THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 26, 1995 TAG: 9507250120
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY ALLISON T. WILLIAMS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD LENGTH: Long : 118 lines
THE BEACON FLASHING from the copper-topped lighthouse at Smithfield Station is casting a new light on this historic waterfront community.
Guided by the light of Ron Pack's lighthouse and the lure of a good time, more tourists than ever before have been guided into the town's harbor of history.
That's what has earned Pack, owner of Smithfield Station, the 1995 Business of the Year award by the Isle of Wight-Smithfield-Windsor Chamber of Commerce.
``No individual in Smithfield . . . has done more to improve the quality of life in this community,'' said Smithfield Foods President Joseph T. Luter III, who presented the award at the chamber's annual dinner meeting last Tuesday. ``I can't think of another business that has changed the character of an entire town. We all know Smithfield differently because of Ron Pack.''
Pack was selected the 1995 winner by a committee of the past five winners. The committee's decision was based on written nominations made by chamber members last month.
For years, Smithfield's sleepy waterfront was lined with tiny, dilapidated houses and a small, family-owned seafood business. But Portsmouth native Pack, who moved to Smithfield in 1979, saw it as a place rich with potential.
He eventually bought several parcels of waterfront property and, in 1986, opened Smithfield Station, a 15-room motel with docking facilities and a restaurant overlooking the Pagan River. Since the motel opened, the marina has added enough slips to accommodate 60 boats.
Last year, Pack completed work on the final touches of the small resort's final growth phase - construction of the Light at Smithfield. The resort's most elegant lodging is inside the Chesapeake Bay-style, operating lighthouse, which stands in the middle of the river.
Pack opened the Boardwalk Bar & Grill, a small, casual, outdoor restaurant on the river bank last year. He also installed a boathouse with showers and a swimming pool.
``We have socially changed what Smithfield used to be,'' Pack, now 50, said in an interview after the awards dinner. ``There's always been a need for nice places for people to stay in Smithfield. One reason I think we are so successful is because people like to come to us by boat.''
But whether they come by land or water, visitors at Smithfield Station usually visit the historic downtown, too, Pack said. Tourists want to spend the day browsing through antique shops and visiting museums.
Before he built Smithfield Station, Pack and Chamber of Commerce representatives met with a group of consultants to discuss building tourism in the Smithfield area. Pack said the consultants told them that tourists need to find three ingredients in the community they are visiting: a place to sleep, a place to eat and places of diversion to spend their money.
Pack saw how he could fit into this approach.
``I built the first two, but all three things are critical,'' Pack said. ``Merchants need to focus on what they want the town to become best-known for. They need to find their niche and capitalize on it.''
``And if the town wants to be an antique town, every business in town should carry antiques. If there were 15 antique stores in a row on the street, people would know Smithfield is the place to go for antiques.''
Already, Pack says, he sees the need for additions to Smithfield Station to accommodate Isle of Wight County's growing tourism industry. But there is no where for him to grow.
``I'm landlocked. I need more hotel rooms, but I cannot build across the street or over the water.''
However, Pack is planning to renovate his motel rooms into more up-scale accommodations like those in the Lighthouse. Each room would have a private balcony overlooking the water.
Pack sort of happened into the hotel business. After graduating from the Medical College of Virginia with a degree in pharmacy and a master's in business administration from Virginia Commonwealth University, both in Richmond, he opened a discount drug store in Kilmarnock on the Northern Neck.
In 1979, he sold it, moved to Smithfield and, with several partners, bought a chain of 16 nursing homes in North Carolina. He built the headquarters for that company on South Church Street in the building now known as the Isle of Wight Inn. But in 1983, Pack sold that business when he was made ``an offer that was too good to refuse.''
During the next year, unable to sell his empty office building, Pack and his wife, Tina, turned it into a 10-room country inn in 1984.
That's also when they took the boating trip that he says changed his life.
``Tina and I took a boat trip and spent 12 days sailing from one end of the Chesapeake to the other. Along the way, we stopped at all these towns with nice marinas and nice facilities.
``That's when we realized Smithfield had all the makings for everything we had seen. My original intent was just to build a marina.''
In 10 years, Ron Pack has built far more than a small resort on the banks of the Pagan River. With Smithfield Station, he has helped this Isle of Wight town build its future around tourism. ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
BUSINESS OF THE YEAR
[Color Photo]
Ron Pack
Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Ron Pack won the Business of the Year award by the Isle of
Wight-Smithfield-Windsor Chamber of Commerce.
Before Smithfield Station became a picture postcard of a setting,
Tennis Seafood and some slender docks occupied the waterfront. Ron
Pack bought several parcels of waterfront property and, in 1986,
opened Smithfield Station, a 15-room motel with docking facilities.
Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
The lighthouse at Smithfield Station is modeled after the one that
stands at St. Michaels in Maryland.
Connie Rhodes
Joseph Luter III
Jo Ann Wood
KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW PROFILE by CNB