Group works to save endangered landmarks

KONNAROCK, Va. – Built by Lutheran missionaries, the Konnarock Girls’ School was a prestigious place for young women to attend in the early 20th century, when the region lacked modern roads and education.

Now empty, the school building has fallen into disrepair. But a community group hoping to save the school is seeking money to bring it back to life, and received a little good news on that front Monday.

The Konnarock Girls’ School, along with the Marion schoolhouse that served as Smyth County’s first high school, has been added to a list of Virginia’s Most Endangered Sites, the group Preservation Virginia announced Monday.

Sonja Ingram, a field representative for Preservation Virginia, said she hopes the school’s addition to the list will raise awareness to help the group raise money for the project.

"I’m just glad we’ve got some sites on here in southwestern Virginia," Ingram said. "In the past, Southwest Virginia has really been neglected."

Among those working to save Konnarock is Peggie Baldwin, who grew up in Whitetop and attended the boarding school in the 1950s. She said it was a wonderful place to get an education.

"The school offered so much that you had not been exposed to before, the good life," Baldwin said. "If you went to this school, you were one of the somebodys."

Baldwin said she’s been working since 1995 to put the empty building on a path to rehabilitation, a project expected to cost $2 million to $3 million.

The 1924 building is now owned by Konnarock Retreat House Inc., a local nonprofit organization that wants to turn it into a retreat center that Baldwin said could draw more development – a restaurant, a store, a bike shop – to this tiny, unincorporated mountain community.

The school began with a request from Kenneth Killinger, a circuit-riding minister from Marion who asked the Lutheran Church to help the region he traveled on horseback, ministering to the mountain people, said Jean Hamm, chairwoman of the organization.

Hamm said representatives of the church determined they could best put their resources to use by building and running a school for girls – a school that included not only education, but a nurse who rode on horseback to help those who lacked access to health care.

"This school was technologically the first of its kind," said Peggy Arvidson, a volunteer for the organization. "It was the first [school] building to have indoor plumbing, electricity, running water."

Arvidson said the school was innovative in everything from providing sports for girls to teaching them to manage money and run a self-sufficient household. And, to address the issues of malnutrition, poor hygiene and health, the school started a beauty pageant.

Hamm, who also has fond, family memories of the school, said Konnarock was special to the community, and can be still.

"From the time that I was born, my mother [who attended here] said there was just something very special about the atmosphere here," Hamm said.

"For me this is kind of a gift back to my mother … and hopefully it will be a gift back to the community, because that’s what the whole purpose was, community advancement," Hamm said. "Anytime you have economic development, it breeds more economic development, and I think towns in Southwest Virginia, we don’t have the timber anymore, we don’t have the lumber mills anymore, we’re going to have to use the natural resources we have."

Bill Huber, vice president of Spectrum Design and an architect working on plans for adaptive re-use of the Konnarock building as well as the schoolhouse in Marion, said re-using old buildings is important on many fronts.

He also said he’s hopeful that the school in Marion, slated for a parking lot unless someone comes up with the money to help the county instead build a parking deck nearby, can be saved.

"It’s a good way to be green … because it takes a whole lot less to adaptively re-use a building than to build a new building," Huber said.

"I think there’s something to be said for the preservation of culture – to try to find new uses for old buildings," he said. "You’ll see buildings in Europe that are 1,000 years old that are still well-kept and being used."

dmccown@bristolnews.com (276) 791-0701