Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 28, 1995 TAG: 9509280015
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LESLEY HOWARD SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES|
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Then in January, as she drove back from taking another look at the house that wasn't quite right, she saw a former fraternity house on Franklin Street.
"I'd always been curious about it, and I decided to just stop," said Martin, a research associate in Virginia Tech's physics department. The house was open and as she walked through it, she liked what she saw. "It felt right."
It was the perfect place for her to work on her acrylic and oil paintings, which have won several juried competitions.
When she asked about buying the house, however, the real estate agent told her it was $250,000, which was "more than a little bit out of my price range," Martin laughed. It turned out, however, that the price included the land, which is in the middle of the Wal-Mart-to-downtown stretch that's been heavily commercialized. The house alone was affordable - but Martin had to find land to put it on, and find someone to help her move it.
She hired Hill House Movers to move the structure, porches and all, to a farm behind the New River Valley Mall. The house was too tall for the utility lines along the route to the new land, and Martin didn't want to pay $35,000 to move those lines. She took the roof off the house instead.
Martin hopes to re-use the roof, which was made of tin, as ceiling material as she renovates the interior.
It was because of the missing roof that Martin met one of the house's original residents, Mabel Sarver. "One day my niece called me up and said that the old house had its roof being taken off," said Sarver, who now lives at Warm Hearth Village. "She asked around and learned that Jennifer had bought the house."
Sarver's father, Pearl Wilson, bought the land the house sat on (Martin moved it Sunday), plus a bit extra, for $4,633 in 1908.
"My father was a postal clerk whose route went from Bluefield to Lynchburg on the Number Two train," Sarver explained. "He built the house over the next five years. It was kind of slow because he would be gone one day, on his route, and then back the next, and he was doing some farming with a hired man. We moved in when I was 8 or 9 years old."
Her father also built a spring house where passers-by used to water their horses, just a bit up the road, then called State Route 8, toward Cambria.
"On a Sunday afternoon we used to just sit on the porch swing and watch the folks go by," she said. "There were apple trees along the road, from the spring all the way to the railroad tracks in Cambria. People can't believe it, it's so built up now, but it was a real pretty road."
The Sarvers had a vegetable garden out back and a rose arbor. One of her brothers "was always fond of canna flowers, though I never liked them, myself. He had a big bed of them out back." When both her parents had passed away, one of Sarver's brothers bought the house, but resold it within a year.
Originally, there was a schoolhouse on the land, as well as a barn. Neither of those structures remains today, but the house still stands tall.
The fraternity students made their mark on the building - the stairs are in bad shape, there's graffiti in the bathrooms, and some of the interior doors are missing. But the original wooden floors - most of them made from trees that were on the property, according to Sarver - are sturdy.
"The floors don't creak at all," Martin said. "I think it's because they're solid, but it could be because they're packed full of dirt."
Martin hopes to have renovations completed by April of next year. "Everyone says I'm crazy, but I think I can do it," she said with a typical grin. "It's not cheap, but it'll be worth all the effort. I'll have the space I need, and a home that feels right."
Sarver is looking forward to coming out and sitting on the porch swing when Martin's finished renovating. "I was so glad Jennifer bought the house," she said. "I always thought it was such a beautiful place."
by CNB