Landmark opens doors

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

The spruced up Fort Chiswell Mansion is opening its doors wide this weekend to show off its spiffy new look.
The 19th-century residence, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1971, will host the Seed to Soul Festival on Saturday as the general public gets a chance to view the interior of the venerable landmark for the first time.
Mansion owner Chris Disibbio purchased the historic property, which overlooks the Interstate 77/81 overlap near exit 80, earlier this decade and has painstakingly restored it to become a functional estate.
Or in his words, “brought this thing back to life again.”
“I believe it’s an asset to the community and the county as much as it is to me personally,” he said.
According to a press release, Saturday’s festival will feature live music, demonstrations from local artisans and crafters and Disibbio himself cooking a meal made from homegrown produce and meats.
Since 1997, Disibbio has owned and served as the chef of Key Ingredients Restaurant in Bluefield, W.Va.
Disibbio said he hopes to use Saturday’s festival and other future events at the mansion to promote what he called “The Chris Disibbio Key Ingredients for Life”: food, fitness and faith.
“The idea for the festival basically came to me as a result of everything I have tried to do in my own life,” he said.
Disibbio also said he hopes the mansion will become a venue to support “starving artists.”
“I want to use the mansion to educate the public and empower those starving artists out there,” he said. “I’m really all about food and community-based agriculture … the butcher, baker, candlestick maker.”
While Disibbio said other activities at the mansion may not get going again until the spring, he said he was eager to throw the doors open to the public as soon as possible.
“I just really wanted to get it kicked off this year,” he said.
As part of their demonstrations Saturday, some of the artisans who have been helping Disibbio reconstruct the house will actually use their wares to, for example, put the last brick in the rebuilt smokehouse.
According to the application for the house to be listed on the historic register, the mansion was built in 1839-40 by two brothers, Stephen McGavock and Joseph Cloyd McGavock.
“Apparently the house was finished on schedule and it remained in the hands of the McGavock family until it was sold in 1918,” the application states. “Throughout the nineteenth century it was well known as a centre of hospitality and the main house of an extensive and prosperous plantation.”
Tickets for Saturday’s Seed to Soul Festival, which begins at 10 a.m., are available at the gate or at http://www.fortchiswellmansion.com. Admission to the grounds is $5 for individuals, or $15 for families (two adults and two children). Children under 12, however, are free.
Mansion tours will cost an additional $5 per person. To access the property, take the road to the Fort Chiswell Outlet Mall and enter through the mansion’s main gate.
“I want to make the Fort Chiswell Mansion,” Disibbio said, “a place that every person in the county can be proud of.”
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .