In Country

Michelle Galler • May 5, 2016

As so aptly described by one local denizen, “Life in Little Washington reminds one of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon or Jan Karon’s mythical Mitford.” Rappahannock County, Virginia, with its quirky villages, unspoiled scenery, outdoor activities and stellar cultural and culinary offerings, is close enough for a daytrip or a world-away weekend.

Rappahannock Central, a beautifully restored 1930s apple-packing facility in Sperryville, in the far western part of the county, is a bustling crossroads of art galleries — including the studios of River District Arts — and local shops. There is even a brewery and a distillery.

On the culinary side, Heritage Hollow Farms’ new storefront offers 100-percent ecologically farmed grass-fed and grass-finished beef, lamb and pork. Mike Peterson, a former executive sous chef in Aspen, and his wife Molly, a professional photographer who fell in love with the county’s scenery, discovered that they could work together to produce succulent food, raised with integrity. They do not use antibiotics or hormones, and their livestock live comfortable lives on healthy pasturage and non-GMO feed.

Also relatively new is Wild Roots Apothecary, which offers slow brewed, handcrafted herbal and floral syrups at its creatively earthy store. Their artisanal syrups combine Lemon-Cardamom, Elderberry-Lavender and Rosehip-Hibiscus flavors. They also offer botanical teas and locally sourced body nectars.

Known for the five-star Inn at Little Washington, the county offers other overnight accommodations — less pricey, but cozy and charming in their own ways.

Gary Aichele, that very same quoted “local denizen,” happens to run the Gay Street Inn with his wife Wendy. The 1850s farmhouse, on the edge of Little Washington, offers Shenandoah Mountain views, a relaxing stay in beautifully appointed rooms and a hearty country breakfast. The front porch and serene gardens are the perfect spots for morning coffee or afternoon wine.

Also in Little Washington, the Foster Harris House, an early-20th-century farmstead, offers high-end amenities and delicious private dining. One evening in 2004, Diane and John MacPherson decided the time was right to flee their corporate lives and open a business that combines their passions for food, wine, cycling and entertaining.

The rooms are elegant and comfortable and dinner unites the elements that inspire chef John’s culinary muse: fruits and vegetables from the rich soil of Rappahannock County, surprising flavors, bold splashes of color and family traditions. With just one seating a night in the intimate dining room, the five-course, prix-fixe menu is available by reservation for $89 per person or $129 with wine pairings (tax and gratuity not included) every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The Foster Harris House also offers two- or five-day Tours de Epicure, as much about good food and wine as they are about pedaling through the beautiful countryside.

Just outside of town, surrounded by lush pastures with views to the Blue Ridge Mountains, sits the Middleton Inn. Built in 1840 by Middleton Miller, who designed and manufactured the Confederate uniform during the Civil War, the property is a classic country estate where your pet can be as comfortable as you are.

Even though Rappahannock County has fewer than 7,000 inhabitants, it is home to two theaters. The arts are intricately woven into the texture of the community, thanks in part to RAAC (the Rappahannock Association for the Arts and the Community). RAAC promotes a series of cultural programs throughout the year and supports the RAAC Community Theatre. May will feature playwright John Logan’s Tony Award-winning play “Red,” about egotistical genius Mark Rothko, the Abstract Impressionist painter.

Just across the street is the intimate 213-seat Theatre at Washington, Virginia, presenting an eclectic mix of musical and dramatic performances, usually on weekends. This spring’s line-up includes Grammy Award-winning acoustic guitarist Laurence Juber (June 11) and flutist Emlyn Johnson in a celebration of the centennial of Shenandoah National Park (June 17).

Listed by Trip Advisor as the number-one thing to do in Little Washington, R.H. Ballard Shop and Gallery is always stocked with unique and wonderful things to buy. The shop combines quality French textiles, great design, vintage finds and fine art. Robert Ballard, who runs the shop with his wife Joanie, is a painter who originally hails from San Francisco. He shows some of his own works in the gallery, as well as art by local, regional and nationally recognized artists.

There is always plenty do see and do in Rappahannock County, and springtime is a most beautiful time of the year for exploring the county.

Michelle Galler owns homes in Georgetown and in Washington, Virginia, and is a realtor and antiques dealer in both locales. [gallery ids="102222,130537,130532,130524,130517,130510,130562,130502,130550,130545,130556" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner • May 4, 2016

INNS AND B&BS

The Middleton Inn
176 Main Street, Washington 540-675-2020

The Gay Street Inn
160 Gay Street Washington 540-316-9220

The White Moose Inn
291 Main Street, Washington 540-675-3207

The Loft at the Little Washington Spa
261 Main Street, Washington 540-675-1031

Hopkins Ordinary
47 Main Street, Sperryville 540-987-3383

The Foster Harris House
189 Main Street, Washington 540-674-3757

Glen Gordon Manor
1482 Zachary Taylor Highway, Huntly 540-636-6010

Inn at Mount Vernon
206 Mount Vernon Lane, Sperryville 540-987-3165

FOR THE HUNGRY AND THIRSTY

Tula’s Off Main
311 Gay Street, Washington 540-675-2223

Thornton River Grille
3710 Sperryville Pike, Sperryville 540-987-8790

Foster Harris House
189 Main Street, Washington 540-675-3757

Flint Hill Public House
675 Zachary Taylor Highway, Flint Hill 540-675-1700

Griffin Tavern
659 Zachary Taylor Hwy, Flint Hill 540-675-3227

The Headmaster’s Pub
12018 Lee Highway, Sperryville 540-987-5008

Pen-Druid Brewery
7 River Lane, Sperryville 540-987-5064

Triple Oak Bakery
11692 Lee Highway, Sperryville 540-987-9122

24 Crows
650 Zachary Taylor Highway, Flint Hill 540-675-1111 [gallery ids="102223,130496" nav="thumbs"]

Richard Selden • April 8, 2016

A National Historic Landmark, the Seventh Regiment Armory on Manhattan’s Upper East Side made an about-face in 2007.
The one-time drill hall for New York’s aristocracy — with interiors by Tiffany, Stanford White and the Herter Brothers, among others — had become best known as a cavernous venue for high-end antiques shows.

That year, the massive brick castle became the home of Park Avenue Armory, a nonprofit that undertook the building’s restoration and began to program performances and contemporary art installations. The Royal Shakespeare Company came for six weeks one summer and the Merce Cunningham Company danced its last there. Visitors listened in the dark to “The Murder of Crows,” a sound piece by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller; swung on giant swings amid dangling sheets at Ann Hamilton’s “The Event of a Thread”; and marveled at Paul McCarthy’s pornographic take on Snow White, “WS.”

Almost singlehandedly, the Armory has made the Upper East Side hip. (The next major installation, “Martin Creed: The Back Door,” opens June 8.) Its avant-garde events have been so successful that last year the New York Art, Antique & Jewelry Show, an annual rental of $300,000 or so, was evicted; the 2016 show will be at Pier 94 in November.

But two of the most prestigious shows of their kind in the world are still Armory tenants. The Winter Antiques Show will return in January 2017. This weekend, April 7 to 10, more than 200 of the top U.S. and international vendors of rare books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera will be at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair.

A short walk up Park Avenue from the Armory is the Asia Society Museum, between 70th and 71st streets, where “Kamakura: Realism and Spirituality in the Sculpture of Japan” is on view through May 8. The exhibition focuses on sculpture from the politically turbulent Kamakura period (1185 to 1333), when artists and their workshops were commissioned by the warrior class to create Buddhist icons of exceptional realism, power and technical excellence.

Meanwhile, the big news on the Upper East Side is the opening, last month, of the Met Breuer. With the Whitney Museum of Art in a new Renzo Piano building in the Meatpacking District (at the southern terminus of the High Line), the Metropolitan Museum of Art has taken over the old Whitney, at Madison Avenue and 75th Street, a Brutalist icon designed by Marcel Breuer.

The inaugural exhibition at what this writer calls the Metney (until I hear from both museums’ lawyers) is “Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible,” running through Sept. 4. Under the direction of Sheena Wagstaff, named the Met’s chair of modern and contemporary art, a new department, in 2012, the show’s curators selected nearly 200 works — by contemporary artists and by big names from Rembrandt to Rauschenberg — that were never completed or “partake of a non finito … aesthetic that embraces the unresolved and open-ended.”

About eight blocks away, at what is now identified as the Met Fifth Avenue, the top-billed special exhibition is “Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France.” Closing May 15, the display of 80 paintings and pastels is said to be the painter’s first retrospective “in modern times.”

