The pleasures of Rappahannock County, Va., are many -- but not too many, or too fast.
By Roger Piantadosi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 11, 1998; Page D09
It's a fine fall Saturday afternoon in the shadow of Old Rag Mountain, amid the hilly farms and apple and peach orchards of Rappahannock County, Va. Our car is running great, which we know because we've been in it almost two hours since exiting the Beltway at I-66. Apparently so are all the other cars parked in every available space around the former garage now known as the Appetite Repair Shop, on Main Street in the former stagecoach crossroads of Sperryville, a modern-day crossroads of artists and agriculture some nowadays like to call the "Little Apple."
The stage doesn't stop here anymore but every other kind of coach does, especially on weekends. This time of year, many are on their way to or from the fall-weekend hiking, fishing and drive-by foliage touring opportunities of Shenandoah National Park and its Skyline Drive, which is just a couple of ridges west. The Appetite Repair Shop has many homey, low-rent, roadway-themed charms -- did you realize that expired license plates, bent in two places, make great napkin holders? -- and a mostly toll-free menu of barbecue and burgers (including three kinds of veggie burgers). Thus it's been written up two or three times in the last year in the Washington and Richmond papers. Oops. Make that three or four times.
So when Charmaine and I finally do find someone pulling out and ease in to their space as they ease out -- just like in Bethesda! -- there's a line inside the door and about a 20-minute wait. Of course, it's worth it -- for the food, the fries and the friendly, unfrenzied equanimity shown by the young T-shirted staff for parties of two from Cleveland Park and Falls Church as well as all those parties of eight or nine with an average age, excluding front-seat passengers, of five. Plus, my wife gets to sit on the side of our table that has the school-bus bench.
It's true that there's more traffic than ever these days in Rappahannock County, the determinedly rural, interstate-less, rail-free county of 260 square miles and fewer than 7,000 people that's bounded by those ever-popular Blue Ridge parklands on the west and countless lessons in heedless development on the north and east. But there are still no stoplights, McDonald's or 7-Elevens. In the 90 percent of its area that's zoned for agriculture or conservation, there's a 25-acre minimum lot size -- and has been since way back in 1962. That's about when all the multigenerational farming families hereabouts, some of whom were kicked off the mountain when Uncle Sam decided it would become a national park back in the '30s, found themselves sharing these rolling hills, trout-heavy mountain streams and thick second-generation forests with retired military types and other ex-urban folks with income to dispose and night-sky constellations to see for the first time. Add in a good number of hard-working hippies and solitude-seeking artists, and you have a singular confluence of sylvan and sharp, a Rappahannock County character that persists today.
So we, like you, can blame no one for the parking situation this afternoon in Sperryville -- and in its better-known neighbor, "Little" Washington -- except, well, ourselves. If only the car wasn't running so well. If only Rock Creek Park wasn't so darn tiny. If only all those otherwise lovely woods and paths along the Potomac weren't also in the seemingly ever-widening flight path of Reagan National Airport . . .
And if only Rappahannock's most famous institution, the Inn at Little Washington, wasn't still about the highest-rated restaurant in Washington -- D.C. or otherwise. People come from as far away as Seattle and Scotland to dine here (or even stay over in one of its $290 to $790 rooms), and of course many also browse the jewelry and craft studios, the artists coop and the two small but pointedly creative theaters found along Washington's narrow streets. (Said streets remain in the same grid first laid out by a 17-year-old surveyor who would later become the father of his country.)
Many others stay in one of county's two dozen B&Bs, most of which are close to the road but have backyard views or woods that go on forever. Down by the Hughes River on the southern edge of the county, for instance, Conyers House Inn and Stables has reached an enviable compromise between comfy and lovely, its five rooms and two cottages filled with an eclectic assortment of antiques, heirlooms and storied props. Plus there are horses you can ride across the neighboring farmland and woods, and innkeeper Sandra Cartwright Brown, being a member of the Rappahannock Hunt, knows as much about about property lines as the people behind them.
