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Staunton Historic Walking Woodrow Wilson Birthplace & Museum, The Presbyterian manse in which America’s 28th president was born in 1856 is a registered National Historic Landmark. On guided tours every half hour, visitors see the room where he was born, the crib in which he slept and the chair in which his mother rocked him. The tour and furnishings emphasize the way of life of Stauntonians in the 1850s – “the way they would have lived as a Southern family,” according to our guide. You see twelve rooms containing many items that belonged to the Wilson family. The rear balcony affords a view of the historic gardens restored by the Garden Club of Virginia, the cream-colored buildings of Mary Baldwin College and the downtown. “Now you’re part of the family,” says the guide at tour’s end. “You get to leave by the back door.” Before the tour, browse through the only museum in the country spanning Wilson’s entire life. Seven galleries cover everything from his parentage to his funeral. The re-creation of his Princeton University study contains his old Hammond typewriter. Other galleries trace his economic and social reforms, the tumultuous war years, and his search for peace and a new world order. The well-spaced displays are tasteful, significant and not at all overwhelming. A highlight is his beloved 1919 Pierce-Arrow White House limousine, donated by his widow to be shown in his hometown in a large garage beside the museum. An attractive gift shop adjoins the garden. (540) 885-0897 or (888) 496-6376.
www.woodrowwilson.org. Open Monday-Saturday 10 to 5, Sunday noon to 5,
March-October; Monday-Saturday 10 to 4, Sunday noon to 4, rest of year.
Adults, $7. Shenandoah Shakespeare, Staunton has been the home base for a globe-trotting traveling theater company called Shenandoah Shakespeare Express – the forerunner of an ambitious plan to make the city a national theater destination. In 2001, a non-profit local corporation spearheaded by tireless innkeeper Joe Harman of the Frederick House opened a replica of the Blackfriars Playhouse, the Bard’s favorite venue that sat beside the Thames in London four centuries ago, and was planning a replica of the Globe Theater. Downtown Staunton was being billed as “the only site in the world with two authentic replicas of Shakespeare theaters.” Considered one of the five most historically important theaters in the world, the $4 million Blackfriars on South Market Street quickly set the theater world abuzz. The 320-seat interior is an acoustically perfect, post-and-beam space that’s almost all wood (twelve kinds of hand-hewn Virginia oak), from the plain platform stage in the center to the hand-turned finials surrounding two levels of balconies. The stage is unadorned, even during performances, as actors interact with the audiences who sit on hard, back-less benches as in the old days. Nine hand-wrought chandeliers, each with 24 electric candles, stay lit throughout the show. The outdoor Globe Theater was scheduled for opening in 2007 on North Louis Street. The existing traveling company will be joined by a resident company to stage Shakespeare plays in each theater. “We intend to present plays the way Shakespeare did, without lots of costumes and props,” according to promoter Harman. An education component will offer school programs as well as a master’s degree in Shakespearean studies. (540) 885-5588. www.shenandoahshakespeare.com.
Plays generally Wednesday-Sunday, year-round. Tickets, $10 to $26. Statler Brothers Complex, Opposite Gypsy Hill Park is this renovated school building, now the corporate headquarters of the Statler Brothers country singers, all of whom reside in the area. Still on view is the gymnasium stage where the brothers won their first talent show in 1955. Hallway cases sparkle with Grammys and records. One tour a day is given Monday-Friday at 2. Gift shop hours are weekdays, 10:30 to 3:30. P. On a hilltop overlooking (540) 949-6473. www.p-buckley-moss.com. Open
Monday-Saturday 10 to 6, Sunday André Viette Farm and Nursery, Long In early spring, the rolling countryside here is ablaze with tulips. These spectacular perennial gardens – said to be the largest in the eastern United States – continue with more than 3,000 varieties of poppies, peonies, iris and, their real claim to fame, lilies. André Viette’s fame, spread through his national gardening radio program, draws people from afar to his garden center and flower clinics. Side Trips. Don’t miss the jaunt about eighteen miles south of Staunton to the hilly, rural Raphine area. Here, almost side by side along Route 606 west from I-84 Exit 205, are two must stops: Buffalo Springs Herb Farm, 7 Kennedy-Wade’s Mill Loop, Raphine Former florists from northern Virginia restored a 1793 brick and stone homestead and a big red barn beside a rushing creek, a grand space that lent itself to workshops, drying and demonstration areas and an exceptional shop. Don Haynie and Tom Hamlin offer herbal products, dried flowers and designs, garden books, herb plants in season, nature trails, an arbor garden and herbal happenings, from workshops to picnics to herbal lunches by reservation. Their 170-acre educational farm is so scenic that it’s been a setting for weddings. (540) 348-1083. www.buffaloherbs.com. Open April
through mid-December, Wednesday-Saturday 10 to 5, also Sunday 1 to 5
except June-August. Wade’s Mill, 55 Kennedy-Wade’s Mill Loop, Raphine. This neat place is one of the few operating gristmills actually producing flour as a business in this country. The miller and his wife are Jim and Georgie Young, ex-Washington bureaucrats who bought the circa 1750 mill in 1991. Now Jim grinds a couple of thousand pounds of flour exclusively on mill stones each week. They also sell fresh breads and muffins in the fall, run cooking classes and occasional brunches in their renovated farmhouse, published a cookbook now in its second edition, and give tours and demonstrations in their mill, which is powered by a 21-foot water wheel fed by the nearby stream. Georgie’s shop features local pottery and baskets, buckwheat pancake mixes and apple syrup, and a cook’s corner with everything you need to cook and bake with flour. (540) 348-1400 or (800) 290-1400.
www.wadesmill.com. Open same hours as Buffalo Springs Herb Farm. The Cyrus McCormick Farm, Route 606, Steele’s Tavern Cross a little creek from the wayside parking lot at Walnut Grove Farm to the old gristmill, powered by water from a millpond, and the blacksmith shop. This simple little farm smithy was the birthplace in 1831 of the first mechanical reaper, a horse-drawn harvesting machine. Young Cyrus McCormick’s invention ushered in the age of farm mechanization and hastened the westward expansion of the United States. The story unfolds in a simple museum above the blacksmith shop, where reproductions of early reapers are on display. (540) 377-2255. Open daily, 8 to 5,
April-December. Closed weekends in winter. Extra-SpecialCuriously juxtaposed next to the interchange of two interstate highways, this outdoor, living-history museum opened in 1990 to interpret the American frontier. This is not the frontier of the Wild West, but rather of America’s first frontier – the Shenandoah Valley. The state-owned tract has four reconstructed farmsteads, three of which are from European nations (England, Northern Ireland and Germany) that the pioneers left behind. They are authentic reconstructions of historical working farms from each country, and costumed interpreters demonstrate daily life to visitors. The fourth and largest farm is the American synthesis, reflecting the melding of European influences. You might see a carpenter making pegs for the German barn, a pig-calling contest at the English farm, rare Kerry cattle, wonderful fencing in different styles and even stray farm cats. This is a special place for the young and the young at heart. The contemporary visitor center and the sounds of interstate traffic are in marked contrast to the farmsteads from the 18th and 19th centuries. (540) 332-7850. www.frontiermuseum.org. Open
daily, 9 to 5, mid-March through November; 10 to 4, rest of year.
Adults, $8.
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