Moving to the Staunton, VA area - what do you know about it?
July 4, 2011 9:51 AM   Subscribe

What can you tell me about Staunton, VA?

Mrs. Starvingartist has been accepted into the Shakespeare MLitt/MFA program at Mary Baldwin College, so we are planning to move down there at the end of the month. I'd like some insider's tips on the area.

- I'm a web designer by trade. Know of any firms I should be looking at for employment? (I am not asking you to do my job search for me, I'm just looking for opinions on the industry in the area. If you're in the industry, who do you think does good work?)

- We're still looking for a place to live. Should we look at Staunton, Waynesboro or Charlottesville? I understand there is a mountain between Charlottesville and Staunton, and that the commute can be tough in the winter.

- What are your favorite things about the area? Restaurants, attractions, shops, theaters, whatever.

- Anything else you think we should know?
posted by starvingartist to Travel & Transportation around Staunton, VA (14 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Charlottesville is where the University of Virginia is. I don't know much about the job market in Virginia, but I would imagine that a big university town has more employment opportunities for a web designer than does a smaller college town.
posted by dfriedman at 9:53 AM on July 4, 2011


I live about 30 minutes away, in Harrisonburg. We like to go to Staunton for movies at The Visulite theater-which plays art films as well as main stream movies. Baja Bean company is a tex mex place, with good margaritas right around the corner from the theater.

My husband takes his high school students to the Shakespeare theater about twice a year. Its a gorgeous theater and the performances that I have seen have been really enjoyable.

We don't go down to Staunton too frequently, but usually enjoy ourselves when we do make it down.

Personally, I would rather live in Charlottesville than Staunton. It just seems like there is more to do there (shopping, dining, concerts, nightlife).

We really like Harrisonburg, but it isn't much bigger than Staunton. A few of my coworkers live in Staunton and commute to Harrisonburg-and really seem to like living there.
posted by JennyJupiter at 10:13 AM on July 4, 2011


Staunton (pronounced stan-ton) is a nice little town. But it is very small. You will mostly be working in Charlottesville as a web designer. Charlottesville is a great city and very livable.

Afton Mountain is difficult to travel in the snow but the real risk is the fog. Once every other year or so there's a big, multicar wreck on the mountain in foggy weather.

Please go to Bodo's Bagels in Charlottesville and have one of everything for me. I miss that place. Same for Thai 99.
posted by dchrssyr at 10:19 AM on July 4, 2011


Staunton is not very big at all. I agree that Charlottesville likely has more job opportunities for you. It also has an airport, making getting to and from the city easier. On the other hand, the commute from C-ville will be long (at least 40 minutes) and tough in the winter. I've noticed that people in Virginia aren't really the best snow drivers. You might try finding work at one of the colleges in the area. There are plenty around: JMU in Harrisonburg, Mary Baldwin in Staunton, UVa in Charlotttesville, and W&L and VMI in Lexington.

If you're into outdoor activities, there is plenty around. There's skiing at Wintergreen or Massanutten, hiking, and plenty of historical sights.
posted by mewohu at 10:22 AM on July 4, 2011


Staunton is super cute but very much a small town. I adore Charlottesville, and it will definitely have more jobs and more fun stuff to keep busy with - lots of food, culture, history, etc. Seconding Bodo's Bagels. You're definitely in a great area for outdoorsy stuff regardless of where you end up living. I would be a little worried about the drive - I spun off the road once when I hit an icy patch on I-64 - and that was going east from Charlottesville, not even into the mountains. This was probably a function of me being a stupid Virginia driver though.
posted by naoko at 10:54 AM on July 4, 2011


The most important thing to know about Staunton is the pronunciation, as per dchrssyr's comment!

I would say to look at areas along I-64, either the southern side of Charlottesville, or further west in Albemarle, towards Crozet and Afton. You're more likely to find work in C-ville and also to want to go into town for entertainment, restaurants, and so on, so I'd suggest closer to there than Staunton.
posted by gingerbeer at 11:33 AM on July 4, 2011


When I visit my brother in Charlottesville during the holidays they always drive the family over to Saunton one night to see the Christmas lights at this one big house whose display has become a local institution.
posted by Rash at 12:02 PM on July 4, 2011


Man, if you'd get me something to do there and earn money, I'd move there tomorrow. The town is supercute; the weather is great most of the time.
Saturday farmer's market a must. The Shakespeare company is really good and their theater a gem. The Split Banana is the best ice cream parlour I've ever been in. There are a bunch of fun restaurants besides the Baja, even upscale. The Amtrak station area is nostalgically kept in an as-it-was-in-the-old-days-style, and the Shenandoah valley around there is really beautiful. Heck, there's even a hobby and model trains store a bit out of the center. (And Pufferbellies toys, a well-established independent toy store, right in the center). Charlottesville is really quite close, so the Friday afternoon trip for used books isn't any trouble at all.
As to airports, the small Shenandoah valley airport north of the city connects to DC; it's actually kind of cute doing that trip.
(And seconded, mist in those mountains tends to be thick as chowder).
posted by Namlit at 2:13 PM on July 4, 2011 [1 favorite]


I grew up in Staunton and it's a nice town in many ways. There's a pretty Victorian downtown--it's small, but they work very hard on it. Much of the downtown has been restored recently--buildings renovated, new stoplights and streetlamps, cables buried, etc, so it's very attractive. A little short of vibrant, but it's pleasant. There are several standout restaurants and shops, a nice organic specialty food store, and some cozy cafes. The Split Banana on Beverley Street makes home-made ice cream and gelato with local ingredients--it's a knockout. The Staunton Grocery and Zynadoa, also on Beverley, are ambitious, very good restaurants. Pufferbellies Toys and Books is a wonderful, independently owned toy store with a warm and friendly vibe.

Just west of the downtown is Newtown, a residential area which also has many lovely old buildings, and people are working to spruce that area up as well. That's has been interrupted by the economic situation in the last few years, I think, but hopefully they will be able to get going again. Newtown also has an absolutely fantastic bakery.

There's an excellent farmer's market in the Wharf area, a block south of the main street that runs through the downtown, which is open on Saturday mornings. There's the replica Shakespeare theatre, of course, and the Mockingbird, which gets in some nice rock and folk acts, I think. The old Stonewall Jackson Hotel was also restored recently and has become a very nice place for visitors to stay.

One of my favorite things about Staunton is that (knock on wood) so far they've kept the big box stores mostly at bay. There's Wal-Mart and Lowe's, but that's about it. It's a mystery to me how they've done it, considering it's located at the crossroads of two interstates, but more power to them. There's a mall and a good bit of sprawl around the edges of the town, but they haven't been overrun with the huge cookie-cutter shopping complexes yet.

I'd say it depends on what you're looking for. Staunton will be cheaper, and there's more of a progressive (dare I say hipster) sensibility there than you might imagine, mostly centered around the downtown. There are people there doing really outstanding things in a lot of areas (food, architecture, music), though on a small scale, and often kind of hidden. And there is a solid group of people committed to preserving and improving the downtown and the character of the city. So there's more there than meets the eye. Still, it's a small town, fairly sleepy, and overall, more conservative politically and culturally than Charlottesville. Charlottesville is just in a whole different category in terms of restaurants, shopping, music, culture, and I agree that it would probably be easier to find work as a web designer there.

I can't see living in Waynesboro if you primarily wanted to commute to Staunton, unless it was to take a specific job. At this point in its development, sadly, it's not at all an attractive town.

It takes about 45 minutes to drive from Staunton to Charlottesville. As has been mentioned, one option could be to find somewhere slightly west of Charlottesville, for example around Crozet, that would shorten the commute. I don't know too much about that area. It's very beautiful countryside. I've always understood that a lot of wealthy people live around there, as you can have a big country estate that's not too far from everything that's available in C-ville. The drive from Waynesboro to Staunton is about 20 minutes.
posted by bluebird at 2:33 PM on July 4, 2011 [1 favorite]


Oh, I just wanted to add that Shenandoah Valley airport is about a 15 minute drive north from the city. I had always overlooked it and used to fly in to Charlottesville (from Sweden) but surprisingly, I recently found that for me works just as well to fly to Staunton. It's a very small airport, but it might be useful to know about it.
posted by bluebird at 2:54 PM on July 4, 2011


Staunton was the big city we went to growing up about 5 miles north. It had everything a teenager could want. Wright's Dairy Rite (old fashioned drive-in) is a great place for a date. I left after high school and have rarely been back. Looking back, I took it for granted. Staunton was pretty great. It's close to lots of outdoor recreation, too. I would recommend it.
posted by I'm Doing the Dishes at 4:04 PM on July 4, 2011


I'd recommend living in Staunton over Charlottesville just because of the fog/ice/snow on Afton Mountain that has already been mentioned. Especially the fog--it gets fogged in a lot, and the grade is pretty steep. I'd recommend checking it out on a clear summer day and see what you think.

Harrisonburg has twice the population of Staunton, so if you need the big box stores once in awhile, they are there. So is Costco.

Some firms in DC or Richmond might let you work remotely, so perhaps you could include those locations in your job search.

One of my favorite things to go to in that general area is the open-several-times-a-year Green Valley Book Fair.
posted by apartment dweller at 6:43 PM on July 4, 2011


The Shenandoah Valley is a great place to live. Harrisonburg and Charlottesville have decent retail centers, and Roanoke, Richmond, and DC are all only about 2 hours away. In the Valley, we tend to have cold but not terribly snowy winters (with exceptions, of course). The mountains are beautiful, and there's tons of recreational stuff to do. That's the good.

The bad is that for all that Harrisonburg and Staunton are the "big" cities in the Valley, they're really not that big. That means, unfortunately, not a huge number of tech job offerings, and the few that there are tend to be fairly competitive. Web design may be even more limited; my husband is a sys admin, so most of what I know comes from his connections there.

You should definitely check out the various universities in the area - JMU (my husband and I both work there), Eastern Mennonite University, Bridgewater, Mary Baldwin, UVA, etc. If you have any system admin experience or leanings, there's a new Harris Corp datacenter in the area that pays pretty well, but it mostly works on a 12 hour shift. Rosetta Stone, another local company, has supposedly outsourced most of their web designers, but they might be worth a look (although the corporate culture there is not all that great).

If you're going to be buying a house, make sure you shop around. There are some smaller towns that have much more affordable real estate, and some places that are just ridiculous. The most affordable places will probably be very rural, though - Verona, Weyers Cave, Grottos are all south of Harrisonburg and have some nice potential places, but you'll find yourself driving into Staunton or Harrisonburg if you need anything except groceries.

I personally would not want to do a daily commute over the mountain to or from Charlottesville, but I am very much a chicken when it comes to winter weather driving. I know more than a few folks at JMU who do the commute every day with little issue.
posted by ashirys at 8:25 AM on July 5, 2011


Oh, and given your wife's chosen area of study, do be sure to check out the American Shakespeare Center. Their theater, the Blackfriars Playhouse, replicates the staging conditions under which the plays were originally performed. It's a fantastic experience all around, and I can't recommend it enough.
posted by ashirys at 8:28 AM on July 5, 2011


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