Back from the Brink
Brent Finnegan -- June 11th, 2008
According to a release just sent out from the Valley Conservation Council, Barry Kelley has won VCC’s ‘Back from the Brink’ Historic Rehabilitation Award for the restoration of the Taliaferro-Eshman Building and Walton Hotel (the building that now houses Blue Nile).
From the release:
The building housing Blue Nile Ethiopian Restaurant and fresh, sunny apartments was a condemned wreck when Barry Kelley purchased it. His restoration brings back to life one of the few remaining downtown buildings dating to Harrisonburg’s early post-Civil War expansion. Its many uses over the years reflect its location near the courthouse. Architectural features like the stucco finish, distinctive iron railing, four-panel doors, and pressed-tin roof were reconstructed amid a total overhaul of the building. The ten small apartments with shared bathrooms were turned into six complete apartments. This project, with its thriving restaurant, has brought increased business to the north end of downtown while preserving this notable 150-year old building.
While the project was funded through Kelley, credit for the look of the Blue Nile interior goes to the folks at Blue Nile.
and what a good job both of them have done!
The apartments up there are really nice.
blue nile building his great. houses that have been slummed out to students in old town, not so much in keeping with his image as a benevolent conservator.
I love ya Seth, you are always so positive!
Barry Kelley is positively a chump.
:)
i don’t mean to be overly negative. i just felt like this thread/situation (which strikes me as just slightly sycophantic (or perhaps just oblivious)) could use some grounding in history/reality.
Seth — “slummed out to students”? I don’t know the makeup of the residents there, but I do have a friend who lives there who works for SI International. Do you actually know the makeup of the residents, or are you just assuming that there are some students there?
Bryan — a “chump”??
Bryan, hope you are joking about Barry Kelley being a chump. You obviously don’t know him at all. He bent over backwards to give me advice when I was renovating my building and hooked me up with a great accountant in Roanoke and a super law firm in Richmond that handles historic tax credits. He had nothing to gain by it at all…he’s just a great guy. And Seth, I wouldn’t be caught dead renting to college students. He’s got more guts than I do. Why fix a house up when the students are just going to destroy it again? Just my opinion. He’s a great guy.
Seth, I believe that understand your intentions. My perspective is that Mr. Kelley did downtown a great service by remodeling/rehabilitating this building. I don’t really pay attention to much outside of Downtown.
Seth — my apologies, I mis-read your comment to be asserting that the apartments above the Blue Nile had been “slummed out to students”.
dolla dolla bill ya’ll
and christa,
at the risk of stating the obvious,
you don’t fix up the house.
Let’s not be naive – Barry does what he does for money. Big deal. Painting him with the ‘benevolent conservator’ brush is silly. He is a businessman.
His efforts downtown have provided a HUGE benefit to the city. Whether that was intended or not is irrelevant. It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and critique – as people will find things to complain about regardless. It is much more difficult (and takes exponentially more balls) to actually DO something.
If people want to bitch about businessmen that are put on a pedestal by the community, but who have actually done jack squat, there are much better targets out there – trust me.
i was joking. i obviously don’t know him at all.
Well said John.
And Seth, maybe I’m missing something here, but you aren’t making a lot of sense.
maybe you are.
i think what i’ve said is pretty straightforward.