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Work continues throughout the inn on Courthouse Square in Montross. Once complete, The Inn at Montross is being totally revamped in an effort to bring new life--and business--to the historic town. |
BY FRANK DELANO
Cindy Brigman Syndergaard has taken 5,614 square feet of Montross' revitalization into her own hands.
While town and county governments ponder changes and improvements in the heart of the town of 315, Syndergaard is managing a battalion of tradesmen renovating a historic inn on Courthouse Square.
The old heart-pine floors of The Inn at Montross were covered with dust last week as carpenters, electricians, plumbers and painters replaced windows and doors, revamped bathrooms, stuffed insulation into walls and performed dozens of other jobs to bring life--and paying visitors--back to the structure built around 1800 on the site of a 17th-century tavern.
"This isn't busy. This is fun! This is progress," Syndergaard said of the work that will soon result in the reopening of the long-vacant inn. When the project is completed in April, the inn, which sat vacant for almost four years, will feature five guest rooms, a 65-seat restaurant and a 40-seat fireside lounge, Syndergaard said.
Beth Parker was sweeping up dust with a broom last week. She and her husband, Rhoderick, a vegetable grower, live across the street. They are also partners in the venture.
"The old inn was getting to be an eyesore. I just wanted to decorate it. That's all I wanted to do," Beth Parker said.
Her chance came when the property was sold in July at a foreclosure auction.
At the auction, Parker said, her husband and Rhys Weakley, owner of a building-supply business in town, agreed to become partners and bought the property for $159,500. It last sold in 1998 for $455,000.
Weakley declined to say how much the restoration is costing. "We're spending enough to make it a nice place," he said.
The Parkers and Weakley and his wife, Nancy, enticed Syndergaard and her husband, Ken, to join the partnership and manage the property. Cindy Syndergaard had the experience; she had managed the "extremely profitable" inn from 1997 to 2004.
Word of the inn's reopening has spread, she said. "I've received e-mails and calls from 75 former guests who want to come back. The inn is a destination place."
Lodging and restaurants are just the kinds of businesses that Montross needs to boost its economy, says a revitalization study commission by the Town Council and released last week.
The study says the town has much to offer. The seat of Westmoreland County government is full of attractive, historic buildings and is at "the epicenter of numerous tourists activities," the study says.
But in recent decades the town has lost its economic vigor, the study says. More than half of the commercial space in the center of town is empty.
The study recommends $3 million in improvements, including a revolving loan fund to help businesses dress up their storefronts; more trees and street lights; and better sidewalks, parking and signs.
The study suggests possible grant sources to fund many of these projects. It also touts the benefits that a Courthouse Square historic district might offer:
"The opportunity for the creation of an historic district in the Courthouse area is one that the Town should definitely pursue. A district not only enhances the branding of the community as a 'village' with deep roots and historic traditions, but also creates the potential to raise additional equity investment in property rehabilitation through the use of Federal and State Historic Tax Credits."
But much of the future of Montross is in the hands
The county is now mulling plans for a new courthouse that would empty the county's existing courthouse and the sheriff's office on Courthouse Square. The county registrar might also move away from her present office in a 1913 bank building on the square.
Westmoreland supervisors have now appointed a Courthouse Square Revitalization Committee to study the future of the area that County Administrator Norm Risavi termed "the core interaction between the county and the town of Montross."
At the committee's first meeting last week, Risavi gave the five-member committee four months to come up with a plan.
The plan, said Risavi, "is something that will affect Westmoreland County and the town of Montross for many years to come."
Frank Delano: 804/761-4300
Email: fpdelano@gmail.com