Finally, across Fifth Avenue from the “Big Met,” the exquisite Neue Galerie on the corner of 86th Street is the sole U.S. venue for “Munch and Expressionism,” through June 13. Organized with the Munch Museum in Oslo, the exhibition will explore the mutual influences among Edvard Munch and his German and Austrian contemporaries, including Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele.
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Richard Selden • March 30, 2016

Several great Americans were born into slavery. One way the nation pays tribute to such personages is on our currency. We are likely to see Harriet Tubman on the $10 or $20 bill in a few years. And in 2017, the former home in Anacostia of Tubman’s fellow abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, will appear on quarters.

Douglass, who lived in the hilltop house he named Cedar Hill from 1877 until his death in 1895, was known as the “Sage of Anacostia” and — both for his oratory and for his white mane — “the Lion of Cedar Hill.” Preserved by Douglass’s second wife, the property became Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in 1988.

Whether during Black History Month or when the nine-acre site is in bloom, a visit to Cedar Hill is one of D.C.’s most rewarding heritage experiences. The National Park Service offers ranger-guided tours of the restored house, furnished largely with original pieces, five times daily (reservations, made for a $1.50 fee at recreation.gov, are recommended).

The huge trees, terraced front lawn and woodsy backyard — where Douglass’s rustic stone hideaway, the “Growlery,” has been reconstructed — make it easy to imagine the rural Anacostia of the mid-1800s. The house’s builder and original owner was John Van Hook, one of the developers of an early, semi-successful suburb called Uniontown, aimed at Navy Yard workers (and from which Irish and African Americans were excluded).

Douglass purchased the house in 1877 upon his appointment by Rutherford B. Hayes as U.S. Marshall for the District of Columbia. He served until 1881 and later became Minister to Haiti, appointed by Benjamin Harrison.

Speaking at the dedication of the Haitian Pavilion at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Douglas said of the Haitian people: “It will ever be a matter of wonder and astonishment to thoughtful men, that a people in abject slavery, subject to the lash, and kept in ignorance of letters, as these slaves were, should have known enough, or had left in them enough manhood, to combine, to organize, and to select for themselves trusted leaders and with loyal hearts follow them into the jaws of death to obtain liberty.”

Writing and speaking about human rights — of blacks and, during the latter part of his life, of women — was Douglass’s calling. Born in 1818 on a plantation in Talbot County, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, he taught himself to read and write as an enslaved boy, a household servant in Baltimore.

At 20, while working as a ship caulker on the Baltimore docks, he escaped to New York City, married a free black woman, Anna Murray, and began to raise a family in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He soon became an agent of William Lloyd Garrison’s American Anti-Slavery Society and wrote the first of three autobiographies.

Still a fugitive from slavery, Douglass went on a speaking tour in Europe, returning to the U.S. after English friends purchased his freedom. In 1847, he launched an abolitionist newspaper, the North Star, in Rochester, New York. Twenty-five years later, at 54, a prominent public figure who had advised Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, he and his family relocated to Washington, living at 316 A St. NE prior to buying the Anacostia estate.

A short film shown in the visitor center movingly tells his life-story, with graphic scenes of his treatment by a slave-breaker and winning cameos by actors playing Garrison, Tubman, Lincoln and John Brown. Several scenes were filmed in the house, including a confrontation between Douglass and his daughter over his decision to marry Helen Pitts, white and 20 years his junior.

There is an extensive selection of books by and about Douglass for all ages in the shop, notably the dual biography “Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln” by Harvard professor John Stauffer.

After a climb of 85 outdoor steps from the visitor center (there is also a ramp), the tour enters the house from the front porch. Visitors get to look in on rooms downstairs and up, including the kitchen wing that Douglass added, converting the former kitchen into a large dining room in which to host his many visitors. Before or after the tour, the hilly grounds are open to explore.

When in Anacostia, another black history stop is the Anacostia Community Museum, founded by the Smithsonian in 1967 as a storefront museum in the Carver Theater, a 1940s movie house. Twenty years later, it moved to a new building near Fort Stanton Park. On Saturday, Feb. 27, at 2 p.m., the museum will host Aaron Reeder’s show, “Rhythm Café: The Life & Times of Sammy Davis Jr.”

For more information on the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, 1411 W St. SE, visit nps.gov/frdo or call 202-426-5961.

For more information on the Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Place SE, visit anacostia.si.edu or call 202-633-4820.
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Percy Metcalfe • March 24, 2016

As tourists descend on D.C. for the National Cherry Blossom Festival, and the weather (seemingly reluctantly) warms up, we’ve been on the lookout for places to escape the city for a relaxing weekend break.

