| Aurora: The Gift of Time and Space
By Colleen Anderson
There are places of power and magic on this earth. You may feel it when you walk around the monuments at Stonehenge or climb atop Mesa Alta at Chaco Canyon. I feel it when I stroll, serenaded by wood thrushes and surrounded by towering hemlocks, through Cathedral State Park in Aurora, West Virginia.
Within the boundaries of the 132-acre park, the huge hemlocks and thickets of gnarled rhododendron guard the silent history of a late-nineteenth-century resort "dedicated exclusively to health, rest and pleasure," according to a booklet that touted the pleasures of Brookside Hotel and Cottages. During the Great Depression, an international group of artists, musicians, architects, and scientists settled in the area. Today a new artists’ colony and education center, the Aurora Project, is literally rising from the ruins of the early resort.
Early Aurora: A Resort Community
With his family, John Stough, a Lutheran minister, settled in what would eventually become Aurora (the settlement was initially called Salem, and later Mount Carmel) in 1787. Other Lutheran families from the Hagerstown, Maryland, area soon joined them in the first Lutheran settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains. By 1790, Stough had established the community’s first gristmill. A post office, taverns, stores, and other businesses began operating early in the nineteenth century. Methodist, Brethren, and Amish congregations moved in.
Most early settlers were farmers. By the turn of the century, the logging industry employed many residents. But, then as now, this area was known for its picturesque farms, clean air, pure water, cool summer temperatures, and mountain vistas; and its relative proximity to East Coast cities made it a convenient escape from heat, noise, and pollution. Beginning in 1872, with the construction of a large hotel by J. H. Shaffer, Aurora began to acquire a reputation as a resort town.
 The grandest of the resorts was Brookside Hotel and Cottages. A judge from Harpers Ferry built the original hotel on the north side of the Northwestern Turnpike (now U.S. Route 50) in 1884. In 1902, a Cleveland entrepreneur, Lee McBride, bought it and began an ambitious expansion. Along with the resort property, McBride acquired Gaymont Cottage, a large, shingle-style lodge built in 1902 by artisans who were brought from Maine especially for the project.
In its heyday, Brookside boasted a casino with a billiard room, a poolroom, a bowling alley, a concert and dance hall, stables, a swimming pool, and a nursery. Across the road were guest cottages equipped with gaslights and furnished with oriental rugs, flowered wallpaper, and fine furniture. Large porches, lined with rocking chairs, faced the mountain to the north.
The resort operated from June through September and accommodated hundreds of guests. Brookside had its own power plant and its own farm, which provided vegetables, meat, eggs, and dairy products for the dining hall, where "the tables are furnished at every meal with clean linen, and are waited upon by attractive Quaker girls," according to a hotel brochure. Carriages (and later automobiles) met guests at the B&O depot in Oakland, Maryland.
Another brochure stated: "Repose or gaiety, as the inclination might suggest, may here be enjoyed in the fullest sense." Among the options were nightly concerts and dances, tennis, billiards, bowling, croquet, fishing, swimming, boating, hiking, and horseback riding. Amateur theatricals, charades, and impromptu musical events were encouraged. But Brookside was also a health resort, and what gaiety occurred did so without the influence of alcohol: "There is no bar at Brookside, nor is spirituous liquor in any form sold on or within ten miles of the premises."
By the early 1920s, despite its popularity, Brookside was operating at a loss. In 1924, the resort’s longtime manager left after a dispute with McBride. Brookside’s days were numbered. But an unexpected hero stepped in to save the forest around it.
 Two years earlier, McBride had sold the old-growth forest tract to Branson Haas, who came to the area as a young man in 1896. Haas fell in love with the ancient trees. Beginning as a menial laborer and working his way up to the position of farm manager, he stayed at the resort for more than a quarter of a century, quietly building his savings and biding his time in hopes of acquiring the property. In 1942, he sold the tract to the State of West Virginia for 10 dollars, with the provision that it never be logged. Haas stayed on as caretaker until his death in 1955. In 1966, Cathedral State Park was designated a National Historic Landmark.
The old Northwestern Turnpike was paved in 1927 and 1928 and renamed U.S. Route 50—a major event for small communities along the road. The next year ushered in the availability of electrical service along the route, and a few Aurora residents began to use electric lights, clocks, refrigerators, and irons. But the Great Depression, and then World War II, slowed the pace of progress and brought an end to Aurora’s resort industry.
A Gathering of Artists: The Youghiogheny Forest Colony
In 1930, Frank Reeves, a widely traveled geologist, bought 100 acres just east of Aurora and began building cabins with wood from blighted, dying chestnut trees on the property. Within the next few years, a group of artists and scientists found their way to Reeves’s Youghiogheny Forest.
Many of them came at the invitation of Reeves’s wife, Lottie. Like her near-contemporary Mabel Dodge Luhan (who began an arts colony in Taos, New Mexico, in the early 1920s), Lottie was an adventurous, headstrong woman who attracted and craved the company of intellectuals and artists.
