Onancock Virginia
"The Gem of the Eastern Shore of Virginia" The Baltimore Sun  By Nancy Taylor Robson    Special To The Sun    Originally published October 7, 2001

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A 'Pot of Gold' on the Eastern Shore of Virginia Onancock: People fleeing the rat race join with locals to boost a town full of serenity and smiles.           Onancock is a hidden gem, and well worth the trip........

The drive to Onancock, Va., feels interminable - mile after mile of highway along the pancake flat lower Eastern Shore. I begin to wonder if it's worth the trip. But I stop wondering as I roll into town. Unlike some of the down-at-the-heels villages on the lower shore, Onancock looks prosperous.

Market Street, the town's main drag, is lined with upscale cafes and restaurants, galleries and B&Bs. Perennial borders, herb gardens and overflowing planters grace homes and shops.           Return to Top

I wander down the streets, aware that a stranger in this small, close-knit town of about 1,000 people stands out. But instead of curious stares, I get smiles of greeting from the natives and the non-natives, known as "come-here's."

Wrapped around the Onancock River at the bottom of Pocomoke Sound, Onancock is one of the oldest towns in the United States. Founded in 1680 as a trading hub surrounded by farms, it became a major stop for the Baltimore Steamboat Line in the 1800s and early 1900s.

Today, the steamships are gone. Instead, small tugs and barges move oil and other cargo on the river. There is also a steady stream of pleasure boaters, which is how some of the come-here's arrived.

That's how Peter Johnson, a real estate developer from Washington, and his Cuban-born wife, Alicia, ended up here. They were cruising on their sailboat in 1995 when a three-day northeast storm kicked up in the lower Chesapeake Bay. To escape the pounding waves, they scooted into Onancock.

"As we came up the river, it just kept getting prettier and prettier," Johnson remembers. "When we got to the end, it was like reaching the pot of gold."

That night, and the next two, they sat for hours in Armando's, sipping wine and talking about life with the restaurant's Argentine owner, Armando Suarez. Relishing the tranquillity and the sense of history in Onancock, they fantasized about chucking the urban grind and moving here.

Usually, such late-night "getting away from it all" fantasies evaporate after a couple of slugs of morning coffee. But two weeks later, when the Hopkins House, a Victorian beauty in need of restoration, came on the market, the Johnson's bought it. He now commutes from Onancock to his development site in Honduras.

There are a number of artists and professionals who came to Onancock to escape the rat race.  Return to Top

Painter Jerry Lax came from New York to work on his retro series of 1920s flappers. The paintings are on display at Deadrise Enterprises, a gallery owned by former college administrator John Callander. The paintings share space with Maurice Spector's wooden sculptures of really big women.

Ed and Maphis Oswald came for a weekend getaway from New Jersey in 1994, and ended up buying the Colonial Manor Inn, a large turn-of-the-last-century B&B.  (Meet the new owners)

New Yorker Sam Finley owns Sam's Place, a cafe above partner Carol Cropper's antiques shop Better Days and beside her luncheonette Truffles.

Marge and Mike Carpenter came from Winchester, Va., to open the 76 Market Street B&B. New Jerseyite Mike Stephano, who owns and runs Hopkins Bros. Store and Restaurant on the wharf, came to Onancock after a hitch in Oxford, Md.

You won't go hungry

Town manager Susan Scott calls Onancock "the restaurant capital of the Eastern Shore," and that might be a stretch. But it's forgivable - the cafe-per-capita count is impressive. So are the choices in cuisine: Argentine, Spanish, Italian, with a smattering of French and a healthy dollop of down-home, though even some of the down-home has exotic fillips.

Searching for a place to eat lunch, I stopped at Flounders, a seafood restaurant owned by Onancock waterman Darryl Hurley and his wife, Linda. I found Linda and the kitchen staff munching last night's leftovers - a bowl of moussaka and another of shrimp creole over basil pasta - as they talked over the evening menu.

Had lunch been offered here, I would have stayed. But it wasn't, so I wandered into Bizzotto's, a Spanish/Italian bistro close to the water on Market Street.