The Castle Hill Inn in Newport, Rhode Island, part of the Relais & Châteaux network, could be the perfect stop on the way to Boston, should you find yourselves headed north to visit colleges, for example.

Built in 1875 as a summer retreat for a Harvard marine biologist, the stunning clapboard manse now serves as a quaint inn among the huge summer homes — known as “cottages” — of affluent Newport. If you choose to stay at the Castle Hill Inn, your weekend getaway will be replete with panoramic Atlantic views.

Rooms and beach cottages at the inn start at $370 a night. Check out the rocky enclave beneath the Harbor Houses, where Grace Kelly was known to scramble down to the water’s edge.

A break at the Castle Hill Inn will let you explore the shops of downtown Newport, as well as adventure along the coast in the hotel’s Hinckley Yacht. Alternatively, you can relax on the inn’s private beach.

Remember to book soon — beds are bound to fill up as summer approaches.
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Richard Selden • March 16, 2016

It happened in Philadelphia: 56 men in breeches created a nation.

Then, 51 years later, it happened again. This time, it was 53 men in trousers. And what they created was … a flower show.
Actually, what they created in 1827 was the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. The first public show, featuring the poinsettia’s American debut, came two years later. (In 1835, the society admitted women as voting members — long before the nation did.)

The descendant of that historic event, the Philadelphia Flower Show, the largest and longest-running indoor show in the world, now attracts more than 200,000 visitors over nine days. The 2016 show, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, ends this Sunday.

A Garden of Eden for plant-lovers — with award-winning specimens, lectures and vendors from around the world — the show is also a floral theme park that seems to grow Disney-er every year. Since this year’s theme is “Explore America: 100 Years of the National Park Service,” expect recreations of Yosemite, simulated Old Faithful eruptions and a Denali sled dog team. You can even “create your own Mount Rushmore floral headpiece.”

For details, and to reserve a garden tea or an early-morning private tour (weekdays only), visit theflowershow.com. Families with children should note that on closing day, Sunday, March 13, there will be a Flower Show Jamboree and a Teddy Bear Tea.

Prior to launching their kisses-and-hugs “With Love, Philadelphia” campaign, Visit Philadelphia’s slogan was “Philly’s More Fun When You Sleep Over.” With the Flower Show meriting a full day and three new museum exhibitions, it makes sense to get a room.

After a controversial legal and financial intervention, the Barnes Foundation galleries relocated from the suburban residence of Albert C. Barnes (1872–1951) to a new museum on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in 2012. The move’s approval hinged in part on the exact reproduction of the unchanging salon-style display found in leafy Merion by the relatively few visitors who made it out there.

Architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien created a large and spacious modern building for the Barnes in which the tiny recreated rooms are encased. In accordance with Barnes’s eccentric theories of art appreciation, African, Native American, Pennsylvania German and other sculpture and artifacts, including miscellaneous wrought-iron objects, share the walls with frame-to-frame masterpieces by Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse and Modigliani (to name a few of Dr. Barnes’s favorites).

It is one of the most astounding museums in the world, now with the additional reason to visit of special exhibitions. Through May 9, the Barnes (which has 22 paintings by Pablo Picasso in its permanent collection) is hosting “Picasso: The Great War, Experimentation and Change.” The show’s focus is the period surrounding and including World War I, during which Picasso — the “High Priest of Cubism” in the words of curator Simonetta Fraquelli — abruptly returned to a naturalistic style, continuing to alternate between Cubism and Neoclassicism.

A video illustrates how during the war Cubism was portrayed as anti-French (though the style’s co-creator, Georges Braque, was as French as could be and served at the front) and associated with the despised Germans.

Several blocks up the parkway from the Barnes, “International Pop” is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through May 15. All the American stars are represented, of course: Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Tom Wesselman, Ed Ruscha. But what makes the show an eye-opener are the works by what the text calls the “British forbears of Pop,” notably Edinburgh-born Eduardo Paolozzi and London-born Richard Hamilton, whose collages date to the 1950s (earlier, in Paolozzi’s case), and by artists from throughout Europe and from Argentina, Brazil and Japan.

Finally, across the Schuylkill River, the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is the exclusive U.S. venue for “The Golden Age of King Midas,” on view through Nov. 27. Of the 100-plus objects on loan from Turkish museums, many were excavated by Penn archaeologists from an eighth-century B.C. royal tomb, believed to be the resting place of Midas’s father Gordios.

