ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 15, 1996 TAG: 9610150122
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
The date has been changed and so has the place, but the Colonial Candlelight Dinner of the Roanoke Valley History Museum is on.
After the Roanoke Board of Zoning Appeals voted down a request for a special exception to allow it at Fairacres, the headquarters of the Roanoke Council of Garden Clubs, officials of the Jefferson Center Foundation offered Fitzpatrick Hall for the Christmastime event.
"It doesn't have the historical-home feel, in many ways," said Richard Loveland, the history museum's executive director, "but in many ways it's better." Improved parking and larger seating capacity were noted.
The party has been moved from Dec. 14 to Dec. 20. The Colonial-era menu remains, as does musical entertainment from No Strings Attached and the museum's revival of a popular fund-raiser discontinued several years ago.
It was in the summer that museum officials approached the council's board and asked to use Fairacres for the dinner, which they expect to draw about 100 people. The council's president, Mary Lou Delaney, spoke to the city zoning office. She said she was told its RS-3 designation would allow the dinner.
Then, in September, Loveland told her that someone who lived near Fairacres was objecting to the plan. That led to a public hearing last week where several neighbors of the South Roanoke property protested the request for a special exception. They complained that opening the center for fund raising and other events would damage the neighborhood of expensive homes.
Wedding receptions and other activities several years ago created upheaval around the Avenham Avenue site, they said, and they did not want a repeat. The zoning board dashed the plan by a 4-0 vote.
"When all of this came to light, I just hated it so much," Delaney said. "I had no idea there was any hostility in the neighborhood."
Irony marked the dispute. Loveland estimated that more than half of the museum's members live in South Roanoke, and one of the attractions of a party at Fairacres was its location near them. One of the opponents had served on the museum's board, he said.
Delaney said she initially spoke to the zoning board about permission for a single event. When she received the agenda for the recent hearing, it listed a request for an exception allowing "various community events, including educational, instructional and fund-raising activities" - a broader and more threatening description.
"The fear of the neighborhood was so far from what the reality of the event was going to be," Loveland said. "We would have the most benign sort of event that could be imagined. But it left the door open."
Following news reports of the dispute and its outcome, retired Judge Beverly Fitzpatrick Sr., the prime mover in the conversion of the old Jefferson High School into the Jefferson Center arts and administrative complex, suggested offering use of the hall named in his honor.
Dec. 20 is a go, Loveland said, but the change in plans has delayed the setting of ticket prices. The museum intends to honor one of its members at the event.
The awkwardness caused by the museum's original plan is past, to the relief of everyone involved. But a question has arisen about the future of Fairacres as the garden council's home.
On Monday, the garden club council's board met and discussed the episode, Delaney said. One thought that briefly came up: moving to another place.
The museum would have made a donation to the council in exchange for using the building. The money would have helped with the upkeep on the old home, for which each garden club member pays $3.
Many of the council's members are aging, Delaney said. They find it difficult to mount Fairacres' steps and maintain its more than 2 acres of grounds.
"We have 800 members, and when we had a grounds workday, when we notified all the clubs, nine people showed up," Delaney said.
No action is planned, she said, but the board did talk about finding a lot and putting up a one-story building.
The council's next grounds workday will be Monday. Holiday House, its annual bazaar and only fund-raising event, will be Nov. 2 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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