Calendar
3 December
Waterford Fair Volunteer
Thank You Party. 6-8 p.m.,
Old School.
4 December
Ornament Decorating
Party, sponsored by the
Waterford Citizens
Association, 10 a.m. to noon,
John Wesley Community
Church.
19 December
Waterford Citizens
Association Caroling in
Waterford. 6-8 p.m.,
beginning at the Village
Green.
31 December Last day to vote for Old School Pepsi grant! Click here to help us receive $50,000 for the Old School. 20 March
Waterford Concert
Series: Igor Begelman and
Larisa Gelman, Catoctin
Presbyterian Church,
Waterford, 4 p.m. |
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ANNUAL APPEAL
What makes Waterford special?
You do!
Your contribution is a key part of our history. In 1943, when many Waterford buildings had fallen into disrepair, concerned citizens formed the Waterford Foundation to preserve the village for future generations. Since then the Foundation and its supporters have raised millions of dollars to save and continue preserving 14 historic properties (totaling 11 buildings and 195 acres of open space!). This tremendous effort has made Waterford the special place it is today.
But "preservation through education" costs the Foundation almost $700,000 each year. That is much more than the Waterford Fair earns. Particularly in times like these when economic conditions make funding our mission from outside sources so much more difficult, we count on the generosity of supporters like you.
We all love Waterford. Visit this page of our website to see (in the left-hand column) our list of preservation and education tasks for the future.With your help we can achieve our goals! And thanks to you and all our friends during this special season.
Best regards,
Bonnie Getty
President
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Vote for Waterford!
Help us win a
$50,000 grant
for the Old School
Rebuilding the Waterford Old School has just been selected as one of the December Pepsi Refresh Projects. The project with the most votes wins. You can vote for us once a day every day until the deadline, December 31st. Please start voting NOW. The first time you vote you'll need to register; after that you can just log on daily and vote!
ASK YOUR FRIENDS TO VOTE TOO.
Help us begin construction of the Old School auditorium in 2011.
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Detailed voting instructions for the Pepsi Refresh grant
· Click Here to get to the Pepsi website. You will be on the Pepsi Refresh page and see the title "SAVE RARE HISTORIC VILLAGE BY RESTORING FIRE-DAMAGED OLD SCHOOL."
· SCROLL DOWN PAGE to bottom of middle column. CLICK 'VOTE FOR THIS IDEA" button. This will take you to SIGN IN page.
· This will take you to the SIGN UP page. Fill in your information. CLICK "Done" at bottom of page.
· Back to VOTE HERE page to find SAVE RARE HISTORIC VILLAGE BY RESTORING FIRE-DAMAGED OLD SCHOOL.
· Ignore categories.
· In menu next to VOTE FOR scroll down to Near You
· Under VOTE FOR, you'll find a line of numbers. CLICK ON $50,000.
· Scroll down projects to #344 "SAVE HISTORIC VILLAGE..." and CLICK ON "VOTE FOR THIS IDEA"
Now you have voted for today.
TOMORROW, simply go to the same link (book mark it in your browser). Sign in. On VOTE HERE page, under VOTE FOR menu, choose Near You, then $50,000, and CLICK ON "SAVE RARE HISTORIC VILLAGE...." and VOTE HERE.
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Door wanting a step
The basement entrance of the John Wesley Community Church currently has four cinderblocks that serve as the doorstep. It is functional, but it poorly suits the lovely stone foundation of this historic building. The Properties Committee is soliciting a donation of a stone or stones to replace the cinderblock, to cover an area of approximately 3 by 2 feet. If you know of materials that might suit, please phone the Waterford Foundation office, 540-882-3018, ext. 111, or email us. Thank you! |
Board of Directors
Bonnie Getty, President
Walter
A. Music, Vice-President
Bronwen Souders, Secretary
Hans Hommels, Treasurer
Margaret
Bocek
David W. Chamberlin
Taylor M. Chamberlin
Charlotte
Gollobin
Warren
Hayford
Melanie Lockwood Herman
Mary Hutton
Lori
Kimball
Debbie
Morris
W. Brown Morton
Phil
Paschall
Patti
Psaris
Susan Honig Rogers
Susan Sutter
Jim
Sutton
Miriam
Westervelt
Staff
Nancy
Doane
Executive Director
Margaret
Good
Director,
Properties & Land Use Programs
Kathleen
Hughes
Manager, Development Programs
Fran
Holmbraker
Fair Chair
Mary
Kenesson
Fair Assistant
Martha
Polkey
Communications & Operations Coordinator
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We salute our Fair volunteers
 [Photo courtesy of Jack Cameron] The rain and the ruts and the mud and the tons of gravel and mulch laid down in the village before three glorious autumn days in October are a memory. But the Foundation never forgets its incomparable volunteers--nearly 500 of them this year--who made the 67 th Waterford Homes Tour & Crafts Exhibit a success. Each and every one is invited to the Old School for a thank you party from 6 to 8 p.m. this evening (December 3). |
Historic District to expand
The Waterford Historic and Cultural Conservation District is
 | | Taylor and Cordelia Chamberlin post a notice of the historic district expansion. [Photo by Nancy Doane |
scheduled to nearly double in size by early next year, increasing the district to about 760 acres. The addition of 458 acres has been recommended by the county's Historic District Review Committee, and on December 15 the Loudoun County Planning Commission will review the zoning map change. Signs announcing the public hearing have been posted on the 19 new parcels to be added. Following Planning Commission recommendation, the proposed change will be sent to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors for a vote.