Whether you hear the clatter of gold or of your muffler when you think of Midas, this exhibition is another example of the remarkable things to be seen this spring in the City of Brotherly Love.

Georgetowner •

If your interest in antiques is as much about an object’s previous owners as its decorative value, then make-dos is a category of antiques worth exploring.

Antiques with inventive — and often whimsical — old repairs (known as “make-do” repairs) are examples of necessity and thrift in a time when hard work and great expense went into handmade finery such as pottery, porcelain and glass. Unlike today, when we throw away anything that’s chipped, cracked or broken, practical folks of yore refused to throw out a broken object if it could be fixed to “make it do.”

There is something profoundly human about these clever repairs of broken objects. One can’t help but wonder about the stories behind their brokenness, which only make them more interesting. Was it a case of a lovers’ quarrel or butterfingers? Perhaps rough seas on an export ship?

The talent to use whatever materials were at hand to inventively repair or repurpose was not necessarily born out of a skinflint frugality. Rather, it often arose from the sensible belief that something that had a use could be breathed into life anew: the notion that “purpose” is an evolving concept.

Make-dos were not just for people of limited means, but were found in the homes of every social class, mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries. When an item broke, it was either repaired at home or taken to a local tinsmith, tinker or woodworker for repair.

If an object couldn’t be salvaged for its intended use, it was often refashioned into something else entirely. Sometimes broken handles, feet or whatever were replaced with beef or chicken bones. Pincushions were attached to wishbones to make them stand, and to broken candlesticks and lamp bases. Kitchen tools that had lost their handles were made “good as new” with long rib bones as handles.

Mirror glass used to be far too expensive to throw away, so make-do mirrors were made from pieces of broken glass carefully framed for reuse. You can usually tell a make-do mirror from its odd shape or size.

Although the sometimes quirky solutions can be quite whimsical, for every glass attached to a clunky wooden base, there is a piece of fine porcelain that has been enhanced in appearance and function, sometimes with expertly wrought silver handles or gold cuffs.

“Frankenstein monsters” of the antiques shop, they’re easy to spot: a mocha ware jug wrapped with a thick band of tin, with a makeshift handle affixed to it; a porcelain teapot with a metal cover or spout; a glass oil lamp atop a tiered wooden base; an oddly shaped piece of mirrored glass set in a carved wooden frame; a fancy glass compote with a metal base; a cracked platter, seemingly perfect on its face, but repaired on the flip side with metal staples. All are examples of make-dos, and the method of repair may range from humble and crude to elegant and elaborate.

Sometimes make-dos featuring tin were fashioned by tinsmiths, whose beautiful repairs actually add value to a piece. Such make-dos can be worth more than the same item in perfect condition (unless the perfect piece is extremely rare).
The value of make-dos depends upon age, quality, appeal and what the pieces are. Especially desirable are 19th-century examples with pressed or pattern glass parts that help identify and date the piece.

Make-dos are gaining in popularity as a collecting field, especially within in the last five years. Some seasoned auction-goers like make-dos because of their unique charm — practically no two are repaired in exactly the same way — and beginning collectors like them because they are still relatively inexpensive.

In fact, the most expensive make-do that Skinner Auctioneers has ever sold was a framed mirror fragment that went for $2,702.25 in 2005. Last November, Skinners sold a 19th-century mocha ware mug with a handle repair for $654.75. But for the most part, buyers can get still get make-dos for $200 or less at auction.

Sometimes I see a piece that I wish had been broken and repaired — to add to my collection of quirky but loveable make-dos.

*Michelle Galler is an antiques dealer, design consultant and realtor based in Georgetown. Her shop is in Rare Finds, in Washington, Virginia. Reach her at antiques.and.whimsies@gmail.com.* [gallery ids="117199,117207,117193,117181" nav="thumbs"]

Lexi Rodencal • February 22, 2016

The word “treehouse” often conjures up images of sap sticking to one’s clothes, birds and bugs, and foundationally-questionable structures built by less-than-qualified dads. Your average adult would not dream of spending a weekend getaway holed up in a treehouse with their significant other — or would they?

The modern version is one of elegance and rustic nostalgia, offering adults a chance to reconnect with nature and revisit those age-old childhood dreams of having the coolest treehouse in the neighborhood. The recent surge of interest has sparked a new variant of the weekend getaway: luxurious, yet intimate, adults-only treehouses.

