January 2004

Downtown Living

It’s fast-paced, fun and on foot

Call it uptown. Call it downtown. Call it home. Sally Shower is almost afraid to close her eyes, afraid she’ll miss a ship passing on the Elizabeth River outside her downtown Norfolk carriage house that’s not onÑbut inÑthe water. No way she’s going back to suburbia.

So, drive downtown from the tidy suburban neighborhoods full of homes with grassy yards, swing sets and two-car garages. Park the car and take a deep breath of downtown living in Norfolk and Portsmouth with cobblestone streets, the opera, the theater, restaurants, museums and shopping nearby. There’s an eclectic mix of admirals, musicians, Realtors and Navy SEALS living downtown. Then there’s the ferry across the riverÑbringing together the two downtowns.

“It’s so exciting, I get nervous every time I turn the key in the door,” says Shower, who has lived for two years in a 200-year-old carriage house at the end of West Freemason Street. “The house sits right in the water at the end of the street. Robert E. Lee kept his horse and buggy here. The original wood floors are up in the loft area. A potter used to live here, too. If he didn’t like what he was making, he would throw the shards down in the water. You just stroll up and down those cobblestone streets and you’re going back in time.”

For the rest of this story, you can order the January 2004 issue of Hampton Roads Monthly magazine.