Renovation warriors warm to Cabell Street’s potential

One might wonder why Rudy and Becky Poe haven’t followed the lead of their literary namesake and declared: “Nevermore.”

After all, Rudy has undergone heart bypass surgery and is 73 years old. Becky, now 65, was working literally from dawn until dusk until recently. The Poes use their own Social Security money to refurbish old houses on Daniel’s Hill, and financial rewards have been slow in coming.

“It takes us a long time to do one of these,” Becky Poe said, “and so this is not exactly what you’d call getting rich.”

Nevertheless, they have persevered. Becky Poe fell through a rotted kitchen floor in one location, spent several weeks on her hands and knees sanding old paint off a staircase in another. She and her husband have willingly embraced critically ill houses that most people would have run from.

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If it were up to the Poes alone, Cabell Street would be completely beautified around the turn of the 22nd century. But they are only two of a growing battalion of renovation warriors who have found potential on one of Lynchburg’s most overlooked seven hills.

It started with the revival of Point of Honor, the first structure raised on Daniel’s Hill in 1815. Not far away, Mike and Kathy Bedsworth have turned a once-magnificent mansion at 404 Cabell into the Carriage House Bed & Breakfast. Down the street, Larry and Thomas Filaggia are working on the former Third Presbyterian Church with the hope of making it into perhaps a gallery with a loft apartment above. The Garcia family is hammering away at a modest Norwood Street house next door to another currently owned by the Poes. Craig

Olienik and James Cole have brought 214 Cabell — once the seat of power for mega-businessman Henry McWane — back from decay and have it on the market.

For the most part, these are not grand endeavors with a lot of large machinery and workers. The rebirth of Cabell Street is talking place in bite-sized increments, much of it hidden and sporadic.

And the task, in many cases, is daunting. In 2007, James Cole provided this description of what confronted him and business partner Olienik at 214:
“It sat empty for a few years. Water got in, kids played in it, people started fires in the middle of the floor. Someone ran into the wrought iron fence with a car and it was down in the basement, all mangled. The pine floors were wavy. Drop ceilings had been put in, and not very well, in a couple of rooms.”

Similarly, the Poes discovered that transients who occupied 707 Cabell — one of the couple’s half dozen or so renovation projects — had used most of the front porch spindles as firewood.

“The foundation was crumbling, and the house had to be jacked up about six inches,” Becky Poe said.

If some renovation teams operate like skilled surgeons, the Poes are more like a two-person rescue squad. Rudy grew up in Lynchburg as the son of a painter, then went to work for a contractor in his teens. A stint as a mechanic in the Air Force taught him more skills, and he completed his unofficial education with a few years in an automobile plant in Massachusetts. If there’s something Rudy can’t fix or create, he knows someone in town who can.

“We have to subcontract a few things,” he said, “but we do most of it ourselves.”

The house at 713 Cabell presented their biggest challenge. A furnace had caught fire and burned through the floor, leaving a charred, yawning cavern where a hallway used to be.

“We had to pull out all the charred material before we could really start doing anything,” Becky said. “It took us forever. Now, though, it’s a lovely little startup home for a young couple, or a nice house for people who are retired.”

A nice house that the Poes haven’t been able to sell. Yet.

“I think the reputation of the street hurts a little bit,” she said. “I feel completely comfortable here. Once you get below I Street, it’s very quiet.”

Slowly, word is getting around. Before she retired as the city’s liaison with the downtown historic neighborhoods, Annette Chenault said the possibilities on Daniel’s Hill were as exciting as anywhere.

“We’ve already had one Cabell Street house purchased, sight unseen, by a man in California,” she said.

Lower Cabell up to H Street is now a city historic district, a fact of life that the Poes have learned to live with.

“We run into a lot of code issues, too,” Becky Poe said. “In one house, it was decided that the bathtub was too close to the commode to pass. Of course, there wasn’t room to do it any other way.”

Somehow, they made it work.