Coming Home to the Eastern Shore

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SATURDAY | 10.12.13
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
REALESTATE.HAMPTONROADS.COM
PESTS
THERE’S A
MOUSE IN
THE HOUSE
P10
PROJECTS
TWO DO-ITYOURSELF
OPTIONS
P12
Newcomers, wannabe residents feel pull to come home to
a slower way of life across the Bay-Bridge Tunnel
CHOICES
FINDING THE
RIGHT HOUSE
FOR YOU
P16
THE SHORE
OPTION
| P6
6 | HOME | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | SATURDAY, 10.12.13
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COVER STORY
COMING
HOME
to
the
SHORE
THE EASTERN SHORE OF VIRGINIA has
suffered deep population losses in the past
few decades. But residents – old and new –
of Northampton and Accomack counties are
stepping up to get the area moving again.
By TONI GUAGENTI | Correspondent
Peter Jacobson moved to Wachapreague
about a year ago with his wife, Carrie.
He loves to take photos of life on the
Eastern Shore, including this photo of
Wachapreague’s salt marshes.
COURTESY OF PETER JACOBSON
C
AROL SABO considers herself a “beachy person,” having visited
many a strand from Maine to Key West in her day. ¶ But 10
years ago, when she and husband Barry Groves decided to take
a ride from Virginia Beach, where they were visiting relatives, across
the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to Cape Charles, little did they know
they’d buy a house there and start a journey that will, eventually, make
them full-time residents of Virginia’s Eastern Shore.
For now, Sabo runs Machipongo
Trading Company off Charles M.
Lankford Jr. Memorial Highway
from Thursday through Sundays,
then returns to Haymarket to run
her equine veterinary practice and
spend time with her family during
the beginning of the week. Groves
stays in Northern Virginia full time
with the couple’s youngest son, a junior in high school, until he graduates.
“When people discover” the Eastern Shore, “they’re won over by it,”
Sabo said. “When you get to see the
sunset and there’s only five people
out there like there was tonight …
it belongs to you.”
The Eastern Shore’s two counties, Northampton and Accomack,
abound with stories similar to Sabo’s and Groves’.
Although not ready to retire, many
of these baby boomers transitioning
from the full-time rat race of faster-paced communities to life surrounded by water, wildfowl, fauna
and a close-knit community while
making money contributing to their
own self-preservation and that of the
Eastern Shore.
For years, the Eastern Shore of
Virginia has lost population.
In 2007, Northampton County
had 13,414 people. By 2011, it was
down to 12,377, according to the Kids
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SATURDAY, 10.12.13 | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | HOME | 7
Count Data Center provided by the
Annie E. Casey Foundation. In Accomack County, the population dropped
from 38,455 in 2007 to 33,336 in 2011,
Datacenter.aecf.org’s website shows.
Cape Charles, a hub for many years
back in the day, was no different.
According to a 2012 Virginian-Pilot article, Cape Charles’ “population
had dipped in the 1990s to 1,300 from
2,400 decades earlier,” and “By the
late 1990s, Cape Charles was almost
broke, according to minutes of a town
council meeting.”
For more than a decade, the town
has been working with the developers
of Bay Creek – made up of 10 neighborhoods on 1,720 acres, surrounded
by two signature golf courses, one designed by pro-golf legend Jack Nicklaus, the other Arnold Palmer, and
punctuated by the natural beauty of
the Chesapeake Bay and its surroundings – to bring residents with spending power to the area.
But what transpired with Bay Creek
when the housing market crashed
about seven years ago made folks of
DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH PHOTOS | FOR THE VIRGINIA PILOT
Carol Sabo, in the background, splits the
week running her coffee shop, Machipongo
Trading Company, in Cape Charles and
her equine veterinary practice in Northern
Virginia. Ten years ago, she was won over
by the area during a visit. Eventually, she
and her husband will become full-time
residents. In the foreground, Natalie King
takes coffee orders.
Left: The east end of Mason Avenue in
downtown Cape Charles.
the Eastern Shore realize they couldn’t
rely on just one industry to solve the area’s financial woes.
While Bay Creek is moving full-steam
ahead as of late, including the long-anticipated building of the community’s Beach
Club and Fitness Center, and the cottage
neighborhood of Cassatt Green (named after Mary Cassatt whose brother, Alexander
Cassatt, was president of the Pennsylvania
Railroad, which ran through Cape Charles
and played an integral part of the town’s
early growth), longtime Eastern Shore residents have been working on other plans.
Those are people like Eyre and H. Furlong Baldwin, a father- son team who believes in the shore.
The Baldwins, whose family history
runs 13 generations deep in Northampton
County, are focusing on the big picture:
Newcomers and old timers need to work
together to revitalize the Eastern Shore,
and that means capitalizing on what it has.
Eyre and Furlong Baldwin hosted a daylong tour of Northampton County in September to show people the positive things
that are happening, including a tour of the
Beach Club, Fitness Center and Cassatt
cottages. The men also showed a group
of nearly 100 people the Baldwin family’s
contribution to the shore-proposed renaissance: the Cape Charles Yacht Center and
an eco-tourism spot in Oyster, a seaside
village that once boasted 450 jobs.
