www.roanoke.com

Of all the buildings on the list of Blacksburg's most endangered historic structures, surely the saddest is the old Odd Fellows Lodge.

Once a gathering place for Blacksburg's black community, this beleaguered building is balanced on a tiny patch of weedy grass, surrounded by trash, broken glass, dumpsters and dog piles.

All but swallowed up by the retail and rental properties of nearby Main Street and Prices Fork Road, the building is still standing and still beautiful but - like the others on the list - has an uncertain future.

The list, created by Blacksburg's Historic / Design Review Board, names sites near downtown Blacksburg that it says are important to the town, but whose future is not guaranteed.

Board member Jack Davis, a Virginia Tech architecture professor, said that in most cases the structures on the list are being used appropriately and many are well cared for.

Some of the buildings are simply so historically and culturally significant that the mere possibility of losing them justifies their place on the list, said Dan McKinney, Blacksburg's assistant comprehensive planner.

The list is an attempt to make the public aware of the town's historic district and of the significance of the structures there, said board chairman John Bush, a senior architect with Virginia Tech.

"It's easy to point to buildings like the Alexander Black House and say, 'Gosh that's a cool building,' " Bush said. But smaller, simpler buildings are an important part of Blacksburg, too, he said.

Together they shape the way people experience a town and the way they feel about it, he said.

"Once a building is demolished, obviously, it's gone, and its very hard to get something like that back," he said. "Some things are mistakes, and while we can't go back and change that, what we can do is mitigate any future ones."

No. 1: ALEXANDER BLACK HOUSE, 204 SOUTH MAIN ST.

THE FIRST BUILDING on the list, a Queen Anne Victorian house now used as McCoy Funeral Home, doesn't seem endangered at all. (That's Jack Davis, a Virginia Tech architecture professor and member of the Blacksburg Historic / Design Review Board, standing in front.) After all, the town just announced plans to purchase and move the building to make way for a retail, office and parking complex. The town plans to move it to a grassy lot across Draper Avenue and restore it.

But if the multimillion-dollar project should hit a snag, the fate of the building would be up in the air again.

"We're very hopeful that it'll be saved and that it'll be restored," said Blacksburg planner Dan McKinney, who calls it the only house of its kind in the town. "There are still a lot of hurdles. Until it's a done deal, it's still an endangered structure."

No. 2: ODD FELLOWS LODGE, 203 GILBERT ST.

"THAT BUILDING used to be the Odd Fellows hall for Afro-Americans," said Aubrey Mills. "My grandfather . . . was instrumental in building that. He was a member of the Odd Fellows hall."

The building was used for dances and dinners in addition to lodge meetings, said Mills, who figures it had its heyday in the 1920s.

"I would really like to see that thing restored," said Mills, who said that other than churches, it's the black community's most significant building. But it's also the most threatened building on the list, Davis said.

While the town has struggled to figure out who owns the building, it slowly decays - a chunk of siding comes loose, a vine grows up a door, a broken window lets in rain.

No. 3: OLD PUBLIC SCHOOL CAMPUS, 100 BLOCK OF DRAPER ROAD

SOME TOWNS HAVE TORN DOWN their old school buildings, said Blacksburg planner Dan McKinney, "and been the lesser for it."

But Blacksburg has held onto its old schools - clustered together on a campus just across the street from the downtown business area. Now owned by Virginia Tech, they keep the big-windowed, friendly look of their original use.

Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said Tech has no plans to do anything with the buildings except continue using them as media and architecture buildings.

Board member Jack Davis said he doesn't think the buildings are in any danger, but as long as they are owned by Tech, the town has no control over what happens to them.

No. 4: BLACKSBURG MIDDLE SCHOOL, 501 SOUTH MAIN ST.

ORIGINALLY A HIGH SCHOOL, the 1954 building marks the transition between residential neighborhoods and the downtown district with a grand front lawn and a massive brick facade.

It looks a little weary, but still sturdy enough for years of use. But it's unclear what that use might be.

The county is building a new $22 million middle school on Prices Fork Road, but hasn't decided what to do with the old one when students leave at the end of the 2002-2003 school year.

No. 5: DEYERLE STORE, 400-410 SOUTH MAIN ST.

NOW HOME TO a pawn broker, a tobacconist and a flower shop, this 1875 shop is such a perfect part of downtown that it often goes unnoticed.

"A lot of people don't pay attention to it because it's always been there," said planner Dan McKinney, who suggested that it might be the town's best example of a 19th century commercial structure.

A close look shows it to be beautiful - bulgy and saggy in all the right places with a wild, fuzzy texture from a century and a quarter of paint jobs. In the front wide steps lead up to the shops, in the back a staircase leads from a tiny courtyard to a top-floor apartment.

Best of all is the general store facade, which gives it a look Davis calls "classic frontier town."

With it's retail space fully occupied, the building doesn't seem endangered, but McKinney said there's always the fear that someday an owner will decide it's not worth the maintenance it requires.

No. 6: 210 E. ROANOKE ST.

THIS 1920S-ERA bungalow-style house is a tiny patch of tranquility on Roanoke Street, which increasingly resembles one long college dorm. It belongs to nearby Blacksburg United Methodist Church and serves as a residence for a staff member. Like the Deyerle Store it doesn't grab your attention, but it's full of little details like side-hinged windows and a tiled roof that add up to a harmonious whole, pleasing and inviting. Although board members worry that some day this house might be torn down to make way for a parking lot, the church doesn't appear to have any such plans.

No. 7: 500 BLOCK OF PROGRESS STREET

THE FINAL FOUR buildings on the board's list are a row of brick residences that the Blacksburg Baptist Church has discussed partially removing to build a parking garage. Since having an informal discussion with the board about a year ago, the church has not approached the board again.

Board members hope a compromise can be reached that will allow the church to solve its parking crunch, while preserving the buildings.

Most distinctive is 501 Progress St. (right), a large 1920s home currently used for church activities. A wide set of stairs leads from the street to a spacious porch. All four buildings exude a warm small town charm that almost counteracts the traffic zipping by on Progress Street.

"Scale, character, the kind of public / private dimension to the street," board member Jack Davis said. "What if this was a four-story brick wall right here?"