Buyer Wanted for Damascus Old Mill

DAMASCUS, Va. – The future is uncertain for the Damascus Old Mill except for the fact that the historic landmark goes on the auction block Saturday.

The 12-room, 8,000-square-foot mill has already been auctioned once this year, and now it’s going again. Town business leaders said they hope to see it eventually re-opened as a restaurant, inn and conference center – but it will take someone devoted to the business.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for any potential buyer who wants to get the closed tourist attraction up and running before the Trail Days festival, which is just three weeks away.

“It’s been three people that run it, and I’m the only one that’s done it profitable, and nobody’s called me and asked me to help, so I don’t know who’s going to buy it,” Damascus businessman Stuart Wright IV said Tuesday. “We put a lot of time and a lot of work into it, and it breaks my heart, it sitting over there empty right now, tourist season getting started. It shouldn’t be that way. … I hope somebody comes in … and I hope that whoever opens it up makes it nice so we can go eat, because the town needs it.”

Wright said it would take a unique person who understands Damascus and how to run an establishment that is part bed and breakfast, part music on the water and part unique to this town – and has the money and dedication to make it work.

“It’s a lot of work. You’ve got to be willing to marry it,” said Bill Leonard, vice president of two bike shops and also of Fattie’s Diner, a small restaurant on the other end of town. “You can’t just date it, you’ve go to marry it, and that’s all there is to it … that’s true with any hotel-motel-restaurant thing.”

Leonard said a new owner would need to know how to keep the food and atmosphere consistent and comfortable and how to draw not just tourists, but locals and people from around the Tri-Cities region for a good time.

“The purchase of it is the easy part,” he said. “The potential is there. You’ve just got to be willing to invest yourself in it … don’t be afraid of an 80-hour work week.”

Everyone in town, it seems, is eager to find out what will be the fate of the mill; asking questions about it around town elicits the excited response, “Are you going to buy it?”

“We got to see it grow and we got to see it die, and that was pretty much a heartbreaker for everybody in town because it is absolutely one of the most beautiful landmarks we have around here, and I hate to see waste of any kind,” Leonard said.

Stuart Wright III, the younger Wright’s father, said when he first decided to buy and renovate the building it was because he saw its potential as a key piece of real estate if the town ever developed. Now, the town’s tourism economy boasts a draw of some 250,000 visitors a year.

“I hope that someone buys it who has the expertise to operate it. We live right in town, so we’d love to have a nice place to go have dinner,” the older Wright said. “It was just always a landmark for Damascus, and Damascus definitely needs a restaurant like that.”

After a short unsuccessful run by a Tennessee man who leased the Old Mill, the Wrights and Surbers ran it successfully from 2002 until 2005, when they sold it for $1.55 million to Ronnie Wren.

According to deed records, the Wrights and the Surbers paid $30,000 for mill in 1989.

Wren was an absentee owner, and the Old Mill has since gone out of business again, which most folks in town seem to blame on mismanagement. And, in a Jan. 30 auction, the mill went to Citizens bank for $750,000.

Now, it’s up for sale again.

The auction is 10 a.m. Saturday at the property on Imboden Street in Damascus.

“I hope somebody will buy that thing because it’s a beautiful place and would certainly help Washington County and the town of Damascus,” said David Counts, auctioneer with Counts Auction Group.

“We’ve had some out-of-state interest, but you won’t know until Saturday morning whether they show up or not, so this may be a great opportunity for someone around here.”
dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701