Charlottesville Portrait

                                   "Twenty-five years ago, Charlottesville was not so different than when my Grandfather attended UVA in the early twenties.  As a teenager, I remember riding on horseback through the rolling farmland of he old estates and wondering what they'd been like in their glory days.  The booming economy of the eighties and nineties more than answered the question.  Gone are the days of genteel southern shabbiness.  Hedgerows are cleared and fences are painted.  The expanding economy has allowed UVA's graduates to find jobs in the area and has attracted families from other parts of the country.  But Cineplexes, superstores, and soccer leagues have not erased the local citizens' affection for authentic characters, people me husband, David, calls 'very Charlottesville.'  A local sense of pride exists not only for our landscape and historical architecture, but for the colorful folks who inhabit such a place."     From the introduction by author/photographer Mary Motley Kalergis.       

Visitors since October 15, 1998.