchen, and Al Carbon, among others. Now, after a slight lull, the area’s […]
Wine of another kind: Flying Fox soars into fresh territory with seasonal vermouth
About 10 years ago, concurrent with the onset of the artisanal cocktail movement, small-batch European vermouths began showing up in the U.S. market. Winemakers took notice, and some started experimenting with producing their own. Today, vermouth is enjoying a moment, with some of the very best being made in our own backyard, by Afton’s Flying […]
The accidental environmentalist: Author Earl Swift could go on about the ravages of climate change. But really, he’d rather be hiking.
Earl Swift is the author of seven books, including the urgent and poignant Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island. It was named a best book of 2018 by NPR, The Washington Post, Outside, Bloomberg, and Smithsonian, among others, and recently won a Reed Environmental Writing Award from the Southern Environmental […]
Building blocks: A contractor-turned-craftsman churns out custom goods for cooks.
After retiring from the construction business, Clay Greneveld couldn’t sit still, so he launched a second career as a custom craftsman. For a short while he made pen sets, using acrylic and wood, but he found the work too fussy and the profits marginal. Now, three years into his new venture, Greneveld has discovered his […]
The joy of eating: How a local cook, food stylist, and blogger with a national following learned to love food again
After years of struggling with disordered eating and food sensitivities, Renee Byrd rediscovered her love of food and cooking. Now she shares recipes—and a bit of life-changing magic—on Will Frolic for Food, the blog she started in 2013. In a way, Byrd, 29, is the Marie Kondo of food. While she advocates a better, simpler […]
Jefferson’s other home: Poplar Forest gave the president what Monticello couldn’t—peace
Monticello was a busy place in Thomas Jefferson’s time, just as it is now. And just as Jefferson’s second home, Poplar Forest, provided him with a much-needed retreat, the meticulously restored property today offers visitors a peaceful haven to gain a different view of the third president’s life and times. Located near Lynchburg and first […]
Ready, set, grow! A quick guide to starting vegetables and flowers from seed
Starting plants from seed may not be the easiest, or even the most economical, way to supply your garden. It requires investing not only a lot of time, but also money for seeds, potting soil, flats, cell packs, thermometers, those cute little markers, and perhaps heat mats, a cold frame, or small greenhouse. Regardless, the […]
Grand garage: A grungy space gets a lush upgrade
A garage is often a dank, dusty place, cluttered and cobwebby, smelling of gasoline and grass clippings. It’s the last place most homeowners would choose to create a bright, inviting space that could host, say, a wedding party—but a Farmington couple did that and more, with a contemporary renovation of their three-car garage, an addition […]
Patio perch: A new hardscape creates space for entertaining outside
After living for decades in a grand house in Suffolk, Virginia, overlooking a 27-acre lake, Diane Grieder and Marion Grigg retired to Charlottesville and a whole new landscape. They were glad to downsize to a smaller home, Grieder says, but “it was hard to give up that lake view.” Two years ago, when they found […]
A kitchen full of light: A big, bright cooking space blends beauty and functionality
For the interior redesign of a large house in a leafy Charlottesville neighborhood, architect Bethany Puopolo reassigned many of its spaces—a family room became the master suite, and the living and dining rooms switched places—in order to make them work better for her clients, a couple with three young children. But the father, the family’s […]
Lounge act: Flying Fox Vineyard gets clubby with its new tasting room
The style of central Virginia’s wine-tasting rooms generally reflects their rural, agrarian roots. Some have a rustic, barn-like feel, because vineyards are essentially farms. Others exude the refinement and grandeur of a country estate, where one might relax with a glass of viognier after a morning on horseback. There are exceptions. Gabriele Rausse Winery built […]