Treehouse getaways have been growing in popularity over the last few years, with particularly notable locations scattered across the United States, Canada and Sweden. These cabins in the sky offer different amenities and services, but feature the same basic premise — to act as a retreat and offer a nontraditional style of vacationing.

Just a stone’s throw away, in Meadows of Dan, Virginia, Primland offers a wide variety of eco-conscious retreats, including three different treehouses situated on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains and only a short drive from the main grounds of the resort and spa.

The aptly-named Barn Owl treehouse is situated high in the sturdy branches of an oak tree and offers stunning up-close views of the Roaring Creek Gorge and distant views of Pilot Mountain.

Built across two trees atop a mountain peak is the Cooper’s Hawk treehouse. It overlooks the Roaring Creek and the Dan River, and also has beautiful views of the Kibler Valley spread out underneath it.

The last of the Primland treehouse’s is the Golden Eagle treehouse, built in the branches of one of the oldest oak trees on the property and designed by respected French architecture firm La Cabane Perchée. The treehouse is situated along the edge of Primland’s Highland golf course and also has views of the Dan River.

While a tad unusual, Primland’s unique treehouses offers residents of the D.C. metro area a chance to escape the noise of the city and seek refuge in the comfort of nature. With nightly rates starting at $618, it might be wise to consider a treetop retreat for Valentine’s Day. After all, what could more romantic than a night lost in nature? [gallery ids="102236,129409" nav="thumbs"]

Michelle Galler • February 18, 2016

Between 1720 and 1820, more than 100,000 German-speaking people entered the port of Philadelphia seeking a life free from religious persecution. Most were peasants and small farmers, and they eventually moved from the city to the fertile soil of southeastern Pennsylvania. Later generations traveled further south into the Shenandoah Valley, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas.

Although agriculture was their major industry, as their society became more firmly rooted, farmer-craftsmen turned some of their energies to producing and decorating the many articles of daily life, including “fraktur” — illuminated documents recording family events. The name fraktur derives from the angular, fractured appearance of the familiar Gothic typeface used in deeds and official edicts in 16th-century Europe.

The fraktur artist held several positions within the Pennsylvania German community. As the representative of learning, he was often the schoolmaster as well as clergyman. With his skills in drawing and writing, he performed such services as illustrating books and hymnals and drawing up important documents. These sunny creations contrasted with much of the religious art of the time, since sin and pain were rarely depicted.

Pennsylvania Germans usually made fraktur for personal use, and instead of hanging fraktur in their homes, people most often rolled-up fraktur documents and tucked them away, pasted them underneath the lids of storage chests, or kept them neatly folded inside books and Bibles. The great care many Pennsylvania Germans took to preserve these documents is a touching reminder that fraktur commemorated important and personal life events.

Fraktur — especially birth and baptismal certificates — became very popular by the late 1700s. By 1780, various communities developed fraktur printing presses in order to create more fraktur works in a shorter amount of time. Many professional fraktur artists used these printed “blanks” to keep up with client demand. Artists continued to personalize each mass-produced document.

These printed forms were often sold by itinerants and at rural stores. A skilled calligrapher, perhaps the itinerant himself, would fill in the clients’ personal information and often hand-color or embellish the printed designs with borders and outlines of birds, flowers and other decorative flourishes. Although they are not strictly speaking “certificates,” since no one in authority signed them, they have been regarded as legal documents. Since law in the old country required such documents, the tradition was continued in America.

Fraktur are some of the earliest examples of folk art found in the Shenandoah Valley. Though most Shenandoah Valley fraktur artists did not sign their work, several did. Peter Benhart, a Rockingham County schoolteacher and mail carrier, was one of the most prolific. He worked from about 1796 to 1819 and rode from his home near Keezletown to Winchester every other Wednesday to begin his postal route. He arrived in Rockingham County by Friday and finished the route in Staunton on Saturday. Bernhart functioned as a post rider over this course for nearly thirty years, creating fraktur for clients along his route.

He nearly always included not only his name, but also the date of when he made the fraktur. Many of his paintings were created on pre-printed blanks produced for him by local printers. He would carry the forms with him on his routes, and when called upon to produce fraktur, he would fill in the blanks with the pertinent information, then embellish the document with by painting around the borders. Although his paintings were often crudely executed, including poor spelling, his creations showed a unique style with amusing designs and bright colors.

Another Valley fraktur artist, who has only been identified as simply the Stony Creek Artist, produced works in German and English. Often, his paintings depicted cherubs, drawn-back curtains and hearts.

