Saving Aldie: It takes a village – and Guy Gerachis

By Laura Longley

You could say it took a village to save this village. The residents of historic Aldie in southeastern Loudoun twice stayed construction of a massive new fire station. Then came “Aldie Park,” a 35,000-square-foot commercial plaza that developers were raring to build on 6.3 County-owned acres–the remains of the second fire station battle.

The villagers joined forces with preservation and conservation organizations and the mayors of Loudoun County’s towns, and pushed back by speaking at Board of Supervisors meetings. But in the end, they credit one man for winning the war.

Guy Gerachis is not a name you run across often in the local papers, even though he’s a lifelong resident of Loudoun County. He’s been an Aldie property owner for decades, the founder of a successful construction company—Gerachis Construction Group, LLC—and the winner of awards for historic building renovations. And, as former president and now vice president of the Aldie Heritage Association, he was as concerned about ACDC’s plans for Aldie Park as his neighbors were.

Why don’t you buy it, Guy?

ACDC, or Aldie Community Development Company, LLC, which is owned by John “Jack” Andrews and Leonard “Hobie” Mitchel, had big plans for the three parcels known as the “Aldie Assemblage” on the eastern end of the village.

The Aldie Park deal emerged from another between the County and Andrews’s Mojax company. In that one, the County agreed to pay Mojax $1.5 million to place a permanent easement on 16.4 acres in the village of St. Louis where the developers intended to build 27 houses.

But no sooner had the Board of Supervisors reviewed that offer than the developers came back asking the County to compensate them with the property’s appraised value, which they tallied as $3.4 million. Their solution to “make them whole” was to have the County not only make the St. Louis payment but also transfer the Aldie Assemblage to them.

Andrews and Mitchel proposed turning Aldie Assemblage into Aldie Park, a commercial complex that would include a brewery, retail and guest room space, art galleries, and a high-end inn and restaurant comparable to Michelin’s three-star Inn at Little Washington. 

The complex also would provide space for 164 vehicles plus a roadway from Route 50 to Andrews’s 60 landlocked acres on Aldie Mountain behind the proposed plaza.

Presented to the Board of Supervisors in a public hearing, the project captured the attention of several supervisors, one of them declaring it “big and bold.”

With a deal already under consideration, what was Aldie to do to prevent this huge development?

The Aldie residents held two meetings. At the second gathering, a neighbor posed a question: “Why don’t you buy it, Guy?”

“I looked at the numbers,” he says, “and thought, ‘Why not? As long as I don’t lose money.’”

Keeping it simple

Gerachis put forward a plain and simple offer to:

• pay $600,000 for the 6.3 acres and four dilapidated buildings as well as assorted sheds and garages
• renovate the primary buildings and renovate or remove assorted outbuildings
• clean up the overgrown property and properly landscape the entrance to the village

He expects to renovate and sell two of the properties—the “Tavern,” the farthest east of the group, and Satterfield’s, a small “live work” building next door.

Moving west, there’s Mattingly’s—a store that currently sells Adirondack chairs. Remembering a farm stand run by a fellow known as Apple Jack, Gerachis plans to convert that structure into a farm store with a stand.

Directly behind Mattingly’s is a Victorian farmhouse, also slated for renovation, and usable as an art gallery, antique shop, or live work building.

“That property is next to the current fire station,” explains Gerachis, “so it’s possible that when the firefighting operations move to the new location on Rt. 15, it could become a public space where we could do community events, meetings, movie nights,” he adds. “Once the work is done, there won’t be an empty space in the village.”

After that? “Retirement.”