If only the Mountainside Market on U.S. 211 didn't sell espresso drinks and designer pizzas and Portabello pocket sandwiches, or offer fresh organic produce and run a gourmet supermarket to rival any inside the Beltway -- but with none of the attitude. (A guy in front of us at the register pays $25 in cash for a small mountain/cloudscape by local photographer Teddy Pellegatta. Instead of putting it in the register, the clerk smiles at us, walks around the counter and hands the cash to the bearded guy in the beret sitting at a picnic table with a few ponytailed friends; from the photo in the local newspaper clipping taped up along his display, you realize it's the photographer himself.)
Of course, there's a down side to all this. "Nowadays you can't get a piece of pie in town for less than four dollars," says author John Kiser, who's lived in the county long enough (30 years, on and off) to have earned unofficial native status -- as well as to remember when, "if I could see four cars along Route 231 at any one time, I counted it as a traffic jam." Now Route 231, which rolls past the vast and lovely vistas between Culpeper and Charlottesville, is an official Virginia Scenic Highway, offered up in free brochures to anyone with four wheels and a yen to use them. "Tell your editor there's no story here and you have to write about another place," Kiser says.
WAYS & MEANS
GETTING THERE: Most places in Virginia's Rappahannock County are within two hours of the Beltway. Take I-66 west to Exit 43A at Gainesville for U.S. 29 south; at Warrenton, follow the signs to U.S. 211 south.
BEING THERE: When you're not wining or dining in Washington, be sure to check out the schedule at the Theatre at Washington (540-675-1253), featuring plays, folk and jazz concerts, a Smithsonian-sponsored chamber series and movies; or the experimental plays, acoustic music and community programs offered by Ki Theatre (540-987-3164). There's a newly expanded Faith Mountain Outlet Store in Sperryville (540-987-8521), as well as the 20,000-square-foot Sperryville Antique Market (540-987-8050), plus a Gothic church converted to a gallery and craft shop, a glassblowing studio and a cidery. For matters of trout, check with Thornton River Fly Shop (540-987-9400) or Turkey Mountain Outfitters (540-987-9134).
WHERE TO STAY: Sperryville's Belle Meade Bed & Breakfast (540-987-9748, doubles from $150) has four rooms and a cottage with spectacular mountain views on its 137 acres. In a four-story farmhouse that dates to 1790, Conyers House Inn and Stable (540-987-8025) has comfy rooms or cottages with private baths for $150 to $250, plus two-hour trail rides that start at $40. (Fox hunts and more serious riding instruction are available.) Bleu Rock Inn & Restaurant (540-987-3190, doubles $125 to $195) has five rooms, a vineyard and a highly rated country-French restaurant. For choices well off the road, try Sunset Hills Farm (800-980-2580, doubles from $150), with three rooms overlooking Sperryville from atop the owners' Jenkins Mountain orchard/flower farm; Sycamore Hill House (540-675-3046), on a mountaintop 52-acre wildlife sanctuary; or the secluded, self-catered Cabin at Black Bear Trail (540-987-1168). Sixteen of the county's B&Bs are represented at http:// www.bnb-n-va.com.
WHERE TO EAT: Besides the five-star experience at the Inn at Little Washington (540-675-3800, fixed-price meals $88 to $118), you can have a simple but creative lunch at Mountainside Market (540-987-9100) or next door at the locally popular Blue Moon Cafe (540-987-3162), which also has a bar and live music on some nights. In Flint Hill, try the ever-changing new American menu at Four and Twenty Blackbirds (540-675-1111) or the hearty regional fare at Flint Hill Public House (540-675-1700).
INFORMATION: Contact Rappahannock County for brochures and other information at 540-675-3342. On the Web (all preceded by http://), check out www.town.washington.va.us, www.sperryville.com or www.rappguide.com.