With their new company, Esland, or the
Eastern Shore Land Co., the Baldwins hope
to maintain the area’s character and natural beauty for future generations as the
company’s motto states: “Preserve. Pro-
tect. Revitalize.”
“Northampton County is coming back
in a way that will blow your mind,” Eyre
told the group during a lunch stop at Mimosa Farm on Eyre Hall Creek, and later
in Oyster, a picturesque perch overlooking the barrier islands with fresh oysters
and clams in a boat ride on Eyre’s restored
buyboat, the Georgia E.
They know a rising tide lifts all boats,
an analogy not lost on anyone keeping an
eye on the Eastern Shore.
Tammy Holloway, a D.C.-area transplant
with husband Jim Holloway, not only has
her eye on happenings, she and Jim have
their sleeves rolled up and their livelihood
woven into the Eastern Shore’s fabric.
The couple moved to Cape Charles about
two years ago and opened the Bay Haven
Inn Bed & Breakfast on Tazewell Avenue.
Tammy Holloway attended the event in
support of the Baldwins’ efforts to turn
around the economy of this small community.
Moving to the Eastern Shore was “part of
a stepping stone toward a world we wanted
to retire in but, more importantly, a world
See EASTERN SHORE, PAGE 8
8 | HOME | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT | SATURDAY, 10.12.13
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EASTERN SHORE
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7
we wanted to live in while we
were younger and able to enjoy the gifts of this town we
call our very own ‘Mayberry,’ ” she said.
“It is a great town to run
a business because people
support one another,” when
a business opens, and also financially after it opens, Tammy Holloway said. “Businesses genuinely want one
another to thrive.”
Whether you’re in Cape
Charles, or in Wachapreague
40 minutes away in Accomack County, the stories run
along the same lines.
Carrie Jacobson, 57, and
husband Peter Jacobson,
66, moved to Wachapreague about a year ago after
Carrie stumbled on the saltmarsh hamlet. Carrie, who
had worked in newspapers
for 25 years, was working
for an online news network,
Patch.com, and launching
a career as an artist when
she was driving back to Connecticut from a painting trip
on North Carolina’s Outer
Banks.
“I drove through the town
of Painter, and thought,
‘Hmm, I could be a painter
who lives in Painter,’” Carrie mused. “By the time I’d
finished the thought, Painter was in the rear-view mirror. I turned right at the next
light, drove to the end of the
road, and found myself in
Wachapreague.”
DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH | FOR THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Bay Creek is made up of 10 neighborhoods on 1,720 acres, surrounded by two signature golf courses – designed
respectively by pro-golf legends Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.
A couple weeks later, Peter visited on his own put an
offer on a house.
Both say the move felt preordained. They loved the
town; it just felt right.
“It’s like the New England we knew when we were
growing up,” Carrie said. “It
is quiet and friendly – and
markedly cheaper than Connecticut.”
There, the Jacobsons’ taxes were $9,000 a year. In Wachapreague, it’s more like
$1,400. For the Jacobsons,
the “quiet pace of life, the
friendliness of the people,
the beauty of the sky and
land,” bring them joy and
peace.
In fact, people on the shore
joke about the Chesapeake
Bay Bridge-Tunnel’s toll of
$12 one way (with $5 on the
return trip if you make it in
less than 24 hours). They call
it a “serenity tax.”
But it’s more than just a
quiet, slower-paced life that’s
a draw.
For people like Miriam and
Steve Elton, the sense of community also pulled them to
the region 10 years ago. The
couple opened Brown Dog
Ice Cream in Cape Charles,
and live just a few blocks
away on Mason Avenue.
“I love living in a place
where I can be myself and
speak my mind while still
knowing that the bonds of
community are strong,” Miriam said. “Cape Charles has
the frankness of the North
and the hospitality of the
South.”
That sense of community
reminds Carol Sabo of her
childhood.
“This community here
is crazy active,” she said.
“There’s Relay for Life, charity auctions and benefits, and
little 5K” runs, among other
community-minded activities, she said. “People realize
they can make a difference
here and make their voices
be heard.”
D o r a S u l l iv a n , C a p e
Charles’ mayor in her third
four-year term, agreed.
“I am convi nced that
America is very lonely;
they’re looking for something (and) they don’t know
what,” said Sullivan, who
moved from Virginia Beach’s
Kempsville section to the
Eastern Shore with her husband, Mike Sullivan. “They
come here; they find it; they
got it.”
Toni Guagenti,
[email protected]
“
I love living in a place
where I can be myself
and speak my mind
while still knowing
that the bonds of
community are
strong.”
Miriam Elton, who opened
Brown Dog Ice Cream
in Cape Charles with her
husband, Steve
Cover design by Luis Vilches,
The Virginian-Pilot
Cover photo
by David B. Hollingsworth
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