Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 28, 1990 TAG: 9006280272
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B6 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
While preservationists saved the view around Jefferson's home in Charlottesville, they are waging battles around the state and nation against those who want to build modern homes, factories and offices beside Civil War battlefields and 18th century plantations.
"What Virginians have done very well is to save the houses where Jefferson and Washington have slept and ate," said Carter Hudgins, director of the Center for Historic Preservation at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg. "It's easy to save those things which are one of a kind.
"The more difficult thing is to go the next step" and save the surrounding land, which puts the site in perspective, he said. "If you lose the setting, you lose the context. You lose the meaning of what the world was all about to begin with."
"It's very, very difficult to get residents of the commonwealth to understand that anyone who goes to visit [Monticello] will have an experience that's diminished dramatically if they stand on top of Thomas Jefferson's mountain and gaze on the rear end of condominiums."
Most historic sites are saved by, not in spite of, developers, said Peter Brink, vice president for programs and services at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C.
"Three-fourths of the time, we consider ourselves partners with developers," he said.
In January, officials at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville dropped plans to swap land at the base of Monticello Mountain so a large office complex could be built on the site.
People in Stafford County have argued over whether the land next to George Washington's boyhood home should be zoned for commercial use.
In Culpeper, California developer Lee Sammis has acquired 5,200 acres along the Rappahannock River on land where the Battle of Brandy Station was fought in 1863. Historians have described that as one of history's last great calvary battles.
In exchange for rezoning from the county, Sammis has offered for public use 242 acres that a historic consultant deemed significant to the battle, said Michael Armm, development director for the project called Elkwood Downs. The land offered is connected by trails.
"Several different groups come at it from different angles," Armm said. "Some think that's enough. Others say `Give it all.' "
"There has to be compromise on both sides."
Armm agreed that "there has to be some perspective," a buffer around the property. But some critics complain that "if you stand on the site and look around, you shouldn't be able to see anything that wasn't seen from the battle," he said.
"Some kid a hundred years from now is going to get interested in the Civil War and want to see these places. He's going to go down there and be standing in a parking lot. I'm fighting for that kid," said Brian Pohanka, a local historian.
by CNB