The leaders of Farmington Country Club and the surrounding subdivision may be breathing a little easier these days. After a court battle against a pair of renegade residents who challenged the club’s special events monopoly by hosting weddings at their neo-Georgian mansion, the neighbors can bask in the knowledge that the problematic property, Gallison Hall, has been sold to some yet unnamed buyers who supposedly want to focus on renovation rather than recreation.
"They’re excited and ambitious about the project," the buyers’ broker Murdoch Matheson told The Daily Progress. "They are not going to have weddings."
Weddings at Gallison Hall had become such a controversy that the club sued the outgoing owners, Jason and Susan Williamson. The lawsuit, jointly filed in July by the club and the subdivision’s homeowner association, sought an injunction against further events and demanded that the Williamsons hand over their event revenues.
That could have added up, as Gallison Hall’s starting venue fee for a 200-person wedding, according to a recent posting on theknot.com, was $12,000.
"Gallison Hall is one of the most beautiful venues in the state of Virginia," says one online testimonial. "Any couple lucky enough to get married at this property is in for the absolute best experience."
But such experiences at the property, at 375 Farmington Drive, were illegal, or at least outrageous, to the club and the Farmington Property Owner’s Association.
"The Association considers the use of Gallison Hall to host commercial weddings and other events to be detrimental to the best interests of the Farmington community," the plaintiffs complained in their suit. "The weddings and parties typically start in the afternoon and extend late into the evening, often with outdoor flood lights and very loud music that can be heard on neighboring properties."
One wedding vendor, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of riling potential clients, recalled to The Daily Progress how a Farmington neighbor cranked Jimmy Buffett songs during one couple’s wedding vows as a decidedly nonsilent protest. The vendor said that some neighbors also blocked Farmington Drive with golf carts to drive home their point.
Even before filing suit in Albemarle County Circuit Court, Farmington found an ally in the fight against weddings at Gallison Hall: Albemarle County.
To settle the county’s zoning complaint, the Williamsons signed a consent decree last December promising to stop playing host to special events and pay an $800 penalty.
But in May, the Williamsons changed course and, attempting to stay in business, devised a new strategy. They filed paperwork for a home-based business, a "religious ministry."
Instead of hosting weddings under their limited liability company which held the real estate, Vine and Fig Tree Farm LLC, the new host would lean into the religious side of nuptials as Vine and Fig Tree Ministries LLC.
Farmington fumed.
"The zoning application is a cynical ploy by Vine and Fig and Williamson to circumvent the consent decree and their obligations to comply with the county’s requirements to obtain special use permits," Farmington alleges in its lawsuit.
However, county zoning policy was just one leg of the lawsuit. In an attachment to its legal paperwork, Farmington pasted pictures of happy couples enjoying Gallison Hall as examples of unpermitted activity. In another attachment, Farmington provided papers showing that the covenants typed into the original 1929 deed of sale restricted the property to private "dwellings." Such language, Farmington maintained, implicitly banned religious assemblies as well as the large event tent the Williamsons erected.
A few weeks later, however, the Williamsons fired back with a lawsuit of their own.
Just as Farmington had pasted pictures of the upstart venue’s weddings, the Williamsons pasted pictures of Farmington’s own ballroom and leafy outdoor spaces to argue that noisy weddings are nothing new in the tony subdivision.
And the Williamsons saw something else, something troubling, buried in the fine print of the original 1929 deed, which Farmington had so helpfully included with its lawsuit.
"None of said property," Farmington demanded in the 1929 deed, "shall be owned or occupied by, or sold or leased to, a person or person not of the Caucasian race."
Such racist rules were far from unusual in early 20th-century America, and Farmington carved out an exception to ensure that "negro or foreign servants" could remain on the property.
The Williamsons blasted this "commoditization" clause and gently noted that some of the deed’s demands are "now violative of public policy and void."
The Williamsons asserted that in addition to leaning on a racist deed, the plaintiffs’ attempt to oust them from the wedding business amounted to religious discrimination. Moreover, the Williamsons seemed to be pointing out some hypocrisy, or at least some sour grapes, at Farmington Country Club.
"FCC considered purchasing Gallison Hall prior to Vine and Fig’s purcase in order to use it as a secondary event site," the Williamsons contend in their countersuit. "Even after Vine and Fig purchased Gallison Hall, FCC told Vine and Fig that it would be interestd in using Gallison Hall for events."
The Williamsons noted that Gallison Hall has long been coveted for special events, including serving as a filming location for movies. After all, there is a scene in the 1991 D.C. power drama "True Colors" in which John Cusack’s relentlessly ambitious character drives up to a senator’s house, played by the stately Gallison Hall.
Commissioned by University of Virginia professor and Cuban expatriate Julio Galbán and his Chattanooga, Tennessee-born wife, Evelyn, the 12,000-square-foot brick house was built in 1931 under plans by Lynchburg-based architect Stanhope Johnson with gardens designed by Charles Gillette, a landscape architect known for establishing the "Virginia garden" aesthetic. It was added to both the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
The Williamsons purchased the property in 2022.
In addition to alleging a breach of their religious liberties, the Williamsons claim in their countersuit that Farmington brass tortiously interfered with their contracts and engaged in a business conspiracy under both Virginia statute and common law. Including punitive damages, they are seeking $2.15 million.
The Williamsons have given up on weddings. They reportedly paid a $6,000 civil penalty for the 12 weddings and events held at Gallison Hall this year and, in late September, they listed the property for sale.
Late on the night of Nov. 4, Charlottesville-based realtor Sally DuBose announced on social media that the mansion, its outbuildings and its 43 acres, which was her listing, had sold for the asking price of $8.45 million.
Like the old owner, the new owner is an LLC. No stranger to plush properties, the buyer lists its address as a Park Avenue condominium in New York City that itself was priced three years ago at $18 million.
While the mansion sale may end the weddings, does the sale end the lawsuits? Neither side would answer that question.
Photographer Jen Fariello said she will miss shooting weddings at Gallison Hall.
"It’s a shame," Fariello told The Daily Progress. "It was wildly popular. It was absolutely beautiful."
Several years ago, Fariello testified at a public hearing when, in response to neighbor concerns about the proliferation of wineries serving as wedding venues, Albemarle County added restrictions on events that vineyards, distilleries and breweries could hold.
"Gallison Hall was just what Charlottesville needs," said Fariello. "We’re such a huge wedding market, but we don’t have enough venues."
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
Be First to Comment