Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Louise Belmont wants to revitalize a block of homes on Keswick Street to convert into residential and retail space.

Belmont has an option to purchase the old high school and plans to transform it into an arts center.

Louise Belmont converted the white building, an old pizza restaurant, into 416 Gallery in downtown Clifton Forge.

Video

• See video from The Company Store in Clifton Forge

Map

• See a map of development in Clifton Forge

CLIFTON FORGE -- Louise Belmont is smitten with the mountain scenery in this small, former railroad town in the Alleghany Highlands.

"It seems to feed your soul," she said recently of the fall foliage as she crested the top of Jefferson Avenue in her Mercedes sport utility vehicle in the neighborhood called The Heights. "It just warms you up and makes you realize what life is all about."

Belmont is a great-grandmother who could live anywhere she wants. Her grandfather was the founder of Reynolds Metals Co., which is now Alcoa, the company that makes, among other things, Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil. She has lived in Kentucky, attended schools in Switzerland and New York, and raised thoroughbred race horses in Richmond.

But these days she calls the Clifton Forge area home.

"Everybody is friendly, and everybody is thoughtful of everybody, which is a wonderful thing. That's not the way it is in Richmond, I can tell you, or any other big city," Belmont said.

She has embarked on an economic development crusade to transform the town, with about 4,000 residents, into a tourist destination for leaf watchers, hikers, kayakers and folks who want to go antiquing, shopping or just plain relax.

Belmont has an option to buy the town's old high school to turn it into an arts center.

She also wants to revitalize a block of homes on Keswick Street adjacent to downtown and create an inviting avenue for small boutiques and shops.

"It's going to be exciting," Belmont said.

She has already opened an antique store, called 416 Gallery, on Ridgeway Street in the heart of the downtown merchants area.

In neighboring Low Moor she owns the most popular gathering spot for locals, Averill's Country Store.

Part of a broader effort

Her enthusiasm has caught on among other new business owners.

"Clifton Forge is on the verge of something," said Tom Kirlin, who with his wife, Dawn, recently opened Riders Up! Outfitters, a store on Ridgeway Street that rents and sells kayaks and canoes and related equipment. "Hopefully, we're going to join in on that ride."

The Kirlins are hoping enough people who visit Douthat State Park off Interstate 64, or the nearby waters of the Cowpasture, Jackson and James rivers, will also come to Clifton Forge.

LeeAnna Tyler, Clifton Forge's interim town manager, said regional efforts are under way to create a tourism trail to tie together all of the localities in the Alleghany Highlands.

"Our economic viability is going to depend a lot on tourism and bringing people in from the outside," she said.

But there's still a lot of sprucing up to be done around town. The toll from the steady decline of railroad and factory jobs over the past four decades is evident.

While residents have taken pride in preserving and restoring Victorian homes on McCormick Boulevard, an array of homes a few blocks away sit boarded up. Some unkempt storefronts thirst for a coat of fresh paint and new signs.

Residents still find work at MeadWestvaco in Covington, Alleghany Regional Hospital in Low Moor and in the Alleghany County schools, but they also drive to jobs in Roanoke, Lexington or across the state line to West Virginia.

An influx of tourists would force improvements to the town's infrastructure. Two bridges downtown need repairs before they can handle any additional traffic load, Tyler said.

But Clifton Forge also is home to an Amtrak station, and fares to Washington, D.C., are cheaper than the cost of a tank of gasoline.

Longtime Clifton Forge residents, like Tyler, who's lived in town for 40 years, find comfort in knowing their neighbors and feeling safe. She says crime is low, the schools are good and there are ample outdoor recreation opportunities.

"If you want a quieter, simpler kind of life, we have it," she said.

Drawn by the mountains

Belmont had driven through Clifton Forge any number of times over the years on her travels from Richmond to Kentucky, but it was at a July Fourth party in Low Moor four years ago when she became intoxicated by the natural surroundings and slower-paced lifestyle and decided she would live here "probably forever."

She bought the biggest home in Low Moor, an old lodge built in the 1870s with multiple bedrooms, fireplaces, sitting rooms and porches that once housed traveling executives and the general manager of the Low Moor Iron Co., the area's main employer until 1930.

Belmont said the old lodge reminded her of her childhood home in Kentucky. An avid antique collector, she decorated the home herself.

Not far from Belmont's home is the country store she purchased this past spring.

Alpha "Granny" Averill, who recently turned 100, had worked the lunch counter at the store for more than six decades, and the place draws people from Low Moor, Clifton Forge and Covington.

The building dates to the 1800s, when it served as the iron company's commissary.

Belmont is enlarging the restaurant's kitchen and seating area and is adding a small stage for live music.

Back in Clifton Forge, she envisions the old Clifton Forge High School as a mecca for artists and art education. It could complement the Alleghany Highlands Arts & Crafts Center on Ridgeway Street, a nonprofit organization that features the work of local artists.

"We have great hopes for this school," she said. "A lot of different people have shown an interest in helping us."

The two-story building has probably the biggest auditorium in Alleghany County, Tyler said. The town is willing to part with it for the rock-bottom price of $60,000 if Belmont's venture can reap future economic benefits for the town.

"We're very supportive of anything she wants to do," Tyler said. "I think she has a lot of good ideas and definitely we can use all the help we can get in this area. Anything we can do to spur economic development is a plus for us."

TAP examines tax credits

Belmont wants to transform about a dozen older homes on Keswick Street into a shopping attraction in a way that would preserve some of the town's character while enhancing its economic future.

"I like seeing things saved as opposed to thrown away," she said.

Roanoke-based Total Action Against Poverty, whose coverage area includes the Alleghany Highlands, is working with Belmont and examining whether historic tax credits and new market tax credits can be attained as part of a financial package to purchase the properties.

Part of the plan will examine whether second-story spaces can be renovated as affordable living quarters.

"What we want to do in any way that we can is help the people in that area, especially the low income people," said Dick Robers, TAP's vice president for business affairs. "We've applied for a planning grant from the state of Virginia to see how far we can go with this project."

The area's small town charm and scenery, combined with low asking prices for classic Victorian homes, have also attracted an array of recent retirees to the area.

"The outside people who are buying homes here is just phenomenal," Tyler said. "If you live in Northern Virginia and you retire in Clifton Forge, you can buy a huge house for a little bit of nothing."

Belmont said the retirees she has met include a United Nations worker, corporate executives, military personnel. They tell her they were attracted to the small-town way of life that's missing in larger cities.

"Some people that have visited me say it's like the '50s," Belmont said. "I just think it's wonderful to have that today."