THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 26, 1996 TAG: 9609260003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 55 lines
Monday's paper carried two encouraging stories about citizen conservationists. Suffolk residents are restoring houses a century and a half old. Portsmouth residents are creating a wildlife preserve that could prove educational for generations of schoolchildren.
Much of the conservation effort in Suffolk is being performed by individuals or couples with a reverence for old houses. These are people pained by the sight of a magnificent old structure fallen into disrepair.
A city's history is its soul, and much of that history is contained in architecture. When a grand old building collapses or is destroyed, another hole is rent in a city's soul.
Staff writer Linda McNatt reported that part of the impetus to restore old Suffolk homes stems from a successful three-year drive to save and refurbish the CSX train station on the edge of downtown. The city is spending $30,000, and the Virginia Department of Transportation has awarded a $240,000 grant, to transform the station, built in 1834, into a visitors' center and museum. The urge to preserve is catching.
Some of the houses being saved are 150 years old and have names like The Old Post Office, because a postmaster lived there, and the Julianna Wood house, after a former resident.
Even as a well-tended yard is a gift to every passer-by, the restoration of a fine old home is a gift to every passer-by - not to mention posterity.
Anyone can tear down an old building, but nobody can build one. The only architect of age is time.
Just across the Suffolk city line into the Churchland section of Portsmouth, a long battle to save a 142-acre site for wildlife is going well. One hundred twenty residents formed the Hoffler Creek Wildlife Foundation to create a wildlife refuge around a 35-acre borrow-pit lake. City Council approved the foundation's project last month.
Staff writer Ida Kay Jordan reported:
``That the site would become the last refuge for wildlife in the middle of the fast-developing Churchland area was not even remotely envisioned two years ago. The city turned down the land the first time it was offered and told the state to sell it to a developer to put another subdivision in the middle of the wetlands.
``However, neither the city nor the state reckoned on the people-power that was mobilized by a group of people who refused to accept the conventional thinking about vacant land in Hampton Roads.''
Now plans call for two observation towers, trails through pristine woodland, an oyster farm, a visitors center, and on-site classes to teach children to build habitats to attract birds. The residents will have to raise money for the project, and you can bet they will.
In Suffolk and Portsmouth, many residents are not simply accepting whatever City Council, developers and Fate have in store for them. They are working to build a future they'd like to live in. We applaud their efforts, which surely profit everyone. by CNB