A long-term goal of the Waterford Foundation--one supported by the county-- is eventually to expand the area of the county's district designation to correspond with the 1,420-acre National Historic Landmark, which encompasses the agricultural landscape that can be seen from the village. Those boundaries were drawn more than 40 years ago, when the Secretary of the Interior designated the Landmark.
"We are grateful to the stewards of these properties who are joining with us to achieve this important enhancement to the district," said Margaret Good, director of properties and land use programs. "And we welcome the county's support and acknowledgment of the significance of the Waterford National Historic Landmark ."
The map of the proposed expansion of the county's historic district designation for Waterford shows the existing district in orange and the new parcels to be added in lavender. The boundary in red encompasses the 1,420 acres of the National Landmark District.
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2011 Concert Series Season announced
 The Bach Sinfonia will present a May concert of Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
The seventeenth year of the Waterford Concert Series's will commence on March 20, 2011, with four concerts in its regular series: a clarinet and bassoon duo, the Bach Sinfonia, the Next Generation concert of young performers, and a return of the Maryland Opera Studio will bring a variety to the series. Current subscribers will receive invitations to the series in January. If you wish to receive a concert brochure and subscription form, email the Foundation office. More details of the concerts and performers will shortly be added to the Foundation website concert page.
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OUT OF THE ARCHIVES
Furniture, funerals, and fuel:
The Chair Factory's varied past
The building the Waterford Foundation owns at 15502 Second Street has housed a variety of commercial enterprises during Waterford's history--a common story of adaptation in rural village histories. Erected in 1888-90, this Greek Revival building was at first a chair manufactory, and this is what this Foundation-owned building is called today. But it has been a funeral home, a residence, a hardware store/gas station/barber shop, and a grocery store.
 | | An ad from 1880 on goods and services available at the Chair Factory. |
For years lumber went into the building, and Waterford furniture came out, crafted by Lewis Neal Hough, one of the Methodist Houghs renowned for their skill with wood. Hough, like many cabinetmakers, also provided coffins and other mortuary services. When his own health failed, his son-in-law, L. P. Smith, took over the undertaking business with another son-in-law, D.H. "Dick" Vandevanter. (As his main business, "Lem" also sold general merchandise at the Corner Store [present-day Foundation offices].) Bodies were laid out in the front room (the space now the art studio of Antonia Walker), and coffins were stored upstairs. At that time there probably was no interior staircase (and there still is no interior connection between the two floors). The only access was through a trap door, notes on the history of the business indicate, and if you needed a coffin, you didn't get to choose; the next one in line was retrieved.
One memorable Halloween, the town's ever-inventive youth trimmed the upstairs room, with Lem Smith's permission. "They had all eerie things and darkened windows. They went down to the big meadow and found a carcass head of a cow, brought it back and dressed it like a man, put it in a casket. Everyone who came had to come up the steps and pass by the casket. Everyone yelled...in horror.... Someone stood behind the casket, and [muttered] many weird things. The party was a big success and the talk of the town for some time."
The hearse was kept in the back room (then and now accessed by separate doors on the side). When the undertaker acquired an automobile hearse it was kept in the barn next to the building now owned by David and Peggy Bednarik.
During the same period, the downstairs was used as the meeting place for the Waterford Town Council, whose members sat around the table on which bodies were laid out the rest of the week, and used as a polling place during elections. This lasted until the town gave up its charter in 1936, about the same time that Mr. Smith sold his undertaking business and the building. Arthur Hawes, the new owner, opened a grocery store. Within a few years the grocery store became a hardware store and a filling station, when John Rollison moved his business from its previous location across Second Street (the old Livery Stable). Rollison's remained a local institution until his death in 1986.
For part of this period the upstairs was used as a lodge hall, though at one point in the mid-1940s Maurice (pronounced "Morris") Hough (great-nephew of the old cabinetmaker) and his wife lived over the store. They stood it about a year until the summer heat forced them out.
The Waterford Foundation purchased the building in 1961. Subsequently it assumed the responsibility for remediation and cleanup, when an underground gas tank on the property was found to be the source of groundwater contamination in the village.
Today the Chair Factory's second floor houses the Foundation Archives, historical artifacts from the village's history. The ground floor is an artist's studio-except for three days each October, when it becomes the Country Store, selling homemade and local products to Fair visitors.
In the list of improvements for the building, as funding allows, is to install a composting toilet (the building still has no plumbing) and storm windows.
 | | In 1968, the Chair Factory housed a hardware store and sold gasoline (the pumps are visible to the right of the building). [images from Foundation archives] |
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P.O. Box 142 Waterford, Virginia 20197 540.882.3018
www.waterfordfoundation.org
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