Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 17, 1993 TAG: 9306220074
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The photo was taken at the end of a Fourth of July celebration, after the relay races had been swum and the greased watermelon corralled. The twirlers are performing on the sandy beach, with their blazing batons reflected in the lake.
Preece thinks the photo was taken in the early 1980s, but it could have been the 1960s.
Time stands still at Loch Haven, a private lake club in Roanoke County where you might expect to catch Opie Taylor skimming stones or wetting a line.
"It's all sort of Mayberry," said Preece, whose family has owned the swim club for more than 30 years.
Preece, 45, quit his job at Hollins College last fall to help his mother keep up the 100-acre property after she ran into a spell of bad health.
Preece is trying to sell Loch Haven as a "retro-hip" place where baby boomers can reconnect with childhoods spent at summer camps and introduce their own children to things like paddling a canoe and hiking in the woods.
As Preece sees it, Loch Haven will appeal to people yearning for something other than concrete pools filled with chemically treated water.
"People are starting to want someplace that stays the same for more than a day," he said.
His most immediate task - when he's not busy with cabin roofs that need patching or grass that needs cutting - is putting Loch Haven on the map.
The nine-acre lake is 15 minutes from downtown Roanoke, but it's side-tracked between Brushy Mountain and Interstate 81. "The first thing that people say when they get here is they lived here all their lives and had no idea it was here," Preece said.
The lake - originally called Seven Falls - was formed in 1932 with the construction of a dam on a creek that runs off Brushy Mountain. The lake came into its own after World War II, when rising prosperity gave families new-found opportunities for recreation.
In 1945, the property was bought by Noel Preece, an adventurous Englishman who came to Southwest Virginia via Australia.
Preece built terraced rock walls to remind him of the lake region of his native England. He constructed several small cabins that families could rent by the week. He built dozens of picnic tables topped with slate salvaged from old billiard tables.
There are still tables where you can rest your drink can in a corner pocket.
Harriet Preece, now 72, fell in love with the romantic Englishman and came to share his vision of the lake as paradise. Their marriage, however, was cut short by Noel Preece's sudden death in 1960.
Harriet, who was left to support two children from a previous marriage, discovered her husband's finances were a mess. Creditors forced Loch Haven on to the auction block, and Harriet Preece had to beg and borrow to scrape together enough money to hold onto the property.
Sky Preece, 13 at the time, can remember a long stretch of time when it seemed like the only thing the family could afford to eat was pea soup.
For 30 years, Harriet Preece has lived in a house on a bluff above the lake, preserving the landscape that she and her late husband so loved. She still gets misty eyed at the mention of his name.
Others would have been tempted by developers' offers to buy the property for waterfront lots or condominiums. But Preece politely turned them away.
"I just tell them I've never thought of selling it," she said.
Harriet Preece looks at least 10 years younger than her age, even after a serious operation last fall. She credits the sulfur springs that feed Loch Haven.
The waters have had no such salutary effect on the business fortune of Loch Haven. Powerful trends have conspired to whittle membership to about 100.
Women joined the work force, leaving them no time to take their children to the lake. Swimming pools - private and public - cropped up all over the valley. Society has become so mobile that families now plan their weekends around big events or the latest festival instead of returning to the same place week after week, year after year.
Sky Preece believes the pendulum is swinging back, that life has gotten so frenetic that people long for a simpler time.
Without a doubt, Loch Haven turns back the clock.
Preece gets downright enthusiastic when discussing all the corny things there are to do at Loch Haven. Take a plunge off the high dive. Scratch around in the giant sandbox. Play pingpong.
And has he mentioned the annual Fourth of July celebration with canoe races, baton twirlers and deliberately unspectacular fireworks display?
"There's sort of a `Happy Days' speed and quality to the place," he said.
The slower pace appealed to Dean and Cindy Shepperd, a Salem couple who joined earlier this year.
Their two children - Michael, 9, and Amy, 6 - have more to do than swim. They fish, paddle, canoe and explore the woods.
"We now have salamanders on the deck back at home," Dean Shepperd said.
"They would be bored in an hour at a pool," Cindy Shepperd added. "Here they'll stay all day."
Swimmers can have the lake all to themselves during the week. The biggest gripe that members have is that the beach can get overrun on weekends when local businesses hold company picnics.
Preece replied that corporate gatherings are not a big problem because the 100-acre property can "absorb" a lot of people.
Preece said he is working to increase membership through marketing and to find new sources of revenue, such as associate memberships for health clubs or churches. At the same time, Preece said he doesn't want too much growth at Loch Haven.
Preece - who lives in a converted tomato cannery in Botetourt County - said he is committed to retaining the kind of pace that would make Andy and Opie feel right at home.
"I would like to preserve the Mayberry in the world as much as possible," he said. "It's a sentimentality of what the world ought to be."
For more information, call 366-1174.
by CNB