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About Willoughby

Excerpt from the CAAR Willoughby review:

Tucked Away: Charlottesville's Willoughby Neighborhood is a Convenient Oasis

You’re just a hop (under two miles) from UVA Hospital, a skip (a mile and a half) from the Downtown Mall, and a jump (one half mile) from Route 64. You turn east at the traffic light off of Fifth Street Extended S.W. and wind uphill on Harris Road past the handsome wooden Willoughby sign. You’re entering a 12-street area once near to Confederate Army Captain Eugene Davis’s Greek Revival-style mansion, and since the early 1980s the site of a middle class community of some 235 single family homes and townhouses. Half in the city of Charlottesville, half in Albemarle County, Willoughby is a sweet little hideaway, a low-trafficked, cul-de-sac of a neighborhood whose stable property values and community feel make visitors want to buy a house and stay awhile.

Recently retired librarian Kim Varin, 21-year resident, remembers the day he just drove in on Harris Road and “discovered” the place. “I had no idea it was here until I drove in,” Varin says. In 1990 Varin and his wife Linda bought a home on a block so new they didn’t have neighbors yet, and moved into their generous slice of the American Dream on July 4. “The convenience of the location was the driving factor, plus being able to get a new house that we could build to our specifications,” Varin says. “We liked the reputation of the builder.”

Joelle Meintzschel, Principal Broker at Quest Virginia Realty, LLC, and her husband Mike are known in the neighborhood for the handsome, four-level tree house with a catwalk that Mike built in their backyard on a wooded slope overlooking Fifth Street Extended. Joelle and Mike bought their Cape Cod-style Harris Road home in 1993 after Mike’s job brought them to Charlottesville from Northern Virginia: “I liked the convenient location and it was a much nicer home than others at the same price range,” Joelle says.

Location is one big reason the place is so attractive to area professionals.  “A lot of the people who have moved into Willoughby have been residents and their spouses at UVA in the medical school,” Varin says. “It's a convenient neighborhood for them. You feel safe here.”

Sidewalks. Mature trees. A playground and a boulder in a park, and an exercise area. These are amenities first time visitors notice. Exploring a little more they find a two-mile wooded walking trail along Moore’s Creek that encircles the entire neighborhood, and swaths of wooded land behind many backyards. Staying a little while they notice something else, something not always easy to find: peace and quiet.

“That’s one thing about Willoughby that I've always told people who are thinking about moving here,” Varin says. “I've said you need to come to Willoughby and park your car and walk around one night, because you won't hear anything. It's a quiet neighborhood, and that is a big plus.”

read more from the CAAR review of Willoughby here...

Willoughby Mansion

In a town known for its many historic homes there are many others that are long gone and all but forgotten.  One was the home of Eugene Davis, Confederate Army Captain and son of the early UVA law professor, John A. G. Davis.  His home was called "Willoughby" and sat a couple miles south  of Charlottesville on Moore's Creek.

The house was built for Davis around 1850 and he and his family lived in this house until his death in 1894 with the exception of the time he was away during the Civil War. Davis, seen in the portrait below, also served a year as Charlottesville's Mayor during this time. 

Read more from the Charlottesville Then and Now blog: