WDBJ7 gets inside look into Poage Farmhouse

ROANOKE COUNTY, Va. (WDBJ) - A community meeting will be held about the future of the Poage Farm property.

Originally, the county purchased the land to build a new school, but a developer now owns it and hopes to build new homes and businesses. WDBJ7 took a tour of the old farmhouse that’s been sitting for nearly 200 years.

“It’s important to remember what’s here and all the hard work that went in here, and this was an important part of Roanoke County. I mean, we were an agricultural community before we were a business community,” said ABoone Real Estate, Inc. president Alexander Boone.

Boone is good friends with David Poage, whose family owned the property for generations and sold it to the county years ago.

The house hasn’t been lived in since 2020 and has been worn down over the years. It’s also not eligible for registration in the National Register for Historic Places.

“David is certainly emotional about the loss of the house. I’ve talked with him about it a number of times, he understands why we have to do it, that doesn’t mean he likes it, and I respect that. He and I have had a good talk about it, and I think he understands our perspective and the position that we’re in, and he understands that no one had any incentive to take care of it, and that’s what happened,” Boone said

Boone initially wanted to preserve the farmhouse and include it as a new restaurant in the development proposal.

But found after further inspection, it would be almost impossible to salvage in its original state.

“Our first plan was to restore this house and make it the restaurant, sort of similar to Brews Tavern at Explorer Park, that we thought this would be the restaurant. There’s plenty of parking around here. This is a flat area of land, so this would have been the restaurant. But as we came through initially and brought architects and engineers, unanimously, each one of them said, it’s too far gone, we can’t do this, and that’s unfortunate,” he said.

Boone’s proposal includes building over one hundred townhomes, nearly a dozen single-family homes and some commercial businesses on the property to create Poages Mill Village.

He plans to preserve some of the land in its natural state.

“We do plan to preserve about two-thirds of this property; We’re going to preserve the land up behind here. We’re going to build another driveway or an access way for the Pogue Family Cemetery, so they’ll have better access than they do today,” he added.

Although Boone hopes to redevelop the land, he wishes that piece of history could’ve been preserved.

“A lot of people are suggesting that we have no respect for the history, and we absolutely do. We were just left with a situation that was not of our making, and we’re going to try to do the best we can with it.”

Boone is strongly encouraging neighbors to attend the community meeting to express their concerns and learn more about the development project.

The meeting will be held at South County Library from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. December 7.

WDBJ7 reached out to the Poage family for comment but did not receive a response.