Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 30, 1993 TAG: 9305280027
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Long
Students in a civil engineering technology course have spent more time than they can calculate mapping every facet of Loretto, a 141-year-old historic home donated to the college's Educational Foundation last year.
They've measured and entered into their computers not only the dimensions of the rooms and the placement of the columns but every tree, stump and ditch around it, as well as the topography.
Originally a four-room farm house called Oak Level, it was built in 1852 by Wythe County Clerk William Alexander Stuart. His brother, Civil War Confederate cavalry commander, Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, often stayed at the home.
Future Virginia governor Henry C. Stuart was the first child born in the house, in 1855. It was sold a year later to Ben Rush Floyd, who changed its name to Loretto. In 1860, it was owned by Col. Robert Sawyers who sold it nine years later to his brother-in-law, Capt. Robert Crockett.
Crockett added the existing front section and mansard roof. Future owners expanded it, causing it to reflect not one but several periods of architecture.
Thanks to students like C.T. Eagle, Tamara Phillips, Frieda Rector, Rodney Ratliff, Bradley Phillips, Rock York and Veronica Allison in a course taught by Dickie Morgan, the data is now in a computer program that can analyze it in dozens of different ways.
"We had people who could take the information if we had some good, measured drawings," explained Randi S. Lemmon of Blacksburg, land-trust consultant with the National Committee for the New River.
"And that's our goal, to show its viability," he said. "This is why we got involved to begin with."
The New River group is dedicated to the conservation and highest use of cultural and natural resources in its three-state watershed. Lemmon argues that Loretto is such a resource.
It is valued at $350,000, but Lemmon doubts that the structure could be built today for $2 million.
The home and its surrounding 3.82 acres were donated last year to the Educational Foundation to help raise scholarship money.
"We're acting as their free consultant," Lemmon said. "Our goal is to try to make them more than they probably could have gotten otherwise."
The Education Foundation board agreed recently to have the New River group proceed with designs on how the home could be used as an economic development center, perhaps with a museum or bed-and-breakfast included. The designs should be complete by mid-June.
It could developed into a place to bring representatives of prospective industries or other guests to visit, dine or stay overnight, depending on how it might be used.
Lemmon was originally hired by Architectural Alternatives of Blacksburg to help in land-planning development for the property. He was so impressed with it that he went to the New River group with a proposal to find a way to preserve it.
"We're looking at this as an economic development opportunity here, using its historic character," he said.
It has been on the market since being given to the foundation, but Lemmon hopes that it can be used in its present form rather than torn down to make way for some new development.
Kelly Mattingly, a Virginia Tech graduate student in architecture seeking a master's in historical preservation, is compiling the data to see about submitting Loretto for Virginia Landmarks and National Historic Registry designation.
That would not stop any future owner of the property from doing anything he or she wished with it, Mattingly said. But historic designation would offer tax breaks in developing the property if the aspects that brought about the designation were left intact.
The preservation cannot be enforced, he said, but the 20 percent tax credit does encourage it.
There are several stages that a structure must go through at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources before it receives landmark status. Mattingly has already talked with department officials about the possibilities.
"My discussions with their office suggests that, yes, it will get to that second stage, given its significant tie-in with the Stuart family and other prominent families within Wytheville, and the architecture," Mattingly said.
"There's this feeling that registry prevents you from doing something with your land. Not at all," said Lemmon. "It's a great honor."
He said it might be developed as a restaurant, lodge or for any number of uses that could still be compatible with its existing architecture.
"Our goal here is to help the foundation realize its financial goal," he said. The New River group's proposal to the foundation, Lemmon said, was "just let us work on the program to show you how we can make it more valuable."
Bob Rogers of Architectural Alternatives will study the data compiled by the students and suggest alternatives. But first the data had to be gathered.
"We couldn't pay for this, obviously," Lemmon said. But Morgan, the class instructor, "likes real things" and believed this would be an opportunity for the students to get hands-on experience.
"They put in an incredible amount of labor for one credit," Lemmon said. The students were supposed to spend 10 hours a week on the project and he estimates they doubled that easily.
The home has been rented by Dr. Paul Morin and Jennifer Morin since the start of 1992. They have three children, Michelene, 6; Jacqueline, 4; and Caitlin, 2.
"We're very much enjoying the experience of living in a historic structure," Jennifer Morin said.
It also makes it possible to have an occasional elegant dinner party, she said.
by CNB