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PAWV
ANNUAL CONFERENCE HAILED
By Dan Gooding, PAWV Vice-President, Lewisburg
The 2003 PAWV Annual Conference,
this year showcasing “Preservation Successes” in one of our state’s
premiere historic towns was hailed by all who attended.
| The affair began with a welcoming
reception in the luxurious lobby of the Greenbrier Valley Theatre.
The Greenbrier’s private reserve, private label wines were poured
compliments of the resort, the flagship of West Virginia tourism.
Adding to evening’s appeal, Robert S. Conte, Ph. D., the resort’s
curator and historian provided a captivating pictorial review
narrative of The Greenbrier’s architectural history. The
Lewisburg Preservation and Enhancement Alliance, The Greenbrier, and
The Greenbrier Clinic sponsored the event. |
Washington Street in downtown
Lewisburg
(photo courtesy of the
Greenbrier County CVB) |
Friday and Saturday, September 5 and 6, were busy
days for conference attendees who were visiting from all parts of the
state. Conference registrants’ home-counties ranged from
Mercer to Jefferson and from Ohio to Monroe.
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Topics for the classroom style
presentations, which were held at Lewisburg’s Carnegie Hall, were
carefully selected to permit participants to delve deeply into the means
by which the preservation successes examined have been attained. Sessions
included: saving an endangered building; planning for adaptive reuse;
locating resources; case studies of successful projects in Lewisburg,
Huntington and Clarksburg; legislative methods; building and maintaining
advocacy organizations and the Lewisburg story---a case study in turning a
failed town around through Historic Preservation and Heritage Tourism.
Site tours of two of Lewisburg meticulous restorations were extremely
popular. Groups visited Montwell, site of Friday night’s reception and
the Tyree-Dunn House, the latter a “save” of an 1805 house vacant and
declining for over twenty years. In both cases the contractors were on
hand to explain just what was involved in the projects.
(Left) The Old
Stone Church, famous Lewisburg historic landmark, across the street from
Conference Hall
(photo courtesy of the
Greenbrier County CVB)
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Earlier, on Friday evening,
Montwell, (1818) was opened to PAWV for a private reception and tour.
Montwell is one of the city’s most important historic structures and
stands on a promontory overlooking the downtown. It possesses a most
distinguished countenance in the early classical revival style, featuring
a double-porched portico fronted by thick, thirty-foot tall columns.
Crossing the threshold under a massive fanlight, guests were treated to
tours of the home which was so newly restored that no furniture was yet in
place to obstruct an examination of its architecture. The Greenbrier
again provided excellent wines, while The Lewisburg Preservation and
Enhancement Alliance supplied the food.
| The highlight of the conference
was the rousing luncheon keynote speech by John Avoli, mayor of Staunton,
Virginia. Avoli, a Weirton native who transplanted to Virginia to attend
college in Richmond, is one of the nation’s most successful mayors in the
area of economic development through Heritage Tourism. A strong advocate
of Historic Preservation, Mayor Avoli spearheaded the renaissance of
Staunton. He is now in his fifteenth year as mayor of the city
and is recognized nationally for shepherding Staunton into a new era
of national acclaim for its meticulously restored and elegant historic
downtown.
(Right) John Avoli, Mayor of
Staunton Virginia, Preservation Leader and Conference Keynote Speaker |
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As he told conference attendees of
the evolution of Staunton’s recent progress, he stressed that the same
could be done in most West Virginia cities piggybacking on the state’s
already growing tourism industry.
PAWV President Phyllis Baxter
presents Award to John Wade Bell at conference
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Also at the luncheon, Lewisburg
native and prominent businessman, John Wade Bell, was selected to
receive this year’s Rodney Collins Preservation Leadership Award.
Selection of John by the Board of Directors for this honor at its
summer meeting in Wheeling had been an easy process in light of his
extraordinary commitment to preserving and reusing historic structures
in West Virginia. Most of his personal “preservation successes”
have occurred in Greenbrier County, although his most recent save is
of a notable log home near Wytheville, Virginia. This will be
the third important log home in the path of destructive progress that
he has saved by relocating it to family acreage near Lewisburg.
His offices are in the restored 1805 Tyree-Dunn House the Lewisburg
landmark which was included in the Saturday’s how-to-do it site tours
along with Montwell. John Wade Bell recently purchased The West
Virginia Hotel building near the entrance of The Greenbrier in White
Sulphur Springs. The long vacant and endangered structure is
about receive a careful restoration and an adaptive reuse in the
exemplary style of John Wade Bell. |
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