Oak Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast

Warmer weather is a reminder that a new season for Oak Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast is about to begin. Already, we are seeing japonica (pictured), tulips, forsythia, daffodils, grape hyacinths and vinca in full bloom. Come May 1, you can stay at our South Boston, Va., bed & breakfast and see more of the beauty that the region offers in spring.

One big addition you’ll enjoy this year are our solar panels behind the 200-year-old house, contrasting the 19th and 21st centuries. They’re being used to help power our new central air conditioning and heating system that were installed over the winter.

Waiting for you, besides Pickett and Mike, are our two standard poodles, Bonnie and Niko. Feel free to bring your dog to play with them.

www.oakgroveplantation.com

One of the highlights of the year in South Boston is the Harvest Festival, in which hundreds of people celebrate the end of the farming year on Saturday, Sept. 29, with a daylong party in the historic downtown. Oak Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast will be open that weekend, and we hope you will stay with us.

Crafters line the streets with handmade items from wreaths, to wooden chairs and toys. Music fills the air from the two stages of live entertainment, and food is available for every taste.  The kids will enjoy the pony rides, face painting, pumpkin painting, scarecrow making, balloon sculpting clowns, magicians and the bounce houses. The street festival runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m

Cool off this summer in the water at Kerr Lake, just a 30-minute drive east of Oak Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast. Our guests enjoy the swimming, hiking, biking at the largest man-made lake in Virginia. The closest beaches, at Buffalo Park and Longwood Park, have play equipment for children and bathrooms. Fishing is quite popular at the lake. In fact the largest blue catfish in the world (134 pounds) was caught there last year.

The lake, with several small islands, covers more than 50,000 acres straddling the Virginia and North Carolina borders. Fresh water flows into the lake from the Roanoke (Staunton) River and Dan River, which flows through South Boston.

Some other close options for swimming and boating in North Carolina are Hyco Lake and Mayo Lake, about 25-35 minutes south of our B&B. There is a pool at Staunton River State Park. And even closer, kids love to wade in the two small creeks running through our 400-acre property.

Daughter Sara preparing for a trail ride.

You can really get the feel of country living by riding horseback on the extensive trails of Shangrila Guest Ranch, just two miles from our bed & breakfast. Pickett rides the wooded paths regularly, enjoying the scenic outdoors the way people used to before motor vehicles were invented. For $40 an hour, visitors can be led by experienced guides who know the horses and scenic routes that go past ponds, forests, wildlife and open fields. They can sign up for one-hour, partial-day or all-day excursions. Children will like the farm animals and a group hayride that is available.

You can also get horseback riding at Shangrila as part of an outdoors package at Oak Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast. For $308, a couple can get two nights at Oak Grove, a one-hour trail ride or hayride, a 15-minute reiki treatment and a 2-5 mile hike along out shaded, wooded trails.

So gallop on down here and be a cowboy or cowgirl for an hour or more, then enjoy the relaxed atmosphere at Oak Grove.

Hunting Creek Vineyards near Clover

Believe it or not, Southside is home to 12 wineries, which are great tourist attractions and produce good wine, as well. We’ve visited a number of them and have taken some fine bottles home with us. The wineries can be found along the SoVA Wine Trail, a collection of grape growing and wine-producing farms only a short distance from Oak Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast.

Some of our favorites are in Halifax County: Molliver Vineyards and Winery, on a 134-acre vineyard and winery in Nathalie.; Bright Meadows Farm, on a restored tobacco plantation with a 117-year-old barn in Nathalie; Greenwood Vineyards, housed in a  90-year-old former tobacco-packing barn in Vernon Hill, and Hunting Creek Vineyards in Clover, featuring a tasting room with art works and a pretty patio outside.

Each winery has from 9 to 15 wines so there is a taste for everyone and there are some award winning vintages among those!

