Plantation County Soon to Get First Taste of ‘Instant Suburbia’

This is a county named for a city that does not exist.

In fact, this county along the James River also has no town, no bank, no video store or movie theater, no pharmacy, no liquor store, no newspaper, no shopping center, no fast food restaurant, no 7-Eleven, no library, no jail, no motel, no red light and no Chamber of Commerce.

Nor has there been a homicide here since 1983.

In this county only 30 miles from Richmond but seemingly lost in time, there are also no apartments, townhouses or suburban subdivisions.

What Charles City County, organized in 1634 and named for Charles I of England, does have in its 201 mostly forested square miles are 7,000 people, 80% of them nonwhite, and a row of riverfront plantations inhabited largely by descendants of the early white planters.

Subdivision on Way

And, if things go as planned, the county’s first full-scale subdivision will soon sprout along historic Route 5, the scenic John Tyler Memorial Highway that courses down the peninsula toward Williamsburg and Jamestown.

Now, 58 houses on lots averaging 1 1/2 acres may not sound like much to most city dwellers, but to many of the riverfront people here--a Who’s Who of Southern aristocracy--it’s the worst thing to happen since the Union Army invaded in 1862.

“What scares us is growing . . . out of control,” said Lisa Ruffin Harrison, mistress of her family’s Evelynton Plantation, whose Confederate ancestor, Edmund Ruffin, fired the first shot at Ft. Sumter.

The Burkeshire subdivision, she said, “looks very urban in nature on a rural road,” despite the developer’s promise to hide the houses behind a buffer of trees. “Your view west will be nothing but a sea of houses,” she said.

Harrison and others say they’re all for more housing in the county--elsewhere.

Sees Nothing Good

“Instant suburbia” is how Frederick S. Fisher, owner of Westover Plantation, described the subdivision. Other property owners call it a “high-density subdivision” that “offers nothing good for the county.”

But if the landed gentry feels vulnerable to a pincer movement from the expanding areas of Williamsburg to the east and Richmond to the west, most of the residents here either are apathetic about the new houses or want more.

“Our kids graduate high school, they go straight to Richmond or Williamsburg for an apartment because nobody will sell them any land,” said Darlene Smith, a dispatcher in the sheriff’s office.

Houses and land are passed down through the generations, and many younger people go elsewhere not only to live but also to work.

Most Commute

About 80% of the work force commutes to jobs outside the county.

“Charles City County would make ‘The Color Purple’ look pink,” or mild by comparison, said Barbara Lewis, who left Charles City to attend Norfolk State College in 1967 and now lives in Alexandria, Va. “There was absolutely zero opportunity as far as jobs.”

Even today, the county’s largest employer is the school system, with 184 on its payroll. The largest private company, which makes cabinets, employs 100; the county government, 79. The plantations employ an estimated 50 people full time as guides, groundskeepers and gift shop workers.

“It’s a whole different world here,” said David L. Kleppinger, director of the county’s Department of Economic Development and a native of New Jersey.

“You can go back almost 300 years, there’s not been too much change physically,” said Richard Bowman, the first black person to head the county Board of Supervisors and a man who has traced his roots here to 1786. The subdivision, he noted with some detachment, “has caused some concern among the landed gentry who’ve so long occupied that sacred area.”

Home of Two Presidents

Traditionally agrarian, Charles City County dates its first plantation, Shirley, back to 1613. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1619 at Berkeley Plantation. The county boasts two presidents, William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, one signer of the Declaration of Independence and three governors.

After the Civil War, blacks held some elected positions in the county until a state convention in 1901 imposed a poll tax, effectively disenfranchising nonwhites.

Eventually, the first black supervisor was elected, in 1947, but it wasn’t until 1972 that blacks gained a majority on the three-member county board. With Bowman’s retirement in 1987, the board reverted to a white majority.

School integration also came late to the county, with the consolidation in 1969 of separate white, black and Indian schools. With the white gentry and a few middle-class blacks sending their children to private schools outside the county, public school enrollment has been declining in recent years, to a current low of 1,125, and the school buildings have deteriorated.

Revenue From Landfill

To build new schools, county officials cut a deal recently with a Pittsburgh company to operate a regional landfill in Charles City in return for revenue of $2.5 million a year. In November, residents voted by a 6-to-1 ratio to float a $10-million school bond issue, to be repaid with landfill revenue.

Good schools, officials say, are the key to attracting the kind of industry and jobs that will make residents of new subdivisions such as Burkeshire more than commuters and Charles City more than a bedroom community.

Despite the long list of things their county lacks, residents are choosy about change. They overwhelmingly opposed a new state prison here. They also objected to a federally subsidized 40-unit apartment building proposed for a site near the courthouse, in use since 1730.

On the other hand, they voted in liquor by the drink, a change sought by two young men, one a Ruffin, for their new Indian Fields Tavern, one of only two restaurants in the county.

Can Finance Repairs

Four bed-and-breakfast establishments, including two in plantation houses, are other recent indicators of a county slowly yielding to change. In at least one case, it was also a way for George and Ridgely Copland, owners of North Bend, to finance repairs on the ancestral home.

“We’re right rural, but that’s gonna change,” said George Copland, a farmer who is the great-great-grandson of Edmund Ruffin and the great-great-grandnephew of William Henry Harrison.

“Gosh, I’d like to have a bank in the county; that would make my life more convenient,” said Lisa Harrison, Copland’s cousin. “Also a dry cleaners and a Laundromat. I recognize there is (also) a desperate need for adequate housing in the county. But these (Burkeshire homes) are too expensive (for most residents) and will just bring in people who need a lot of services the county can’t provide.”

Developer Defends Project

Richmond developer Mitchell Kambis said his Colonial-style houses, priced from about $80,000 to $150,000, are aimed at local residents ready to move up, newcomers who may commute and workers ready to retire. He notes that current zoning allows higher density development than he proposes, and that Burkeshire, with a single entrance on Route 5, will maintain the scenic and historic character of the area.

The landowners don’t agree.

“Read my lips: I have strong reservations,” said Helle Carter, whose husband, Hill, is the senior county supervisor and a member of the Planning Commission. Hill Carter, the ninth generation of his family to live at Shirley Plantation, opposed Burkeshire when it came before the Planning Commission but said he may support it when it comes before the supervisors in a few months.

Favors Moratorium

Carter also said he is inclined to support a moratorium on subdivisions while an overdue county comprehensive plan is completed. But Burkeshire, with some modifications, may be built in any case, he said.

“We have young folks in the county who need inexpensive housing. We want to take care of them, but we can be choosy and not just please developers,” he said. “The county can’t stay the way it is. It’s got to progress, but. . . . “