Council reverses preservation vote, authorizes demo of Afton Inn

Any excuse to pull this archive shot out is a good one – Mikhail Gorbachev’s limo arrives at the White House during negotiations over – not tearing down the Afton Inn, but rather the re-structuring of the former Soviet Union and that restructuring’s impact on the future of the world (both are pretty important). Photo/Roger Bianchini

Perhaps the tone was set with Matt Tederick’s paraphrase of Ronald Reagan’s famous statement to Mikhail Gorbachev about the Berlin Wall – “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

“Mr. Mayor, tear down this inn,” former county supervisor and Republican activist Tederick urged before continuing to ask if former Afton Inn owner Frank Barros hasn’t violated the conditions put in as part of the trade of the Afton Inn property for the old town hall across North Royal Avenue.

But whether it was the aura of the former Republican president on the largely Republican council, or just frustration at two years of futility with earlier proposed renovation proposals, council took Reagan, I mean Tederick’s advice.

So, on Monday, September 25, the Front Royal Town Council unanimously voted to overturn the also unanimous Town Board of Architectural Review (BAR) recommendation to deny the Economic Development Authority request to allow the demolition of the 149-year-old Afton Inn, formerly Montview Hotel.  The EDA brought the demolition request to the architectural review board on August 8.  The request was made to facilitate a redevelopment plan submitted by MODE Development Partnership for the site.

The building, dating to 1868 and perhaps the oldest remaining structure in downtown Front Royal, has sat derelict and deteriorating for perhaps two decades at the head of the town’s Historic Downtown Business District.  And after two years during which three private-sector renovation-based redevelopment plans were abandoned due to failed attempts to get state grant money to help cover an estimated half-million dollars in additional costs to save the building’s crumbling outer brick shell, council opted to say goodbye to the old to facilitate the new.

Above, the current state of what has become a historic dilapidated structure for about two decades; below, the Montview Hotel/Afton Inn building, circa 1920s, with its distinctive porch system. First Photo/Roger Bianchini, latter Photo/Warren Heritage Society

Northern Virginia-based MODE Development Partnership, including Carter-Burton Architectural of Clarke County, has submitted a $2.1 million dollar demo and rebuild plan for the Afton Inn site.  And apparently council didn’t put as much stock in a late entry into the “we’d like to renovate” stakes as the BAR did.  That proposal from the Winchester-based Urban Development Partners was received by the EDA on September 8, four days prior to the BAR vote on the EDA-MODE proposal.  It was called “a Godsend” during comments by BAR Chair Angela Toler and Vice-Chair Joan Harding prior to their September 12 vote.

Actually, other than a promise the crumbling brick façade could be saved at about the same total project cost of the MODE redevelopment proposal, the two-page UDP proposal mirrored the MODE’s to a great extent.  MODE plans a pizza restaurant-beer garden for the first floor, with upscale apartments on the upper floors. The UDP plan included a first floor “restaurant/retail space complimented by 8-10 studio lofts on the upper floors of the existing building and any added space.”

However, the UDP proposal cited a preference to use those loft spaces as “extended stay executive suite or upscale hotel” spaces; though with an option to switch them to apartments if the first option did not prove profitable.

HEY, MODE guys – now there’s an idea, open-ended options …

Above, Afton Inn, circa early 1940s; below, MODE Partnership exterior drawing of a re-constructed Afton Inn. First photo courtesy Warren Heritage Society, second MODE/EDA