Some stayed for weekends or summers in Reeves’s cabins; others bought plots from Reeves and built their own lodgings. Some came with the intention of "sitting out the Depression." Jobs were scarce, but a person could subsist with minimal expense in a rural environment. And, thanks to frequent gatherings at the Reeves’s tavern on Route 50, the company was stimulating and the conversations animated. Even Eleanor Roosevelt stopped by on her way to visit her homestead project at Arthurdale.
 The colony numbered about 15 families and included notable scientists, doctors, writers, sculptors, painters, musicians, and architects. One of the architects invited a young German student, Volkmar Wentzel, to the colony and convinced him to stay and finish high school in Aurora. Wentzel, who became a renowned photographer for National Geographic magazine, formed a permanent attachment to Aurora, bought several homes there, and photographed the community extensively.
Along with their diverse talents, the Youghiogheny Forest residents comprised a wide range of nationalities. Some locals were suspicious about the newcomers’ backgrounds, politics, and morals. Other Aurora residents cultivated friendships with their new neighbors. Locals helped the city folks build cabins and educated them in the vital skills of gardening, hunting, fishing, and maple sugaring; local aspiring artists, like young Lewis Stemple, found encouragement and inspiration among the sophisticated company.
By the 1950s, most Youghiogheny Forest residents used their cabins only for summer visits. But the Reeves’s intentional gathering of artists and intellectuals planted seeds that would bloom half a century later.
Building on the Bones: The Aurora Project
Another new century dawned. Early in 2001, while a heavy rainstorm pelted the town and forest, a small group of neighbors sat on the wraparound porch of the former Gaymont Cottage and began to nurture a new vision for their community. These "porch talks" evolved into the Aurora Project, a community arts initiative that includes, among other goals, the operation of the first full-time West Virginia artists’ residency program, similar to the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire or the Millay Colony in New York.
Within a few months, the founders chartered a nonprofit corporation and assembled a dedicated board of directors. By serendipity or fate, the group managed to acquire the deteriorating Brookside guest cottages. Alice McGinnis Penzo, one of the founders, donated to the project a historic general store, which would eventually serve as artists’ studio space and as a home for the Aurora Area Historical Society.
 Then the real work began: consulting with community members and artists; seeking advice from architects, Americans with Disabilities (ADA) experts, and contractors; and raising funds. Money has come from grants and community donations, and some has been raised at the Aurora Project Barn Dance, held on the historic farm that was once a part of the Brookside resort complex. In 2009, the fifth annual barn dance is set for Saturday, October 3.
The Aurora Project has already achieved some of its ambitious goals. The restored general store is now leased to the Aurora Area Historical Society and is open to the public. Upstairs are a large, airy visual art studio and a fully equipped photography suite, ready for the first visiting artists later this year.
The Brookside cottages have been lifted from their crumbling piers, replaced on firm concrete foundations, wired, plumbed, framed, and adapted to meet ADA specifications. Restoration of roofs, gutters, and windows continues. Eventually, the Aurora Project will have housing and studio space for as many as 14 artists in a variety of disciplines. Meanwhile, guesthouses throughout the community are being readied to accommodate the first residency and retreat guests. These interim Aurora Project fellows will enjoy an additional benefit, gourmet meals at Brookside Inn, the former Gaymont Cottage. Last year the restored lodge was the home base for a "trial run" artists’ gathering, the Aurora Project Writers’ Retreat. Proprietor Michele Moure-Reeves, an Aurora Project founder, operates the inn as a retreat center and B&B, and will continue to do so between residency sessions. An overnight or weekend stay, including a walk through Cathedral State Forest, is a wonderful way for any visitor to experience Aurora.
While coping with the current economy and competing for dwindling grants and donations, the Aurora Project steadfastly continues its work: revitalizing the buildings and preserving the link between the community’s history and its future. The dream born on the front porch persists. Once again, the town of Aurora is a sanctuary where artists and scholars come to take risks, experiment, exchange ideas, and refresh their spirits.
Colleen Anderson’s songs, travel writing, and graphic design often celebrate West Virginia’s history and scenic beauty. She owns Mother Wit, a creative studio in Charleston, West Virginia. Visit her Web site at www.motherwitdesign.com.
Aurora Writers’ Retreat
In May 2008, a group of about a dozen writers participated in the first Aurora Project Writers’ Retreat. Another retreat is planned for November 5-8, 2009.
From Thursday evening through Sunday morning, writers will enjoy the tranquil atmosphere of Cathedral State Park and Aurora, time to focus on their own work, the company of fellow writers at mealtimes and in the evenings, shared readings, healthy meals, and the opportunity to further the vision of the Aurora Project. West Virginia’s poet laureate, Irene McKinney, has agreed to participate in the November retreat and is scheduled to give a reading.
The cost of $250 includes lodging (at Brookside Inn or a nearby guesthouse) and seven meals. For more information, visit www.auroraproject.org.
If You Go:
If you want to learn more about artist residency fellowships, this year’s Aurora Project Barn Dance, the historic Brookside Inn, or Cathedral State Park, contact these sources:
The Aurora Project
304.735.3620
www.auroraproject.org
Brookside Inn
800.588.6344 or 304.735.6344
www.brooksideinnwv.com
Cathedral State Park
304.735.3771
www.cathedralstatepark.com
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Aurora: The Gift of Time and Space
