THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 29, 1995 TAG: 9501290053
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 157 lines
Edwin B. Lindsley Jr., the gutsy ``land salvager'' who claimed last year that he owns the Oceanfront resort beach, is putting to record the final legal foundations of his controversial claim.
In two actions filed in Norfolk Circuit Court - one of them about two weeks ago - Lindsley asked the court to revive a pair of defunct turn-of-the-century companies that developed the Oceanfront, so he can get their leftover assets.
The court papers provide a fascinating glimpse of how the 70-year-old Lindsley works, and the basis for his claim to own nearly all of the resort beach.
The papers include a chain of title on some Oceanfront land dating to 1900, from the original beach developers, that appears to validate Lindsley's claim.
City attorneys deny Lindsley's claim. They say Virginia Beach owns the beach, and even if it doesn't, the city has an easement on the property that lets the public use it. Vacationers and sun worshipers have been enjoying the public beach since 1884, when the first resort hotel was built.
Since Lindsley made public his claim to the beach in June, he and his lawyers have refused to discuss the matter in any detail.
His latest attorney, Del. George H. Heilig Jr. - a law partner of Norfolk Mayor Paul D. Fraim - said last week he has no idea what property Lindsley claims, or how the newest actions fit in with Lindsley's larger stake to the Oceanfront.
Heilig filed both of Lindsley's new actions in Norfolk Circuit Court on Jan. 13 and Sept. 9.
``I don't have any idea where the property is located,'' Heilig said Wednesday from his Richmond legislative office. ``All we're trying to do is remove the cloud from the title. . . . I don't have any knowledge if this is even related to the (Oceanfront) claim.''
But papers filed in both cases show Lindsley is laying the legal groundwork for a fight with the city.
On Jan. 13, Lindsley asked the court to appoint a receiver for the defunct Virginia Beach Holding Corp. He also asked that the company's leftover assets be deeded to his own Nala Corp.
Virginia Beach Holding was chartered in 1910, platted and sold beachfront lots from Rudee Inlet to 5th Street in the 1920s, then was dissolved in 1933. The company's original 1928 plat is on file in the Virginia Beach courthouse.
In legal papers, Lindsley says the company owned - and never sold - the beach itself. When the company went out of business, the land remained unclaimed.
A title examiner hired by Lindsley, George N. Byrd Jr. of Heritage Title, wrote on Dec. 22, ``It appears from the records . . . that there has been no proper conveyance of the parcel of land'' between the Atlantic Ocean and the beachfront lots that hold hotels and restaurants.
This echoes a letter written last year by another title examiner hired by Lindsley.
``It is quite evident at this point that Ed Lindsley owns the greatest portion of the beach area . . . together with a number of streets and a few odd-shaped parcels,'' Severn F. Kellam of Pembroke Title wrote on May 27.
Kellam concluded that Lindsley owns the entire resort strip, except for the part behind the Cavalier Hotel and between 14th and 15th Streets, where the original Princess Anne Hotel was located. ``I would roughly estimate that of a three-mile beach, Mr. Lindsley, or his sole-owned corporations, own approximately two and one-half of those miles,'' Kellam wrote.
In the new case of Virginia Beach Holding Corp., Judge Charles E. Poston has appointed a receiver - Norfolk lawyer Jack D. Maness - and ordered him to deed the company's ``unplatted parcels'' to Lindsley's Nala Corp.
``It appear(s) to the Court, upon competent evidence, that the Petitioner, Nala Corporation . . . is the owner of record and has an interest in certain lands . . . owned by the Virginia Beach Holding Corporation . . .'' the order states.
But a previous court case involving the same defunct company, just a few years earlier, came to a different conclusion.
In 1989, the city itself revived the Virginia Beach Holding Corp. to get two slivers of land along Rudee Inlet for a dredging project. The city paid $5,060 to a court-appointed receiver for one-fifth of an acre.
In that case, Virginia Beach Judge Calvin Spain signed an order stating that that land was ``the only asset owned by the said defunct corporation'' and the property was ``of nominal value.''
So far, Maness, the company's new receiver, has taken no action in the Lindsley case.
Meanwhile, Lindsley has filed a second, related court action. On Sept. 9, Lindsley asked the court to appoint a receiver for the defunct Virginia Beach Golf Course Annex Corp., which was dissolved in 1930.
It is unclear from court records what land the company owned. Heilig, Lindsley's lawyer, said he didn't know.
In this case, Judge Poston also appointed Maness as receiver, ordering him to convey to another Lindsley company, the Cala Corp., the land owned by the defunct golf-course company. Maness did so on Sept. 22.
No money changed hands, and Maness said the property in question was simply ``jib lots,'' or small pieces of land. Old deeds indicate the company once owned unspecified land near the Oceanfront. The deed from Maness to Lindsley's Cala Corp. refers to three small triangular lots at Linkhorn Park.
``I don't know a great deal about it,'' Maness said Wednesday. ``The court authorized me to execute a couple of deeds, and I did. . . . This particular case didn't require payment of any money.''
Deputy City Attorney Gary Fentress said last week he was unaware of Lindsley's two newest actions, but the city still claims to own and control the resort beach.
Most of Lindsley's Oceanfront claims apparently date back to the 1880s, when Virginia Beach was literally carved from the woods along the Atlantic Ocean. There, the Norfolk and Virginia Beach Railroad and Improvement Co. - predecessor to the current Norfolk Southern Corp. - built the first resort hotel in 1884 and named the resort ``Virginia Beach.''
The railroad also platted, or mapped, in 1887 what is now the entire Oceanfront: from Rudee Inlet to 47th Street, from the ocean to what is now the Pavilion, including Croatan Beach. The plat is found in Map Book No. 1 at the Virginia Beach courthouse, and it shows a proposed race track, cottage sites and various parks to be built in the swamp and forestlands.
``Obviously that was not followed,'' said historian Stephen S. Mansfield of Virginia Wesleyan College.
By 1900, the Virginia Beach Development Co. had bought all the land owned by the railroad, including the two big beachfront resort hotels. The company went on to develop much of the tiny resort town.
Over the years, Lindsley has revived the defunct companies and obtained their long-forgotten assets.
Even while the resort was developing, the land in controversy - between the ocean and the edge of the hotel lots, including the beach, the boardwalk, and the grassy strip - was completely ignored, said Fielding Tyler, executive director of the Life-Saving Museum of Virginia.
``Nobody was interested,'' Tyler said. ``Why buy it? You can't build a house on it. You can't put a hotel on it. You can't build a railroad on it. So why buy it?'' ILLUSTRATION: D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/Staff
Are these boardwalk bikers on Lindsley land?
RDV/Staff [Map]
CHAIN OF OWNERSHIP
Here is the chain of title by which Ed Lindsley claims ownership
of at least some land at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront:
Norfolk and Virginia Beach Railroad and Improvement Co. plats
Oceanfront in 1887
Virginia Beach Development Corp. 1900
Virginia Beach Syndicate Nov. 15, 1920
Virginia Beach Realty Corp. May 15, 1923
Soames Corp. Feb. 17, 1932
Louise E. Baker
June 9, 1969 pays $3,000
Robert S. Lindsley June 12, 1969, pays $5,000
Fala Corp. Sept. 17, 1990
Cobo Corp. Nov. 1, 1990
Fala Corp. Oct. 1, 1992
Edwin B. Lindsley Jr. Dec. 31, 1992
Windsor Investors Ltd. (now Cala Corp.) May. 11, 1994
by CNB