In Virginia, a Blue Ridge Retreat That’s ‘a Little Undiscovered’
(Excerpt from NY Times by Robert Strauss pub 06.22.07)
JOSEPH RADA had been a New Jersey boy his whole life — born in Perth Amboy, grew up in Holmdel, worked in Elizabeth, raised a family in Lincroft. Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains were hardly on his mind.
“One day I was at work,
and one of my buddies said he bought a place on a lake down here and would I
come visit him on a vacation,” Mr. Rada, a retired supervisor for a natural
gas company, said of his first trip to Smith Mountain Lake, in 1992. “It
wasn’t a year before I bought a house here, too. Who in Jersey could have a
house overlooking a lake with a dock for a couple-hundred-thousand dollars?”
Mr. Rada has since sold that first house — at a 200 percent profit, he said — and now owns a three-bedroom, three-bath town house he bought for $320,000 two years ago in the Mariners Landing development at Smith Mountain Lake. It has a sunset view of the lake from the back covered porch and a sunrise view, only disturbed by the first hole of the Mariners Landing golf course, from the front covered porch.
“It’s all too relaxing here,” he said. “I meet people all the time who come here for a second home or retirement from New Jersey.”
The lake, southeast of Roanoke, was created between 1963 and 1966 with the damming of the Roanoke River and some tributaries. The region around the lake takes in towns in Franklin, Pittsylvania and Bedford Counties.
Jacki Spillett arrived from Florida. Her husband, Rick, operates hotels in Florida and owns a small hotel company, and they had spent a number of vacations over those years visiting her sister, who lives on Smith Mountain Lake.
“My husband is in the rat race, and people in Florida drive like maniacs,” said Mrs. Spillett, who has four children and four grandchildren. “When we leave Florida and come to the real South, there is a different attitude — teenagers with ‘yes, ma’ams’ and ‘no, sirs.’ In Virginia, everything is slowed down, and it is a wonderful way to live.”
So now the Spilletts, who live in North Palm Beach, Fla., spend a lot of the summer in their four-bedroom house on the lake. Even the son who lives in Hawaii comes to visit, she said.
And Smith Mountain Lake has that odd combination of nothing and everything to do. “There aren’t really places to go clubbing or that many organized events,” said Rob Gerner, who attended the University of Virginia in the mid-1960s, moved to the region in the late 1970s and became a real estate agent there. “People tend to just use the lake in whatever way possible. They fish or boat or water-ski. They hike. They sit out and look at the scenery. It’s not a fast life here, just a good one.”
The Scene
Smith Mountain Lake is mostly a late-spring-through-early-fall kind of place. There is no real snow-skiing area — it is a bit too far south — and the lake is best when the weather is warm.
“You come here even in May and there may only be 50 boats out on the lake,” Mr. Gerner said. “We’re still a little undiscovered.”
Joan Griffith said the region is still trying to find its identity, but is filling with people who want to create a community.
“There are newcomers clubs and garden clubs and just a feeling of people wanting to find a new lifestyle,” she said. She has reveled in her whiplash-like life — growing up in Minnesota, working in Arizona, moving to a log cabin in West Virginia, then coming to Smith Mountain Lake and deciding to sell real estate.
“I never really lived in the South, but the people were just so friendly and the lake was so beautiful,” she said. “High-pressure people like me seem to just slow down when they get here.”
There are a few restaurants around the lake and four golf courses, but most socializing in Smith Mountain Lake, residents say, takes place on or by the water or at home.
“You see people fishing together, but mostly they meet at the dock or in the state park and then invite each other over for dinner,” said Mr. Gerner, adding that, for culture, people go to Roanoke or Lynchburg, where there are colleges, clubs and minor league sports teams.
“I’m sure it will change a little bit if more people move in permanently, but so far it seems everyone comes here looking for the same thing: a bit of rest from whatever hectic place they came from.”
Pros - - Smith Mountain Lake has 500 miles of shoreline, with mountain and water views almost everywhere. The lake is clean and accessible from many docks, both private and public. Roads may be rural and most often two-lane, but they are rarely clogged. People tend to eat at home, so restaurant lines are almost nonexistent. Property taxes are low — about $1,500 on a $300,000 house — because there are few schools to support.
Cons - - The area is remote. It is 45 minutes from Roanoke, which, while pleasant, is no metropolis. It is mostly a do-it-yourself place, where people boat or fish or swim on their own. It is not a place for people who need organized activities or more than rudimentary services and entertainment. (Altho the area is in its infancy and the services are coming along quickly, says Shellie Leete - Innkeeper at The Claiborne House B&B in Rocky Mount)
The Real Estate Market
There was a time, in the late 1970s, said Mary Lou McDonald, an agent with EastLake Real Estate, when land around Smith Mountain Lake was as cheap as the tobacco grown on it. “People tell me of buying five acres for $500 an acre,” she said. “This is still an inexpensive place for what it is, but not anything like that.”
There have been three rushes toward second-home development at Smith Mountain Lake. The first was in the mid-1980s, when some developers put up a few town houses and single homes near the lake, but, Mr. Gerner said, it still seemed too remote for most middle-class people who could afford beach or mountain property.
Then in the 1990s, fresh off the sustained economic boom, there was a little push for high-end lakefront property, which at the time, Mr. Gerner said, could go for about $300,000 for a large three-bedroom house with its own dock on the lake. That died off about six or seven years ago, with the general economic downturn.
About four years ago, he said, soon-to-be-retiring baby boomers started discovering the area. Town house condominium complexes, like Mariners Landing, with playgrounds, pools and tennis courts, started being built.
This spring, a two-year-old, three-bedroom, three-bathroom house on a golf course with a shared dock on the lake was going for $535,000. A 1,400-square-foot town house with a single-slip dock was for sale for $334,000. A three-bedroom house built in 1973, on one acre on a peninsula, was for sale for $734,000.
“I’m guessing that would be a teardown, though,” said Ms. Griffith, who sells real estate for Long & Foster. “These days, someone buying that big a lot will want a bigger house. It’s less about a lot of land, and more about how many views of the water you can have.”
Ms. McDonald said that it had been only in the last couple of years that million-dollar properties have arrived.
“They are really spectacular, though,” she said, showing off a 3,000-square-foot house with three garages, more granite than in the state of New Hampshire in the kitchen and, to be sure, a dock and a boat slip, for $1.8 million. “But then golf dues are only about $1,000 a year, so you can make it up on the other end.”
Lay of the Land
POPULATION The region around Smith Mountain Lake encompasses several towns in Franklin, Pittsylvania and Bedford Counties. The Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce estimates that the year-round population is 22,000. (Franklin County has the lowest tax rates, half of nearby Roanoke! SL)
SIZE The lake is 20,600 acres and has 500 miles of shoreline.
LOCATION The lake is about 25 miles southeast of Roanoke and 34 miles southwest of Lynchburg.
WHO’S BUYING Second-home buyers from North Carolina, Virginia, the Washington area, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Florida.
GETTING THERE There is a small private airport near Smith Mountain Lake; commercial service is at Lynchburg Regional and Roanoke Regional Airports. Most people, however, drive, using either Interstate 81, then heading east from Roanoke, or taking Route 29 and heading west from Gretna. (Greensboro [GSO] is one hour 15 minutes away - many flights per day)
WHILE YOU’RE LOOKING Stay with us here at The Claiborne House Bed and Breakfast. We are centrally located to explore the lake, county and shoot over to Roanoke for the theater, fine dining and shopping. We have it all!