From Arlington, Virginia, it is a two-hour drive to Orkney Springs and Shrine Mont Retreat Center. Shrine Mont, a 950-acre parcel of land in the Allegheny Mountains, has, for about 80 years, served the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia as “a place apart for rest, devotion and fellowship.”
The invitation also extends to any number of organized corporate or cultural groups that care to use this rather wonderful, if austere, complex of tranquil gardens, toe paths, cottages and balconied dorms to accommodate up to 600 hundred visitors. And, many do—Shrine Mont is host every year to the Shenandoah Valley Music Festival and the annual Bishop’s Fourth of July Bluegrass Festival, among others.
Shrine Mont was established in the mid-1920s as a property of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia after it was deeded to the church by its owner-founder Dr. Edmund Lee Woodward. Woodward and his successor Wilmer Moomaw, served, respectively, as the facility’s director through much of the last century to see through a vision they shared that the complex be a natural setting for worship and reflection.
For their purposes, they eventually purchased the historic Orkney Springs Hotel. Built in the mid-1800s, the hotel was something of an early-American resort for people seeking the medicinal benefits of the area’s mineral-rich springs. Today, the old hotel is known as Virginia House, a towering four-story, 96,000-square-foot structure, wrapped on every level by unfailing balconies. The tallest structure at Shrine Mont, Virginia House stands in the middle of the plat of 40 similarly-styled crisp wooden buildings—white paint, black window trim, arched roofs-- which descend outward to form a generous complex of smaller houses and dorms. Just about all the housing—bare bones accommodations that have the endearing charm of a tired yet dependable Inn--are wrapped in the all-important balcony and furnished with Adirondack seating for Shrine Mont’s most important pastime: socializing, sipping drinks, laughter, observation, and reflection, not to mention that they make terrific treadmills for children.
Within the stunning setting that is part of the Appalachian chain, Shrine Mont, which lies at the foot of the Great North Mountain, feels sunken, as if in the heart center of the Alleghenies. As one looks to the sky, it is readily understood that the grounds are surrounded by a measureless, verdant wall. It is as if you are swimming in a dense swirl of Virginia’s native trees--majestic white oaks trees, cherry poplars, maples and pines.
As one approaches the Cathedral Shrine of the Transfiguration, the outdoor shrine that is Shrine Mont’s centerpiece, there is a tranquil little stone monument to the Orkney Spring, from which, naturally, a gentle flow of water pours eternal. It is dressed with a plaque that is tied to the ecclesiastic roots of the place: “The Orkney Spring, 1783, Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow,” and then commemorates the life of one Georgia Moore, 1861—1931.
Shrine Mont makes first time visitors feel somewhat like the new arrivals at the professor’s sprawling country estate in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe: unattended, a visitor can, with every twist and turn, find something mysterious, if not enchanting. And so at dusk, in a stealthy pilgrimage from our little room in Maryland House, while my daughter went to a children’s movie at Lexington House, I set out to see the outdoor Cathedral Shrine of the Transfiguration.
It was on this tour that I stumbled upon a rather significant collection of oils on canvas in a house called Art Hall, no less. To my eye, it was a monument within a monument—a little museum of landscape paintings housed in a rustic Shrine Mont lecture room—a musty parlor of sorts, with an old stone fireplace and characteristically dull lighting, which I unhesitatingly flipped on so I could see the walls of art.
There were more than 70 paintings, and all were the work of John Douglas Woodward (1846-1924), the uncle of Shrine Mont’s founder Edmund Woodward. Thankfully, there was a printed guide to his paintings. One side of the room featured American landscapes, and the other, a glorious array of landscapes from his travels around the world. There was a painting, in particular, worth coveting, a scene on a lake with an exciting pink sky—like a Hudson River School sky, which was likely given Thomas Cole and his peers pre-date Woodward by about half a century.
It was amusing to guess ever so briefly where and what the image was before looking at the guide, and getting an answer. This favorite of mine was #67, “Varenna, Italy on Lake Como.” Moving on, the small and medium size canvases were a joy and the guessing game continued for a while with other beauties including #23, “Wind Swept Road, East Hampton,” and #68, “Villa Carlotta” also on Lake Como.
But, at last, it was time to get a glimpse of the outdoor shrine before the blue twilight turned to total black. The small hike to the shrine was a dreamy little flight over stone bridges and paths that put visitors into simple wooden pews facing the alter, a primitive handmade edifice of stone that is haunting and magnificent.
“Each of its stones,” says Shrine Mont literature, “was pulled by horse or rolled by local people from the mountain that embraces it. The baptismal font was originally a dugout stone used by Indians to grind corn.” In the dark, it was a scene to behold--the first religious setting that felt to me quite profound, or extreme, what with its dark, sturdy authority, its Gothic spirit, the multitude of crosses, and every podium and surface made of stone, with a grand, softly curving bell at the top. As it was time to leave, I stepped into the aisle over the discarded mums from a service earlier that day, their orange and yellow color still vivid amid rocks.
The handmade architecture is breathtaking for nothing more than the fact that it exists with casual fortitude. For those descending the hill, leaving the sacred grounds that encircle the Shrine, there is an archway—a simple affair of five thick branches mounted in stone foundations on each side-- with a rectangular sign that reads “Depart in Peace.” Depart in peace: a wonderful mantra for contemplation in any faith and frame of mind—and, to which I rejoined in a whisper, “I’ll be back.”
