Thirteen years ago, a drive down Main Street in Wardensville, West Virginia, would have sailed you past a 7-Eleven, a Dollar General and a handful of mom-and-pops that had seen better days. You probably wouldn’t have bothered to stop in the tiny town (population 270) along the Cacapon River, less than two hours from the nation’s capital.
“It was more closings than openings,” says Paul Yandura, a former political operative and Clinton White House official who often passed through town on the way to the vacation cabin he’d built with his partner, Donald Hitchcock.
Today, it’s a different picture. Wardensville’s eclectic main drag is now home to a glassblowing studio, an independent bookstore and the Lost River Trading Post—a combination coffee house, antiques emporium, art gallery and bottle shop that’s hard to miss. (Just look for the life-size sculpture of an orange cow in cowboy boots out front.) The trading post occupies a renovated feed store that Yandura and Hitchcock bought and transformed in 2013.
Back then, the gay power couple’s arrival in deep red Hardy County raised a few eyebrows. Liberal politics aside, there was the other G word—gentrification. “In any town, change is always going to be hard,” says Yandura, who directed LGBTQ+ outreach for Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign and later ran his own political consulting firm. (Hitchcock’s background is in LGBTQ+ advocacy and public health.) Appalachian communities have reason to be wary of outsiders, Yandura says, given the region’s history with extractive industries like coal mining.
But he and Hitchcock weren’t interlopers. They were intent on becoming locals. They sold their cabin and bought a historic house in town.
“We have lived here. We call it home. We have put our own blood, sweat and tears into this [place] for many years, and that makes a difference,” Yandura says, “[versus] if we were outside investors or just came in for the weekend.”
After taking up residence in a fixer-upper next to the feed store, they launched the Wardensville Main Street Initiative, an economic development nonprofit focused on attracting start-up businesses to the area. They became real estate agents, touting the charm factor of commercial and residential properties in need of a facelift. (Homes south of $400,000 are still posted outside the trading post, should you, too, hear the call of the wild.)
In 2016, Wardensville welcomed Farms Work Wonders (FWW), a program whose mission is to “ignite the spark of curiosity within Appalachian youth so they see themselves and their futures in new ways.”
All of the enterprises under the FWW umbrella—including a working farm, garden market, bakery, restaurant and the aforementioned glassblowing studio—employ local youth while also providing job training, educational scholarships and mentors.
Yandura had a hand in that, too. His longtime friend Jonathan Lewis, an angel investor (whose father founded Progressive Insurance) and one half of the Jonathan D + Mark C. Lewis Foundation, provided the seed funding for FWW. Ten years later, the fledgling businesses that found life in that initial investment are generating enough revenue to cover more than 80% of operating expenses and are on track to become fully financially sustainable by the end of 2027.
Their success is a point of pride for Yandura. He says he’s seen plenty of rural community development initiatives dry up once the initial funding is spent. “We wanted to make something that could live beyond any of us,” he says.
In Lewis’s case, it did. The wealthy philanthropist, who built a house in town, died of brain cancer three years ago. But his legacy is lasting.
“I can’t tell you how many young people have gone through the program in 10 years,” Yandura says. “Some of them have gone to college. We’ve gotten them scholarships. They’ve come back and now work with us. Their parents, their grandparents, people know us in a whole different way. Love us or not, Donald and I have always done what we’ve said. If we’ve made a promise, we’ve kept it.”
Situated a scant seven miles beyond the Virginia border and surrounded by the George Washington National Forest, Wardensville stands as a portal to much of what’s wild and wonderful in The Mountain State. It’s a waystation for nature-lovers headed toward breathtaking gorges, frothy rivers and serene mountain vistas that are seemingly a world away from D.C.
On busy days, the tiny hamlet might see as many as 10,000 vehicles passing through. “There are towns less than 15 minutes away that don’t have that same advantage,” says FWW managing director Jason Smith.
Except now, more folks are stopping to grab a bite, refuel and perhaps spend the night in this pretty little patch of heaven that’s found its place on the map.
Where to Play
Stop by Dakota Glass Works for a live glassblowing demo, or try your hand at forging your own wine glass, vase or decorative ornament. I visited with my 10-year-old, Jane, a very hands-on kid who was thrilled to operate a blowtorch. Book in advance on the website and BYO willingness to learn. The studio provides the rest, including the torch, safety goggles, a gaggle of tools and a 2,000-degree furnace. (Parental supervision is required for kiddos.) Glassblowing has a longstanding history throughout greater Appalachia, and the business is a point of pride for the town. The gift shop next door sells locally made pitchers, glass pumpkins and miniature animal figurines.
