With the holiday season upon us, the Town of Cape Charles is once again ready to send out those joyful, yearly tax bills. Along with this seasonal joy, another humiliating kick in the crotch will be when we receive our utility bills. What used to a be a marginal annoyance has become a real burden on many in our community, especially those on a fixed income. The exorbitant increase we have witnessed over the last few years is the direct result of the failed policy of the Town, of both the legislative and administrative bodies. In this case, the rate hike is to pay debt service on the Town’s misguided sewer plant.
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Christmas in New York Dec 19th and 20th: dancers working hard
With opening night quickly approaching, actors, dancers, set designers and the directors are beginning feel the pressure, as well getting energized as this winter’s show finally begins to take shape. Christmas in New York promises to be the perfect holiday treat, with numbers that take the audience along from downtown to Central Park, Brooklyn and even Queens and Broadway!
La Mer Design: Here to help tell your story
Our town of Cape Charles is quietly becoming a town of unique shops, but being a fan of design, one of our favorites is La Mer Design, tucked neatly away in a gorgeous space at 215 Mason. With the holiday season in full swing, owners Nicolle Isaacs Smith and Tammye Delk Van Clief took a few moments to talk design and influence with the Cape Charles Mirror.
Mirror: Where did you get the idea to start La Mer?
Nicole: The idea for La Mer came out of two friends that liked spending time together, which was at the first house, which was kind of a design think tank for us. Two best friends wanting to do something together.
Mirror: You have such a great shop, it has its own feel, its own aesthetic. What is the design influence for La Mer?
Nicole: Our design philosophy is really about juxtapositioning, mixing the old with the new, contemporary with a vintage look, with a little of our flair adding to it; We like the mixing of mid-century and traditional. Our main goal is to create something that is authentic and real.
Mirror: As far as clientele, who would you consider to be the main ones, do you do design for people’s homes, or is it more people coming into the shop to pick things out?
Nicole: We do design in people’s houses – we can do it from the ground up, or we can do it right from their homes as it sits. We can design and work with what you have. Our main thing is telling your story, revealing who you are through what you have. It’s not like you have to come in and buy a lot of expensive things, we can work with what you have. Our main goal is revealing the story of the client. The important thing is that you have things that you really love, and they will always go together. It is important that your home, that it tells your story, reveals who you are.
Mirror: What is your goal for the future? Where do you see the company going?
Nicole: For the next season, we would like to have more design that goes beyond the retail. We love the retail part of the business, but one thing we would like to do, as far as telling our story…we sometimes feel that people sometimes think we are expensive, or too expensive, and that really is not the case. I’m very down to earth, and I would love for people to see us in a little bit different way, then just this expensive retail store. We are really here to help you, to help reveal your story, even if you just need some help decorating for an event, or the holidays. We’d like to be seen as more approachable on the design side. On the retail side, we are going to hone in on the vendors that work best for us, as far as what we are trying to do. We’d like to offer very authentic things, that…we really want to be able to help the people of the community. That’s why we started La Mer, that’s what it’s all about.
Festive Friday a Huge Success: Next Event Dec 4th
This Black Friday, the sidewalks were filled with shoppers, and the outside tables of the Cape Charles Coffee house were at capacity. In the evening, music filled the air, and many folks were out enjoying the beautiful night air as shops stayed open to 8:00. The Palace showed the film White Christmas, which was a perfect way to send off our first Festive Friday. This first event was an unqualified success, and there are three more Festive Friday’s on the way. Next Friday, December 4th, Peg Volk’s Corn Funk Review will take the Strawberry Street Stage from 5:00 to 8:00, shops will again be open late, and the film at the Palace will be ‘Elf’.
Upland dredge site filling up fast
HDRB moves forward on Peach Street Brew Pub
With Chairman Joe Ferrer unable to attend, Terry Strub took the reins for this month’s Historic District Review Board. On the agenda was another application for a Certificate of Appropriateness for the new brew pub at 8 Peach Street – this time for an addition to rear of the building, as well as some façade improvements. The applicant proposes opening the rear wall as a means of expansion by installing a refrigerated cooler room. The addition of the cooler does change the footprint of the structure. The addition is not visible from Peach Street, however it will be somewhat visible from Mason Avenue. Relative to the Guidelines, they state that : New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property. The new work shall be compatible with the massing, size, scale, and architectural features of the old work to protect the historic integrity of the property and its environment. New additions and adjacent or related new construction shall be undertaken in such a manner that if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired. (Building Element 4, page 21).
