|  |  | Homestead Preserve’s Old Dairy Makes National Register of Historic Places and Hosts Grand Opening Events Memorial Day WeekendWarm Springs, Virginia, May 30, 2007 – After nearly two years of intensive restoration efforts, Homestead Preserve’s Old Dairy Community Center opened over Memorial Day weekend. The Grand Opening coincided with Old Dairy obtaining listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
The highlight of the weekend’s Old Dairy Days was the community center’s dedication ceremony at Trimble Hall on Sunday afternoon. More than 175 people attended the ceremony, where Homestead Preserve developer Charles Adams of Celebration Associates spoke, as did former dairy manager John Trimble. Hundreds of local citizens participated in public tours of the recently restored Old Dairy complex, including descendants of former dairy employees.
“The completion of the Old Dairy restoration has been an important event for the local community of Bath County,” says Sally Johnson, Executive Director of the Virginia Hot Springs Preservation Trust, Homestead Preserve’s nonprofit foundation. “These historic buildings were abandoned for more than 30 years, and to see them restored and put to use again as a gathering place with private spaces for Homestead Preserve owners as well as public meeting areas for local citizens is really moving. Homestead Preserve has helped protect and preserve a major icon of Bath County history.”
The Old Dairy restoration and renovation was completed at a cost of $6 million.
Old Dairy, which is both a Virginia Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, consists of seven historic structures dating to the late 1920s. Those structures include a three-story Main Barn, the Herdsman’s Cottage, as well as two Milking Barns, Calf Barn, Milk House, and Bull Barn. Built in 1928, Old Dairy served The Homestead in Hot Springs for more than 50 years, supplying the resort’s dairy and beef needs.
Its new owner, Homestead Preserve, a unique conservation community located on 2,300 pristine acres in the Warm Springs Valley, began restoration of the complex in 2005. The historic Old Dairy complex was built in the Colonial Revival and Arts and Crafts styles, and Homestead Preserve has now provided an adaptive reuse of the property by preserving and restoring the buildings’ original features while also updating the structures for use as a community center and recreation complex and as the offices of the Virginia Hot Springs Preservation Trust and Preserve Community Association.
Homestead Preserve developers Charles Adams and partner Don Killoren were instrumental in the design and development of Celebration, Florida, near Orlando, which was hailed as the “Most Advanced Community in the Country from 1996-1998” by The Guinness Book of World Records. Crosland, LLC of Charlotte, NC is a financial partner in Homestead Preserve, and Crosland’s President and CEO Todd Mansfield was also directly involved in the development and success of Celebration, Florida. Crosland, LLC is one of the Southeast’s leading and most diversified real estate companies. For more information, call Deborah Huso at (540) 474-5147, or e-mail drhuso@writewellmedia.com.
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