These Valley fraktur artists provide an important key to the important families of the Shenandoah Valley during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Traditional fraktur designs of the 19th century feature pomegranates, angels, trees, flowers and birds. The intricacy of design, selection of color and particular historical relevance to a family or place are factors that affect the current price of a painting. Prices of fraktur done by preeminent artists have soared into the $10,000 to $50,000 range. Although a piece by Peter Bernhart recently sold at auction for $15,500, against its estimate of $8,000-$12,000, some beautifully rendered examples by lesser-known artists can still be found for under $1,000.

Michelle Galler is an antiques dealer, design consultant and realtor based in Georgetown. Her shop is in Rare Finds, in Washington, Virginia. Contact her at antiques.and.whimsies@gmail.com.

Georgetowner • January 11, 2016

In spite of its hectic pace, the holiday season can sometimes bring out a town’s sense of place. In Virginia, the season lights up a number of towns that are central to the state’s identity: steeped in history while keeping up with the times.

That’s especially true for three Virginia towns. Alexandria, across the bridge on the way to Mount Vernon, is something of a sister village to Georgetown. Middleburg, farther out in the country, celebrates the holiday season in high style. A frontier town bustling with an emerging nation’s energy, the place we call Little Washington was laid out by its namesake, a surveyor at the time.

Here’s a quick look at what’s coming up in these three historic communities.

Alexandria is a classic example of a town that’s gone to great lengths to maintain its aura, while at the same time managing to seem modern, even a little (or a lot) chic. The town — with its charming side streets, a skyline of steeples and a street energy tempered by the centuries — abuts the mighty Potomac River, which leads right up to Mount Vernon, decorated for Christmas. Visitors to the iconic estate will find a gingerbread Mount Vernon, 18th-century dancing, dinners by candlelight and no less a personage than Aladdin, George Washington’s Christmas camel. Holiday events continue through Jan. 6.

This weekend, Dec. 4 and 5, is Alexandria’s holiday weekend, including the Scottish Walk, a celebration hosted by the Campagna Center, when hundreds of members of Scottish clans gather in kilts. The bagpipes come out for the Scottish Walk Parade, Saturday, Dec. 5, at 11 a.m. in Old Town. The annual Parade of Lights will be held at 5:30 p.m.

The Alexandria Holiday Market at John Carlyle Square features shopping for arts and crafts items, entertainment and traditional European food, sweets, wine and beer. There’s also a shop that holds the spirit of Christmas the whole year round: The Christmas Attic at 125 Union St., which has a newly added gift shop.
Candlelight tours will be held at Mount Vernon, as well as at Gunston Hall and Woodlawn Plantation, where the proceedings proceed under the theme of “History and Chocolate.”

Friday through Sunday, December 4, 5 and 6, are big days in Middleburg, the bright starry town of horse country. Friday is a kind of Christmas prelude, with the Middleburg Club Christmas Greens Sale and Bazaar from 2 to 5 p.m., the tree-lighting ceremony and carols at 5 p.m. and a holiday recital at Salamander Resort and Spa.
Saturday is parade day in Middleburg, beginning with breakfast with Santa and a silent auction, followed by a craft fair at the Middleburg Community Center, hot chocolate at the Middleburg Methodist Church, the unique-to-Middleburg Hunt and Hounds Review at 11 a.m., hayrides, a Middleburg United Methodist Church Soup and Ham Biscuit Lunch and a Christmas in Middleburg Concert.

At 2 p.m., it’s the annual Christmas Parade, with floats, displays, animals and all things Christmas headed down Main Street. From 3 to 6 p.m., food, wine, ciders and distilled spirits will be displayed from one end of town to the other. Wrapping up the weekend, a Christmas Pageant with live animals will be presented on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Foxcroft School.

Washington, nicknamed Little Washington, started out as trading post. It was officially established as a town in 1797, with a population of 200 (and growing). By 1835, its paper, the Gazetteer, noted that the town contained 55 dwellings, four stores, two taverns, one house of worship, one academy, 27 shops and two large flour mills.

Decked out for the holidays, the town — home of the famed Inn at Little Washington — will hold its annual Christmas in Little Washington celebration Sunday, Dec. 6. This will include an artisans market and a holiday parade, with the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps leading a procession of animals, floats, performers and celebrities, including Santa and local dignitaries. There will also be a Santa’s Workshop.