* * Victoria Taylor and her family own Yellow Sulphur Springs

Ever wanted to own that historically valuable property that dates back centuries? Speak with Victoria Taylor first. “I have no idea how much money we’ve spent,” she admitted ruefully. “(It’s) everything that didn’t go into dance lessons.”

Victoria owns the Yellow Sulphur Springs Resort, nicely secluded in a hidden but surprisingly accessible nook of Montgomery County, a mere mile from the hospital. She’s not local – she was born in Westchester County, New York and was raised in Jacksonville, Florida – but gravitated here fifteen years ago searching for a better place to raise her family.

She and her husband owned a restaurant in Jacksonville and she headed a school for the healing arts. She’s a licensed acupuncturist. “We had a great restaurant and an amazing school.”

They were unhappy in Florida. They considered Jacksonville superficial, with great weather and polite people, but horrible public health issues, violence and racism. “I used to call it the ‘veneer city,’” she told me. “As a person who lives an examined life, it bothered me that nobody would talk about it.”

They set out on a four month, 16,000 mile, multi-state journey of discovery, looking for potential place to live. “We wanted to live in a place that had woods, near a university, where the weather was mild, where we could live and work at home.”

They toured the “groovy” towns across the nation. Durango. Boise. Boulder. Homer. Austin. Santa Fe. Taos. “We loved these places. My husband said there would be a sign. There never was one.”

Meanwhile, near Blacksburg, the venerable Yellow Sulfur Springs resort sat largely unused, unappreciated, and unmaintained. The waters in the two creeks and the spring have been considered healthy for drinking and bathing, and the area had evidence of Indian use over 500 years ago. A resort was built in the late 1700s, one of many along the spine of the Virginias, where wealthy patrons, mostly from the flatlands, came in the summer for health and recreation.

According to Victoria, it was named “Yellow Sulfur” springs neither because of sulfur, because it wasn’t sulfurous, nor in having to do with yellow, but only because that color wasn’t taken. Nor is it thermal; it’s 54F year round. The resort was in commercial operation until 1922, and in sporadic public use after that.

Returning home to Jacksonville, depressed and eager to leave, a new friend told them about a friend of his who lived in Blacksburg and really liked it. So they made a trip. “My kids met an amazingly multi-national group of kids, because of Blacksburg being a college town. The children we met were healthy and happy. We weren’t quite hooked. This new friend showed us Yellow Sulphur. It wasn’t for sale. It was more like a ghost town in the woods.

“There was an outdoor bowling alley. There was a lady’s nine-pin ball and some pins. We set them up and while holding our baby on his hip, my husband on his first try bowled a strike.” That was their sign! “We came home from that trip saying, ‘That is OUR place and we’re moving to Virginia!’ We were so full of fire; you couldn’t have told us anything!”

Eventually, they learned the property was in probate and was available. Long story short, they bought it. They had lots of plans for another healing arts school and restaurant. That was twenty years ago. Not all their plans have come to fruition. Victoria has a healing arts center there, but no restaurant yet. “For the most part, it has been an amazing run.”

In her view, local cultural, social, and family environments are great. The business environment is less dynamic, more stagnant. They’ve wanted to open a restaurant on the site but, due to access, water, and sewer issues, have been unable to get permits and funding.

“We have sixty acres with nine historic buildings. We spent the first four years (as happy as) pigs in slop. We hired four full-time staff just to clean up the property and buildings, in what we called reclamation and stabilization.”

They threw away dumpster-loads of rubbish, including 1600 pounds of decades-old canned fruit. “There were 200 boxes of Jello!”

Victoria said tourists still stop by to wander around, sharing memories. She said this was Montgomery County’s premier resort for decades. “It is lovely here. It must have been fun, really beautiful, with gardens, a pond, and wooden boardwalks. We’re optimistic. We still want to develop a restaurant. It is a ridiculous proposition for a family to own an historic property. It makes no sense. But we do anyway.

“We have nothing except this property and what I make on Monday. But I have no regrets… The only thing I regret in my entire life was not calling off my first wedding,” she laughed. “But that’s another story.”