Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 16, 1990 TAG: 9004160044
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Weeping willows edge the water, stooping shelter for the Canada geese and swans.
Tranquility rides on every ripple.
Opposite the pond and the hill and the weathered barn, though, is the Roanoke Weiner Stand. There is Ferguson Enterprises plumbing supply and Moore's Office Building.
The bucolic oasis is along Brandon Avenue in Southwest Roanoke, where the lowing of cattle is drowned by the drone of traffic.
"We're a farm where a farm shouldn't be," admits Lucy Ellett, whose grandfather bought the land early this century.
She need not apologize. Her farm, and other scenes like it, subtly enrich life in the Roanoke Valley.
Few cities can boast what we take for granted - open space within the city, the smell of fresh-cut hay lingering just minutes from downtown.
The peace of a grass-banked pond is a deeply satisfying sigh, a means of catching our collective breath from a rush of urban hassles.
Still, Lucy and Frank Ellett's goose pond doesn't spring eternal.
About 1 1/2 miles of Brandon Avenue - including the stretch fronting on the Elletts' farm - is going to be widened from two to four lanes by 1997.
To extend Peters Creek Road and to widen Brandon Avenue - the projects are related - the state is prepared to spend $20 million.
The Elletts are not oblivious to the obvious: Money talks and the geese walk.
"That's the first thing I thought of," says Lucy Ellett. "I'm concerned about it. I've not talked to anyone, but they'll probably seek the path of least resistance."
The dam that holds back the pond waters is hard by the edge of Brandon Avenue. If Brandon is to grow in the Elletts' direction, the dam's days could be numbered.
Engineers for the state highway department haven't begun to draft plans for the widened road. When they do, will they heed money, or will they heed aesthetics?
Take a guess.
"What we'll do, like any road we've got to widen," said Mac MacDaniel of the transportation department. "We'll take the path of least resistance."
Away from the car wash and the hot dog stand. Toward the dam.
"It could be threatened." It is a blunt admission by MacDaniel.
It is a blunt truth, and a depressing one to Lucy and Frank Ellett.
"We've invested a lot to make that a little beauty spot," says Lucy Ellett.
They dredged the pond a few years ago and they rebuilt the dam. They planted trees, brought swans to the water, deposited some real live peacocks on the backdrop hill and the oasis came to life.
It is pretty, but it is in the way. Pastures and geese bobbing on water may salve the soul but they don't pay the bills; their form obstructs the function.
Shed no tears for the Elletts' finances. Their farm in the city could yield a rich harvest of convenience stores, strip plazas and money.
Perhaps the transportation department will be wary of that. Why spare the pond with expensive culverts and bridges if the pond eventually will be paved for development?
There is time to talk before the widened Brandon Avenue is even drawn. Now is the time to do it.
Is there space between the dam and the road, between the Elletts and the engineers, between broader highways and oases, for a restricted deed, a legally binding agreement that would ensure the pond will remain forever?
And if the Elletts were agreeable to setting aside that chunk of land, would the engineers find a way around it?
The path of least resistance is easy to find here. The path to enlightenment, to preserving one of Roanoke's invaluable gems, requires more work.
But there is time.
by CNB