Author Nicole Anderson Ellis in front of Tree Hill Farm on Route 5
I saw the sticker on a bumper in Colorado: “Call a place paradise, and kiss it goodbye.” It made an impression I remembered years later when I fell in love with a corner of forest east of Richmond. People would ask, “So, what’s Varina like?” I'd ponder a defensive lie: “A nightmare,” I could tell them. “Best to steer clear.”
Today, the secret’s out. The Virginia Capital Trail helped spread the word that 10 minutes from downtown, there remains a sea of green. While rural living’s not for everyone, to this proud “come here” (i.e., Varina transplant), soul-filling access to nature is my family’s cup of tea.
THE LAND
Varina isn’t a neighborhood. It’s a district, twice the acreage of the city of Richmond, larger than Henrico County’s other four magisterial districts combined. So the honest answer to “What’s Varina like?” is, “Really, that depends.”
At the border of the city — Rocketts Landing, Nine Mile Road, Fulton Hill — the character of the county and city blur. But delve deeper, and you’ll find wildness: creeks as playgrounds, deer as neighbors, roosters as pre-dawn alarms. Through luck and activism, Varina has avoided the sad fate of most near-city farmland: death by strip-mall sprawl. Instead, it offers a rare balance of crops and residential. At its edges — along the Chickahominy and James rivers — Varina boasts the same verdant river lands over which Pocahontas once gazed.
The Clarke-Palmore House Museum interprets the story of the Palmore family in 1930.
HISTORY
My home is in the Route 5 corridor, the landscape that follows America’s second-oldest road, from Richmond to Williamsburg. Route 5’s shoulder is dotted with historic markers recollecting everything from the rule of Powhatan to the Battle of New Market Heights. (In 2013, more than 5,000 visitors — many international — watched the 150th anniversary reenactment of the Civil War’s African-American “Army of the James.”)
Today’s guests can study history at the National Battlefield Park, the Clarke-Palmore House Museum and the Wolf Creek Cherokee Museum. The land itself enables time travel; gaze over the ripe corn or flooded river and pretend it’s 1880, 1680 or before.
Hannah Cherundolo celebrates her birthday with Angelo Loyd at The Boathouse at Rocketts Landing.
FOOD
There’s no pizza delivery to our house, and no nearby coffee shop, but the Lilly Pad has beer and burgers on the river. The renaissance around Rocketts Landing put The Boathouse, Triple Crossing and Urban Farmhouse and more right on the Route 5 daily commute. Plus, there’s the Saturday Dorey Park Farmers Market, with food trucks and local produce.
ICONIC SPOT: The Virginia Capital Trail — 52 miles of historic landmarks and scenic landscapes between Richmond and Williamsburg — helped put Varina on the map as a desirable place to live.
RECREATION
Every month, more than 50,000 people bike, walk and run along the Virginia Capital Trail. If you’d rather paddle than pedal, boat launches at Osborne Landing, Deep Bottom and the much-anticipated Turkey Island Creek (set to open in 2019) offer access to the tidal James. Of course, the same forests that filter our groundwater (out here we’re still mostly on wells) are where our wild neighbors raise their families, making Varina a haven for photographers, hunters, anglers, artists and more.
LIVING
Varina has changed a lot in the past 20 years. There’s more traffic, for one. Heading west on Route 5, where it dips past Tree Hill Farm, you still see downtown’s glass towers ablaze in morning sun, but you’re likely seeing it past a line of brake lights. Those new cars come from new houses. Part of life in today’s Varina is attending hearings on proposed subdivisions or rezoning requests, but folks show up. Fighting sprawl is a pain, but it’s a no-brainer. Virginia’s top industries are agriculture and tourism, and our brightest future lies in conservative growth that guards the land these economic engines require.
I realize you can’t hide paradise; you can only guard it. Among the local bumper stickers you’ll spy on Route 5 (“Varina: A way of life since 1611,” “Take 5!” or “VA VA”), I envision one more: “Call a place paradise, defend it forever.” I can live with that.
