UPDATE: NEW Loudoun County Planning Staff Report prepared for Board of Supervisor Hearing! -1/05/09
Included in their report are also the Planning Commission's Findings For Approval (11/24/08):
1. The Proposed Special Exception Uses- school and child care center- are consistent with the planned land use policies of the Revised General Plan
2. The Proposed Special Exception Uses- school and child care center- subject to conditions of approval, comply with the applicable requirements of the Revised 1993 Zoning Ordinance.
3. The Proposed Special Exception Uses- school and child care center- will have a positive impact on the County's economy and provide a private educational option for County residents.
4. The Proposed Special Exception Uses- school and child care center - subject to conditions of approval will retain the historic character of the property, the village of Lincoln, and Lincoln Road.
5. The Proposed Special Exception Uses- school and child care center- will adaptively reuse an historic structure and property that has historically been a school.
6. The Proposed Special Exception Uses- school and child care center- subject to conditions of approval will provide sufficient improvements to address traffic impacts.
click here for the complete Board of Supervisor Hearing LC Planning Staff Report.
UPDATE: Loudoun County Planning Commission Forwards Springdale Montessori School to Board of Supervisors with RECOMMENDATION OF APPROVAL! -11/24/08
We are very pleased to announce on September 24, 2008, the Loudoun County Planning Commission forwarded Springdale Montessori School's Special Exception Application to the Board of Supervisors with a recommedation of approval. Springdale Montessori School has now 'Recommedation of Approval' from both Loudoun County Planning Staff & Loudoun County Planning Commission. To find out more about our Special Exception Application with Loudoun County please click here. We are scheduled for a Board of Supervisor Hearing on January 12, 2009 @ 6:30pm. Please come and support our school. For more info and how you can help bring Springdale Montessori school to your community and to Loudoun County please email: info@springdalemontessori.org
Springdale Montessori School offers a unique and truly inspiring environment that allows your child to be part of 170 years of living history
Springdale Montessori School will set the children first and will strive to inspire and educate them to thoughtfully develop an understanding of their place as citizens in both our local as well as global community. This will create a foundation for their future endeavors and guide them in their journey to become harmonious and successful individuals. We are planning to open in 2009 at the site of the original historic Springdale Boarding School. The building and grounds will be carefully rehabilitated and renovated with historic preservation in mind and will reflect the school founders', The Nordahl Family, vision of educating children in a natural setting away from 'light industrial areas'. The school will be set on almost 6 park-like acres. In addition to teaching in the true spirit of Maria Montessori, Springdale Montessori School’s unique rural and historic location will offer many ways for the children to interact with the natural world and learn the importance of preserving our local heritage through enrichment programs especially designed around the historic and natural resources of Springdale. Beautiful, safe, serene and yet a convenient location in the historic Goose Creek district within minutes from your home, just one mile south of the town of Purcellville.
History of Springdale
Springdale’s origin was not as a private residence. It was designed and built as a private school in 1839 by Samuel M. Janney, a Quaker minister, educator, abolitionist, and writer. This is a very important historical fact and undoubtedly the most significant period in Springdale's 170 year existence. If the boarding school did not exist, the Federal style main building that graces the green lawns of Springdale, would not have been built:
"..I concluded to leave Occoquan and remove to Loudoun County in the year 1839 with the prospect of opening a boarding school for girls. I brought with me nothing but my household furniture, and the sum of fourteen hundred and fifty dollars belonging to my wife, being the proceeds of a farm derived from her father's estate and secured to her by marriage contract, duly recorded. The money I invested for my wife, in a lot, and in building a house for the boarding school which we called Springdale. I obtained the assistance of an experienced and competent female teacher; our school was opened with favorable prospects, and soon became popular and moderately profitable."
(click here for an excerpt of 'Memoirs of Samuel M. Janney: Late of Lincoln, Loudoun County, Va.', by Samuel M. Janney, Friends' Book Association, 1881. Pages 50 & 51 discusses the founding of Springdale Boarding School).
It was first a boarding school for girls. The school was 'popular' and among the top choices for women's education. This is noted in 'Life in Black & White: Family and Community in the Slave South' (Brenda E. Stevens, Oxford Press, 1996):
"..Female Academies like Margaret Mercer's prestigious "Belmont" and Samuel Janney's popular "Springdale" were most available during the second half of the era (1800's)...But 'quality' meant more than just curriculum or teaching staff. It also meant the social class and moral reputation of school's proprietors and the students. Parents wanted to be assured that their daughters' character and reputation would not be jeopardized under any circumstances. That probably is why Elise Carter's Middleburg School, founded in 1828, never was popular. Miss Carter unfortunately located her school "opposite Mr. John Boyd's tavern", not a favored location for young ladies..."
In the middle of the 1800's, Springdale became co-ed with at least 38 students until 1862, when the Head Master of Springdale, George Newbold, closed the school because of the Civil War. It is rumored to have been one of the last stops on The Underground Railroad and over the years to come the property served many purposes. During the civil war it was a makeshift hospital for both Confederate and Union soldiers. At one point, Springdale was owned for 30 years by the head of the Interstate Commerce Commission, Dr. Walter Splawn. He hosted many socials in the parlor with his Texas friends Samuel Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. Dr. Splawn’s grandson Henry Taylor, a 1986 Poetry Pulitzer Prize winner, immortalized Springdale with his poem ‘The Dining Room at Springdale’ (Crooked Run, Louisiana State University Press, 2006). Springdale operated as a country inn and private school for almost 20 years until 2005.
*As a footnote, the Quaker Meeting House & Oakdale School in the village of Lincoln and Springdale are part of the "Loudoun Heritage Family Scavenger Hunt" created by the Mosby Heritage Area Association. Springdale is the 10th site, titled "Springdale-a site on the Underground Railroad" on the 'Northern Loudoun Tour'.
click here to learn more about the 'Loudoun Heritage Family Scavenger Hunt'.
References:
'Memoirs of Samuel M. Janney: Late of Lincoln, Loudoun County, Va.', Samuel M. Janney, Friends' Book Association, 1881
'Sully: The Biography of a House', Robert S. Gamble, The Sulley Foundation, Limited, 1973
'Beginnings of Public Education in Virginia, 1776-1860: Study of Secondary Schools in Relation to the State Literary Fund', A.J. Morrison, Davis Bottom, Superintendent of Public Printing, 1917
'Life in Black & White: Family and Community in the Slave South', Brenda E. Stevenson, Oxford University Press, 1996
'Loudoun County and the Civil War', Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, William Bend Books, 1998
'Friends' Intelligencer', An Association of Friends, William W. Moore, 1859
'Crooked Run', Henry Taylor, Louisiana State University Press, 2006
*THIS IS A PRE- LAUNCH SITE. THE OFFICIAL SPRINGDALE MONTESSORI WEBSITE IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION
