Former Virginia Beach resident Carolyn Berry and her husband have found a way to sell their 35-acre farm near Tappahannock that will preserve its rustic feel while engaging her love of the written word: They’re holding an essay contest.
Pretty much anyone anywhere who’s at least 18 years old can enter with an essay of up to 1,000 words on “your vision for the farm” and a $200 payment. The deadline to postmark an entry is Saturday.
The goal is to attract 5,000 contestants and choose a winner, who doesn’t have to pay them another cent, by Jan. 1, 2016. About 3,000 people have entered, but Berry said she hopes to reach their target by the deadline.
Randy Silvers, whom Berry married in 2009, bought Rock Spring Farm in the town of Hustle with his first wife in 1995. He cleared 2 miles of trails and built a three-story main house, two-bedroom cottage and horse barn with five stalls.
But Silvers, 64, and Berry, 62, have decided it’s time to leave the farm. He has found it difficult to keep up with his rheumatoid arthritis. She wants to return to the Virginia Beach area, where her three adult children and four grandsons live.
The couple sometimes spend up to four hours a day poring over entries. It’s been a joy, she said.
“With every essay, people are trusting us with their hearts, their souls and their dreams. It’s taken on an incredibly spiritual feeling for us.”
The visions include a studio for actors or quilters, a site for wounded-warrior retreats and a blacksmith’s shop.
Berry lived in Virginia Beach for nearly 25 years.
She moved there in 1979 with her first husband, Gary Berry, from Waldorf, Maryland, where she grew up. They raised their three children in neighborhoods including Thoroughgood and Bayside.
Berry received a bachelor’s degree in communication from Virginia Wesleyan College as an adult student in 1990 and later worked as a freelancer and in public relations.
“Writing has always been my love,” she said.
The Berrys moved to Mathews County in 2003. Her husband died three years later. Berry went back to school and received a master’s degree in special education from Old Dominion University in 2010, the year after she married Silvers and moved to the farm.
She worked as a teacher, but “I saw too many kids falling through the cracks.” Berry now runs a tutoring service.
The transition to farm life was easy. Her grandfather raised cattle and tobacco in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.
“It wasn’t a big change for me,” Berry said. “I loved the country. I needed that back-to-nature life.”
Rock Spring is a hobby farm, meaning Berry and Silvers don’t make a living from it. They have two horses, which they plan to take when they leave.
The farmhouse, which Silvers built the year after he bought the farm, has about 3,500 square feet and four bedrooms. Some of the wood in the fireplace mantles and beams is from the original house, which he tore down.
The property includes carriage and equipment barns; an air-conditioned woodworking shop, which Silvers built in 2012; and 25 acres of woods. For Berry, the scenic highlight, though, is the spring at the bottom of a ravine, for which the farm is named.
“He walked down and saw that ravine and wanted the property,” she said.
Berry knew it would be tough for Silvers to let go of it: “Putting up a for-sale sign would say to him: ‘I’m defeated. I can’t live here anymore.’ ”
When she read an article about an essay contest to sell a bed-and-breakfast in Maine, she thought he might go for that. “He has a say in who’s the next owner, as opposed to a conventional real estate transaction, when someone can come in, plop down money and bulldoze everything he’s built.”
The assessed value of the property is about $600,000, Berry said. Their goal is to raise $1 million from the contest. The spillover would help cover taxes, start a college fund for her grandchildren and pay for a small place for them in Cape Charles. It’s one of those couples’ compromises: He gets to stay in a rural environment; she’ll be close to her family.
The contest, which began in March, forbids development and requires the new owner to keep the farm for at least two years.
In Maine, the contest this year for the Center Lovell Inn ran into controversy, with accusations that the winner had unfair advantages. Berry sought to structure the contest for Rock Spring Farm to avoid even the hint of impropriety.
A trustee in Virginia Beach receives the entries. She strips out the names and locations before passing them to Berry and Silvers. Berry said the trustee has told them that the contestants come from near (Virginia Beach, Smithfield, Williamsburg) and far (India, Australia, Costa Rica).
In addition to the prospective acting coach, Berry and Silvers have heard from people who want to grow heirloom vegetables or raise sheep, chickens or goats.
“He goes through them and picks out essays that really speak to his heart,” she said. “I’m the one looking for grammar.” But “that doesn’t mean that somebody who doesn’t have an incredibly powerful story is going to be disqualified for leaving out a comma.”
They plan to select 25 finalists by the first week of December. A three-judge panel — a hobby farmer, a horse enthusiast and a retired educator — will choose the winner, without consulting Berry and Silvers, by year’s end.
If they don’t hit the target of 5,000 entries, Berry said, they will return the fees. She’s optimistic that won’t happen.
One reason? The Facebook page has chalked up more than 10,000 likes. Another is the frenzied way of the world.
“People are tired of technology and the hustle and bustle of living in the city,” Berry said. “They want to go back to growing vegetables that are not genetically modified and sitting on the porch, looking at the stars and listening to the crickets.
“It’s incredibly peaceful here.”
For more information on the farm and the contest, visit RockSpringFarm.org.
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