If you don’t want to drive to these scenic locations, you can get a lift from SoBo Wino, which picks people up at their location or downtown and takes them up to four wineries and brings them home in time for dinner at the Bistro 1888 or other restaurant and occasionally a show at the Prizery. Cost of the tour, including a box lunch (but not the restaurants) is $58 per person. There is a minimum of eight people needed, and they can take up to 14. So you may want to check to see if others are riding on that date at 434-251-1540.

From the May 21 Gazette Virginian:

Oak Grove Plantation is one of the rare bed & breakfasts with an innkeeper whose family has owned the house for generations. Pickett Craddock, who started the Cluster Springs B&B 26 years ago, enjoys telling guests about the home’s history, which dates back nearly 200 years.

The two-story classical revival house house was built from home-grown timber in about 1820 by Thomas Easley, a member of the Virginia legislature. In the parlor is a portrait of Lt. Thomas Easley Jr., a West Point graduate who was killed in the Mexican-American War at age 25. His brother, Capt. William Easley, died in the Civil War.

Succeeding generations farmed tobacco and later other crops on the 400 acres along what is now Cluster Springs Rd. (Route 658), a mile southwest of Route 501. In 1986, Craddock decided to open her home as Halifax County’s first bed & breakfast. A preschool teacher in Washington, D.C., she made the house available to tourists in the summers only, promoting the home as a refuge for people to get away from the city.

“It is a place for people to cure what is now being called ‘nature deficit,’ the need to get closer to nature and to enjoy its plants and animals to reduce the stress of urban living,” she said. “Science has shown nature can improve our health, enhance our creativity and make us feel fully alive. It can promote a sense of awe and wonder that we haven’t felt since we were children.”

Craddock encourages guests to walk or bike on the miles of groomed paths through pine forests on the grounds. They are great for bird watching and spotting turtles, squirrels and even foxes.  She particularly encourages families with children to come and climb trees, play on the tire swing, in the sandbox and inside with board games. Dogs are also welcomed to come and play with 7-year-old Bonnie, and new 8-month-old Niko, both standard poodles. Ms. Craddock’s 22-year-old daughter, Sara Doan, is training to become a veterinary technician.

Craddock and her husband, Mike Doan, enjoy promoting area attractions for visitors from as far away as Europe or as close as Halifax County. One guest saw Doan’s mention of “The Sound of Music” at the Prizery in his blog and came just to see the show with her daughter. Several others have had families racing at Virginia International Raceway. One group came from Ohio to visit their former classmate, who runs Gatrell’s Cowboy Up Café in Virgilina. Some have come for the Scottsburg Fourth of July celebration and other special events.

Weddings and reunions are popular among Oak Grove’s visitors. The Virgilina Women’s Club and the Halifax County Women’s Club have met there, and she had a reunion once of classmates from Cluster Springs Elementary School. Craddock had her own book group from Washington stay at the plantation house to discuss a popular novel. “People like to get away into a quiet, peaceful and contemplative environment,” she says.

One of the inn’s chief attractions is its gourmet breakfasts served around the oval dining room table. Many guests prefer the long, leisurely breakfasts to a quick roll and coffee at a fast-food restaurant. Craddock often serves Cluster Springs egg puff, her own dish with eggs and cheese or whole wheat and lemon soufflé pancakes and fresh locally grown fruit. “It’s important to me to get produce and eggs from Halifax County,” she said. “The food is better and it’s better for the environment.”

Oak Grove has three guests rooms, including a ground-floor, handicapped accessible room called the Library and a two-room family suite on the second floor. The inn is open from May 15 to the end of September. Details at www.oakgroveplantation.com. Email: oakgrove1@juno.com.

Bike riders, horseback riders, dog walkers and hikers will have a new recreation trail by fall. A 2.5-mile segment of the Tobacco Heritage Trail is scheduled to open in the next few months from Berry Hill Resort almost to the Dan River at the site of an old cotton mill.