Cape Charles Historic District Expansion and Update and Information Workshop
This week, Planner Larry DiRE received and unexpected windfall courtesy of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. With additional funding available, the DHR has offered to use the funds to include the town in a workshop that would aid the Historic District Review Board with the nomination form and other responsibilities. See letter below for details:
Mr. DiRe –
My name is Carey L. Jones and I am the Architectural Survey Coordinator at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. In addition to managing the architectural survey program, I am assisting with the administration of funds DHR received from the National Park Service to address damage from Hurricane Sandy and assist with planning for future disasters. DHR is currently undertaking an architectural survey of the Eastern Shore in partnership with the Eastern Shore Planning District Commission. We have additional funding available and are interested in using this funding to update and expand the nomination form for the Cape Charles Historic District in order to assist you and the Historic District Review Board with decision making. In addition to funding an update and expansion of the district we also have funding available for an information workshop for the Historic District Review Board members. This workshop could be similar to what was proposed in the recent CLG application with an added emphasis on disaster planning and management. DHR has funds available to completely cover the costs of the nomination update and expansion and the information workshop and will handle all administrative responsibilities. We will not look to the Town to fund any part of this project. We will ask your support for this effort in terms of meeting arrangements, informing residents, and GIS/mapping assistance for the nomination.
Thank you for your consideration of this project. I look forward to discussing this with you and members of your community.
Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.
-Carey
Carey L. Jones, Architectural Survey Coordinator and Cost Share Program Manager
Division of Survey and Register
Department of Historic Resources
2801 Kensington Avenue, Richmond, VA 23221
Brown Dog wins 2015 Made in Virginia Award
Earlier this fall, while in the midst of one of our rehearsals for the Palace Theater show Christmas in New York, there was a commotion amongst several of my young ‘divas’. Thinking I was going to have to break up yet another ‘artistic dispute’, I was instead informed that they were all leaving the rehearsal whether I liked it or not.
“Oh yeah?” I said.
“Oh, yeah,” I was once again informed.
“It’s your funeral,” I said. “You’re the ones who are going to look stupid on stage when you don’t know your lines.”
“We don’t care. Today is the last day for Brown Dog, and if we don’t hurry, they will be closed before we get there!”
“Well, that’s different,” I said. “Get your stuff and get out of here. You better hurry, they close for the season at 3:00!”
As obnoxious as this scene was, it serves to highlight the passion, joy and loyalty that our kids have for Brown Dog Ice Cream. And they are not alone. This year, Brown Dog was winner of the Virginia Living Made in Virginia award for best food, beating out favorites in Surry, Edinburg and Virginia Beach. For many of us living on the shore, Brown Dog represents so much more than delicious and artistic ice cream, but it is also an example of a sustainable, local farm to table operation. Brown dog is defining just how businesses should operate here the shore – creating a product that is woven into the fabric of the region where it lives. Brown Dog’s appeal is that it is unique, yet it is unique to this place, making it the perfect ambassador for not just Cape Charles, but the entire Lower Shore.
Congratulations Foster! You did it again.
Read the excerpt from Virginia Living magazine below:
About five years ago, Miriam Elton set out to solve a problem: Her small Eastern Shore beach town was in need of a premium ice cream store. The result? Ice cream done right. At Brown Dog Ice Cream in Cape Charles, Elton treats her creamy creations with care—no artificial flavors, just fresh ingredients that are prepared and cooked for you to see and feel and taste.
The varieties on offer at Brown Dog Ice Cream, like beet and goat cheese with pistachio, or avocado with strawberry, lime and jalapeno, sound more farm-to-table restaurant than seaside ice cream store, and that’s no accident. “We try to be creative and we try to use local fruit and vegetables,” says Elton, 53, originally from Loudoun County. “So whatever becomes available from local farmers, I try to create a recipe.”
Elton does the prep work in the kitchen, roasting and cooking ingredients like local apricots, peaches, wineberries, plums, corn, figs, strawberries and blackberries. She then incorporates them into the ice cream during the freezing process. In the end, the formula is pretty simple: “The best ingredients equal the best ice cream,” says Elton. Kids, she adds, particularly enjoy chilling out in her shop with the real brown dog, Foster.
Eastern Shore Franco Fun Club forming now
French speakers, please join the newly created Eastern Shore Franco Fun Club.
The founders are Odile Duffman (Eastville) and Eric Feuillatte (Cape Charles).
The purpose is to create a French speaking community in our County. We will meet once a month.
Next meeting is December 10th at 6pm. The location will be disclosed upon registration online at esfrancofun@gmail.com
Contact:
Eric Feuillatte
Cape Charles: Time to make Bay Creek developers pay what they owe
In 1952, Carl Jung published “Synchronicity – An Acausal Connecting Principle”, which focused on his belief that events may be connected by causality; they are also connected by meaning. In recent weeks, we have had this theory tested in Cape Charles. The first event is cloaked in the skullduggery used force harbormaster Smitty Dize out of the harbor. Then, there was the mysterious proposal to try and sell the harbor, or at least lease it out to a ‘management company’. The major proponents of this strategy are also members of Bay Creek. Then, the Mirror received an anonymous response, here:
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