Inside Bizzotto's, tables are covered with white cloths, and its high-ceilinged, brightly painted walls are covered with art. One wall is decorated with intricately worked leather purses made by owner Miguel Bizzotto, who has had two showings of his work at the Smithsonian Institution.

The place is permeated with the scents of herbs, garlic and great food. It turns out that Bizzotto is not only a fine designer and craftsman, but a good cook as well. My pesto tomato soup and the chicken salad with grapes and walnuts were excellent.

Though I'm beginning to get used to the idea of Onancock as a cosmopolitan enclave on the rural Eastern Shore, the young woman who takes my order in Bizzotto's still catches me off guard.

Urbanely dressed and speaking with a thick Russian accent, Natasha, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike who hails from Moscow, seems as out of place as beluga caviar at a crab-picking contest. How, I wonder aloud, did she end up in Onancock?

"My husband is American. I met him in Washington, D.C." Now he works for NASA at nearby Wallops Island, she adds, lounging against the bar in a black dress that could carry her through an embassy party.

I ask how she likes the town, expecting gently phrased mutterings of boredom, cultural claustrophobia and the dearth of shopping. Instead, I hear enthusiasm.                                     Return to Top

"I like so much the people here," she says. "In city, everybody too busy, but here on street everybody say hello!"

Maphis Oswald, who I meet later, agrees.

"I have never felt like a stranger in this town," she says. "I've always felt that the Eastern Shore will embrace you if you embrace back." And if you don't embrace it, she adds, "it will leave you alone."

The come-here's have obviously embraced Onancock, and that has helped fuel the town's revitalization - cultural as well as economic.

Though the Oswalds sold the Colonial Manor Inn, Maphis is still on the board of the North Street Playhouse (in what was once the Dollar General Store). The playbill is ambitious. One of their productions was Blues for an Alabama Sky, a play about 1930s Harlem.

Hometown Businesses                                              Return to Top

Although many businesses are owned by come-here's, the native contingent is still strong. Connie Smith, a local, is baker and proprietor at the Corner Bakery.

Another local, Rosalie Lewis, owns the House of Deals Hardware, which appears unchanged from a time when horse-drawn carts kicked up clouds of dust on unpaved roads.

Across the street lies Walter and Walton's Emporium, a lovely Victorian shop selling bamboo furniture, lamps and other imported home accessories whose entrance is nearly engulfed in a lush cottage garden. Owner Andrea Mason named the place for her and her husband Donald's two grandfathers, Walter and Walton - best friends who for years played cards together.

Not far away lies Crockett's Gallery and Art School, owned by painter and Tangier Island native Willie Crockett. Rangy and bearded ("And don't forget good looking!" he says), Crockett has spent a lifetime recording scenes of his beloved Tangier and Onancock in watercolor, oil and acrylic.

"I take my cameras and sketch pad and have my tent and throw it out on the beach and stay there," he says in a Virginia drawl still mildly laced with Tangier twang. "I smoke a cigar, and I'm a happy man."

The gallery also sells his son Billy's beautiful carvings and offers turned wooden vases and decanters made of ambrosia maple (named for the ambrosia beetles that infest the wood and give it its beautiful swirled colors).

Crockett also teaches art, sometimes on Tangier Island, which is accessible from Onancock by ferry.

A must-see for visitors is Kerr Place, a marvelous 1799 plantation-style brick manor. The house is filled with wonderful things - paintings, period furniture, a 200-year-old pianoforte and re-created faux woodwork.              Return to Top

In the restored brick-floored cellar, volunteers piece together antique crockery and china from bags of shards unearthed on the grounds. A museum on the second floor holds a collection of antique waterman's tools, old photographs of life here and along the barrier islands a century ago, and pieces of the area's natural history, including several mastodon teeth.

I could happily stay in Onancock for days, kayaking among the fens, walking the streets, eating in all the restaurants and chatting into the wee hours over wine, but I need to get home.

It's still a long drive, but I'm glad I came. Onancock is a hidden gem, and well worth the trip.

WHERE YOU GO

Getting there: From Baltimore, take I-97 south to Route 50 east. Turn left onto Route 404. From there, take U.S. 13 south into Onancock. It's about 180 miles from Baltimore.

Copyright © 2001, The Baltimore Sun

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