If you time your visit accordingly, Wardensville’s Garden Market Second Saturdays run on the second Saturday of every month from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. through December, featuring live music, baked goods, local crafts and a rainbow of locally grown veggies from FWW’s Lewis Farm. October’s Second Saturday overlaps with the Wardensville Fall Festival, which includes a car show, parade and roughly 100 local vendors.
Half an hour southwest of town, the nearly 4,000-acre Lost River State Park offers a bevy of trails for horseback riders, cyclists and leaf-peeping hikers, not to mention whitewater rafting and scenic train rides. (The name Lost River refers to the waterway that flows underground in Hardy County, slipping from view for a few miles until it resurfaces near Wardensville, where it’s called the Cacapon River.)
We were content to meander the stream-hugging Howard’s Lick Run Trail, but folks craving more of a challenge may prefer the climb up Big Ridge Mountain to the Cranny Crow Overlook, which offers breathtaking views spanning five counties. The overlook’s wooden “Almost Heaven” swing is one of 51 throughout the state, and arguably the most scenic. The hike to Cranny Crow is about four miles roundtrip, with more than 1,000 feet of elevation gain to reach the overlook at 3,200 feet.
Where to Stay
Distance and scale make Wardensville a very manageable day trip from the DMV, but if you want to make an overnight of it, book a stay at the Firefly Inn, a newly renovated boutique motel on Main Street whose four immaculately kept rooms are quiet and central to town.
Prefer to sleep in the woods under a blanket of stars? Check out The Ridge at Serà and The Vale at Serà, Airbnb luxury cabins complete with hot tubs, barrel saunas, outdoor showers and beautiful mountain views of the George Washington National Forest. Cabins and well-tended campsites are available at Lost River State Park, 30 minutes down the road.
Where to Shop
Lost River Trading Post’s 5,000-square-foot retail space is brimming with curated antiques, Blenko glass and cabin-chic furnishings (vintage snowshoes, anyone?). Don’t miss the selection of jarred and dried goods, which includes dandelion blossom jelly that could pass for bottled sunshine, and J.Q. Dickinson salt, harvested in West Virginia from brine left underground by an ancient ocean.
The adjoining Grasshopper Gallery, open seven days a week, features rotating works by local artists, including fiber crafts, sculpture, folk art and more. Check the website for artists’ receptions and show dates. An on-site bar serves wood-fired pizzas, craft beers, espresso drinks, scratch-made scones and cakes by the slice. Grab a seat on the huge covered porch, decorated with large-mawed “junk-o-lanterns” wrought from repurposed gas cans.
At WordPlay, the best (and only) indie bookstore in town, displays are stacked with Appalachian ghost stories, cookbooks and banned books you didn’t know you needed, plus a captivating selection of candy-colored books for young readers, alongside games, jigsaw puzzles and stickers. The owners have West Virginia roots, know the area well and are generous with recommendations that extend far beyond the walls of their shop.
The Glass House is a flower and vintage mart where the merch includes old-school toys, antiques, milk glass, lavender goat milk soap, succulent arrangements and bouquets starting at $10. Take time to explore its thoughtfully curated selection of vintage furniture and women’s clothes.
Where to Eat
At FWW’s Wardensville Garden Market, visitors can buy fresh produce grown on site and small-batch products from Appalachian makers, including a tempting cheese selection and maple syrup produced by a neighboring farm five minutes up the road. Try the star of West Virginia cuisine, the pepperoni roll (there’s a vegetarian alternative) with a side of ranch dressing made with local ramps (wild leeks), for dipping.
The newest FWW upstart, Mack’s Bingo Kitchen, is a living classroom for the Appalachian youth in its employ, and a knock-your-socks-off culinary experience. Meals here are made from scratch with local ingredients and cooked over an open hearth four nights a week, and most of the entrees are less than $20. Standouts include the hush puppies with horseradish mayo, smoked half chicken and the cinnamon roll bread pudding. Bingo cards plaster the bathroom walls, and a “peephole” made from the building’s old door knocker—a nod to its days as an Odd Fellows Hall—reveals a portrait of the late philanthropist Jonathan Lewis.
Next door, daytime café Fresh on Main is the spot for cold-pressed juices, sandwiches, acai bowls and treats ranging from oatmeal cream pies to homemade banana pudding ice cream. Snap a photo with the funky “Son of Man” bottlecap mural outside, courtesy of artist David Heatwole, before stepping into a homey space marked by grass-green walls, wooden millwork and chalkboard signs.
Drifters Cafe, the culinary appendage to indie bookstore WordPlay, offers breakfast sandwiches, pastries, wraps and healthy grain bowls, as well as a great wildflower honey cinnamon latte. The menu includes gluten-free and plant-based meat alternatives. You’ll find plenty of friendly folks here, mirroring more of what awaits you when you walk back out the door.
Susan Anspach lives in Vienna, Virginia. Her favorite road trip snack is a pack of Nerds Gummy Clusters.
