For decades, the Bedford County hamlet of Montvale has been known less for the area’s natural beauty than for its unnatural landmark: an abandoned motor fuel terminal, with more than a dozen giant storage tanks dotting the landscape on either side of U.S. 460.
A group of community residents is determined to remake Montvale’s identity by breathing new life into a circa-1930 school that had been slated for demolition.
The Montvale School Preservation Foundation, a nonprofit formed in 2022, is negotiating with the Bedford County Board of Supervisors to take ownership of the old school building and convert the 13-acre property into a multipurpose community hub. The multiyear project is estimated to cost $2 million to $3 million.
Leaders envision a center that offers child day care, senior care and health services, as well as classroom space, a commercial kitchen, and retail and restaurant space.
“That school is the gateway to Bedford County,” said George Beckwith, a foundation board member and 46-year resident of Montvale whose three children attended the school. “We need to save the school. It has so much potential.”
In some ways, that potential is already being demonstrated.
During the last year, the foundation has staged several events on school grounds, including twice-monthly farmers markets from April to September, a car show and a Halloween event. This year, they’ve added a summer concert series, with a Christmas market in the works.
Roni Sutton, the foundation’s president, said attendance and interest continue to grow.
“The first year was mostly determining how we wanted to proceed and working with the county to show them that we were serious,” said Sutton, a 34-year Montvale resident. “We put together work days and cleaned up the front of the building and the sides, and that eventually morphed into starting the farmers market last summer.”
The property’s renewal follows nearly three decades of dormancy for a building that was the center of activity for several generations of Montvale children.
Montvale School opened in 1930 at the corner of Lynchburg-Salem Turnpike (U.S. 460) and Goose Creek Valley Road (Virginia 695), housing grades one through 12. Intricate, multicolored masonry work on the building’s façade, along with a three-quarters gymnasium and stage, lend themselves to a historic designation, which Sutton said the foundation plans to pursue.
Over the years, the building underwent several expansions to reach its current 32,562 square feet. Its high school students moved to the new Liberty High School in Bedford in 1964. The building ended its service as an elementary school in 1996, when it was replaced by the new Montvale Elementary School about a mile east on U.S. 460.
Since then, the county has repurposed parts of the building. The newest section houses the Montvale branch of the Bedford Public Library System, with a community room and kitchen facilities. The county uses other parts of the building for storage.
Older sections of the building, however, have fallen into disrepair. Sutton said there is an urgency to complete the transaction with Bedford County because parts of the roof on the original building have collapsed, causing significant water damage.
Sutton, a Class A contractor, added that while the exterior walls and most interior walls are still in good shape, ongoing water intrusion could change that.
“Replacing that roof is the top priority,” Sutton said.
When the county considered razing older sections of the building in 2019, it allocated $400,000 for the project while considering other options. Sutton said with the ownership transfer, the county would move that money to an escrow account to help pay for renovations or be used as matching funds for grants that have that requirement.
Sutton said another negotiating point is the county’s intent to continue operating the public library as part of a lease agreement with the foundation.
Bedford County Supervisor Bob Davis, whose district includes Montvale, said salvaging the school is a better decision than demolishing it.
“In my opinion, the property is worth more to the county if we save that building,” said Davis, who credited Montvale residents Bob Karnes and Betty Carter with informing him about the school’s planned demolition. “Number two, I think it’s important for the Montvale community to have that facility. A resident of the area told me, ‘You know, my 80-year-old grandfather can’t go to Bedford every day [because of the long drive].’ So why not allow it to be a multipurpose type building, a community center for that area?”
Montvale, with a population of 635 as of the 2020 census, is 15 miles east of Roanoke and 12 miles west of Bedford. A revitalized school building would complement the community’s recreational assets, including the 129-acre Montvale Park, with soccer fields, a picnic shelter and walking and biking trails, and the Montvale Rec Club, with athletic fields and an activities building recently rebuilt after a fire in 2020.
Economic development in Montvale, however, has been a struggle, despite its proximity to Interstate 81 and the thousands of cars that pass through on U.S. 460 each day.
The Montvale Center for Commerce, which fronts both sides of U.S. 460 and includes a commercially zoned 19-acre site and a 45-acre park designed for non-commercial business and industry, has floundered since its creation more than 20 years ago. The commercial side remains vacant, while only a handful of businesses operate on the industrial side.
The motor fuel terminal that served the Colonial Pipeline for nearly 60 years was shut down in 2018 because of repair costs to the Montvale pipeline spur.
Some believe the school’s renovation could draw new attention to Montvale, and eventually attract retail businesses to create a “village center.”
David Hill, president of Hill Studio in Roanoke, is partnering with the Montvale group to create a multiphase renovation plan and secure grants to support it. He said his firm’s deep experience in historic preservation and community planning is a good match for the project.
“It reminds me of other similar facilities that we’ve worked on,” said Hill, whose past historic preservation projects include the Vinton’s Roland E. Cook School (now loft apartments), Shawsville’s Meadowbrook Nursing Home (now a community center), and Roanoke’s Fire Station No. 1 (now a boutique hotel, restaurant and event space).
“People have great memories associated with these buildings,” Hill said. “The community cherishes them. And if you can give them a new life, they can still serve the population, just in different ways.”
Beyond the roof replacement, the building’s electrical, plumbing and mechanical systems, as well as windows and flooring, also need to be replaced. In the meantime, the foundation holds work days on the first Saturday of each month to continue cleaning up the property to prepare it for those comprehensive renovations.
Hill cited the redevelopment of the old Price’s Fork Elementary School near Blacksburg as an example of Montvale’s potential. Over the past decade, the Price’s Fork school evolved into a community center composed of apartments for people age 55 and older, a community kitchen, a brewery, a restaurant, walking trails and a garden.
While the Montvale plan does not include housing, Sutton sees other opportunities.
“We have been approached by multiple people in various industries: a hairstylist, a doctor, a couple of different restaurants,” she said.
If that vision is realized, Montvale — in the viewshed of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and just a few miles from area wineries and orchards — could indeed leave its tank-farm identity behind and reposition itself as a gateway to Bedford County’s tourism corridor.
“I’ve been so impressed by the amount of energy that [Montvale] group has,” Hill said. “When you rebuild a great building like this, it takes so many hands to do it. And you’re building the spirit and character of the community as you do it.
“All we’ve got to do is convert that into the energy needed to get this done.”
