Letter to Near Neighbors
Hello neighbor!
We’re Laura, Zoe and David, three neighbors writing to introduce ourselves and an upcoming project here in the Fan: Restoring the unused church at 1836 Park Ave, at the corner of Meadow Park, into a shared community space.
We all live in the neighborhood – Laura was born and raised in the Fan and returned in 2020 to raise her family (a 3-year-old and a new baby who just arrived at the end of last month), while Zoe and David moved here in 2022 with their kids (now 8 and 6). We all love the city and this neighborhood community in particular and feel so lucky to call both home!
We walk through the neighborhood and along Meadow Park almost every day and have always been charmed by and curious about the beautiful unused Church building on its Northwest corner. Last year we learned that the building was purchased by another neighborhood resident who had never come to use it it, which spurred us to begin exploring whether it could be viable for us to rehabilitate it.
Our aim is to renovate 1836 Park into a multi-purpose space oriented toward making our neighorhood stronger for everyone who lives here – kids, grownups, and elders. We’re still exploring what form this could take – we’ve already heard many ideas from neighbors and community members in our early explorations, and it’s important to us to hear from more of you as part of this project! While ideas and possibilities for the interior are still in very early stages, though, one thing we’re sure about is maintaining the building’s stately, friendly exterior (in consideration of guidance from the Viriginia Department of Historic Resources).
We didn’t want any more time to go by without introducing ourselves and expressing our excitement and enthusiasm for the potential of the property to become an asset for our neighborhood and city. And we also want to ask for your patience over the next few months – because Laura just had a (very, very cute) baby just a few days ago! There were a few twists and turns in the sale of the property, the last of which resulted in an open-ended delay – until things restarted quite suddenly and the deal ended up closing as a surprise rather quickly last month. As a result, we haven’t had the chance to meet all of you yet – and now we’re in for a few weeks operating in the haze of Newborn Standard Time…
More to come soon – and we look forward to meeting and communing with all of you!
All the best,
Laura Schewel, Zoe Chernicoff, David Chernicoff