At the old Halifax Cotton Mill, owned by the town of South Boston, a botanical garden will be installed at what will be Cotton Mill Park, at the end of Edmunds Street.  At the other end, near Berry Hill, there will be a duck impoundment habitat area created in memory of Biggie Hunt and funded by the Game Commission. Eventually, it may have a pavilion and picnic tables.

“I foresee guests of the plantation spending a day bike riding our trail, enjoying spotting wildlife, having a picnic and getting a lesson in history,” says Heather Susee, trails and tourism coordinator for the Southside Planning District Commission/Virginia Tourism Corporation, based in South Hill. “When the botanical garden is completed in Cotton Mill Park, I envision people throwing a Frisbee or tossing a baseball.”

Construction is under way now, funded by the Virginia Department of Transportation, along a former right of way of the Richmond Danville Spur Trail. The surface of the trail will be aggregate compacted stone. The site is not open to the public during the construction phase.

Susee is working on creating a Friends of the Tobacco Heritage Trail Group, made up of volunteers responsible for maintaining the trail with weed eaters, mowing, limb removal, etc. She is also seeking volunteers for the Friends group to help with publicity, fund raising and trail improvements such as the addition of picnic tables, birdhouses, flowers, etc. She can be reached at 434-447-7101 or hsusee@southsidepdc.org.

The new trail is part of a system that advocates hope will be a 150-mile trail in Southside Virginia. Phase one of the trail, already completed, is a four-mile section from La Crosse to Brodnax in Mecklenburg County and a segment in Lawrenceville in Brunswick County. Construction begins soon on Phase 3, which will connect the Brodnax and Lawrenceville sections and create an extension from La Crosse to South Hill, making it a 17-mile trail.

Besides abandoned railroad beds, the Tobacco Heritage Trail will include utility and private land easements obtained through negotiation with local landowners. There is already a trail in Pittsylvania County: the Richmond and Danville Rail Trail. Details at www.tobaccoheritagetrail.org. To the north, another major recreational trail opened in April with rebuilding of the 2,400-foot High Bridge across the Appomattox River.

Now it is possible to bike or hike 31 miles through Cumberland, Nottoway and Prince Edward counties and the towns of Burkeville, Farmville, Pamplin City, Prospect and Rice. On a rail bed once owned by the Norfolk Southern railroad, the flat path is made of limestone.

Details at http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/hig.shtml.

Niko, our new puppy

Your dog will have two others to play with if you come to Oak Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast this season. In March, we got our six-month-old puppy, Niko, from a rescue agency in Pennsylvania to give our 7-year-old standard poodle, Bonnie, some company. Niko, also a standard poodle, loves to play with Bonnie and would love to play with your dog as well.

We are open weekends in the second half of May and in September. In June, July and August, Oak Grove Plantation is open every day. We can take up to two dogs of all sizes to stay with their masters in our largest guest room on the ground floor with a separate entrance.

When they arrive, pets will find a special bag with dog treats and doggie pickup bags.

Guided dog hikes are available on our 400 acres of trails, and if you want to go out to the movies or dinner, pet-sitting can be arranged for a fee.

PET GUESTS
$25 per visit for one or two dogs.

More details

Bonnie on our 400 acres of trails

Oak Grove Plantation has agreed to a conservation easement, assuring that the 400-acre property will never be turned into a shopping center, trailer park, golf course or any other commercial development. That’s right—NEVER.

It’s a guarantee that our guests will always be able to hike on the trails and look at wildlife, unhindered by new man-made encroachments.

Under a Virginia Department of Forestry program, a property owner can preserve the land as wildlife habitat and forests in perpetuity in exchange for tax breaks, making up for the lost property value. We were able to sell the tax breaks to others and use the proceeds to install a geothermal heating system beginning this fall. That will allow the bed & breakfast to extend its season beyond May through September in future years. However, we have always wanted to ensure that the land remain undeveloped for the good of the environment and for use by future generations.

It turns out that a number of other property owners in Halifax County have been able to make use of this program, according to this article in the South Boston News & Record.

We open for the season in May: Keep watching this space