Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 1, 1993 TAG: 9307300423
SECTION: DISCOVER PAGE: D-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MELANIE S. HATTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: EVERYBODY KNOWS MILL MOUNTAIN LENGTH: Medium
And it's the one that has been targeted for countless projects: Some came and went while others never got started.
Most recently, the mountain was to become the site of a larger-than-life bronze monument honoring the casualties from the Normandy Invasion of World War II. Other projects were the Mill Mountain Zoological Park expansion and an aerial tram from downtown Roanoke.
But in 1990, those plans were dashed when Roanoke City Council voted to endorse a plan that called for the city-owned mountain to be preserved in its largely natural condition.
However, if it hadn't been for the Great Depression, the 1,720-foot mountain could have been a center of commercial activity.
Mill Mountain, named for a mill on Crystal Spring at its base, was acquired by William Parrish Henritze in 1919. In 1923, he built a winding road, with a unique figure-eight loop, from Sylvan Road to the top. He planned to build a 300-room resort hotel, an exhibit of Virginia history and a statue of Robert E. Lee.
His vision was an extension of development already started on the mountain. The Rockledge Inn, a Victorian hotel that stood near where the Star is now, had opened in 1892, according to news reports. It was built by the Roanoke Gas and Water Works.
A tower was erected in 1891, shortly after a dirt road had been completed. A 25,000-candlepower lamp was added to the tower in 1910 and was reported to be seen 80 miles away. A year later, the wind blew the tower down.
The same year the lamp appeared, the Incline railway opened and more than 1,200 passengers took the 4-minute trip up the straight slope in the electric cars. Its path can still be seen on the western slope.
By 1914 the mountain was home of a second tower - a 90-foot wooden shaft - from which visitors could view the Roanoke Valley.
Although Henritze's plans were thwarted by the Depression, his home remains a legacy to the people of Roanoke.
Roanoke native Ralph Smith, of Ralph Smith Industries, bought the house named Rockledge a year ago. He lives there with his 13-year-old son, Taylor.
"I grew up in a very ordinary house on Williamson Road," Smith said. "I never dreamed I'd ever live here."
The house is surrounded by meandering rock walkways and a flat lawn edged by a wall inlaid with a fountain. Inside are detailed wooden floors and wooden paneling. The three-story house is topped with a ballroom - once used as a screening room - complete with lamps that had hung in the Roanoke Theatre, also owned by Henritze.
While the house was being erected, Henritze took a year and a half to travel the world alone. The week Smith bought the house, he found a steamer trunk in an antique shop. A sticker on the trunk showed that Henritze had traveled from New York on the S.S. Reliance to the West Indies in 1927.
Henritze tried to sell the mountain to the city in 1932, but the city wasn't interested, according to a newspaper article. In 1934, he sold it under foreclosure for $50,000 to Washington and Lee University. In February 1941, J.B. Fishburn, who had acquired the land for $50,000, gave the mountain to the city for recreational use.
Henritze remained in the house until he died at 78 on Oct. 3, 1957. He was born in Marion and had a machine shop for coal-mining tools in West Virginia. He moved to Roanoke in 1907 and worked in real estate.
Members of his family stayed in the house until 1983 and finally sold it to Bill and Danielle Rand for $426,000 in 1989.
Henritze's dream of making the mountain a resort perhaps lives on in the Mill Mountain zoo, which opened in July 1952, and the Star.
The Mill Mountain Star was dedicated on Nov. 23, 1949. Built by the Roanoke Merchants Association and the Roanoke Valley Chamber of Commerce, it was constructed as a Christmas decoration to draw attention to the region. The 100-foot structure, with 2,000 feet of neon tubing, was to burn only through the Christmas holiday and other special occasions. But it became so popular the city decided to let the star burn year-round.
by CNB