One Waterford story is the village itself -- idyllic, lovely and beloved. Another is about property rights on surrounding land, an issue that hovers over the future of the Virginia town. Both tales are about the boundaries imposed by the village's landmark status.
Where can a visitor find the first story, that of the pastoral village?
In Marie Anderson's English garden on any ravishing fall day. Her garden is next to the Pink House, the bed-and-breakfast she and her husband restored. Pink in color as well as name, the four-story house stands out among the white, earth-tone and brick homes in the village.
"In the '40s, so we were told, there was quite a scandal when people painted the house pink," she says. "Now, it's a landmark. The outcry probably would be as loud again if we tried to change it."
Waterford, southwest of Frederick, Md., and just north of Leesburg, is one of a small group of National Historic Landmarks comprised of an entire village. Resembling an English country village in layout, with farmland rolling right up to the back yards, -- Waterford boasts what has been called one of the finest concentrations of rural 19th century architecture in the South. Federal, Georgian and Greek Revival are leading styles, but nine log homes are among the 120 structures.
"Waterford is more than a just pretty place," says Mrs. Anderson, a 27-year resident. "It's unspoiled; all the houses are different. But it's more than that, too; it's a community."
Another source of the first story can be found in the sunny back yard of Edward and Anne Carter Smith's 1790s Bank House, where one can sit on a bench looking out over a pasture at a melange of black, red and white cattle. Mrs. Smith's first husband, Wellman Chamberlin, who died in 1976, his father, Leroy, and a brother began fixing up the deteriorating town in the late 1930s, she says.
"They put a lot of people to work and started restoring houses," says Mrs. Smith, 75.
Mary Elizabeth Wallace, one of three blacks living in Waterford, adds another perspective to Waterford's idyllic tale.
Settled by Quakers in 1733 and named by a later Irish resident, Waterford was a haven for free blacks. By 1860, 155 free blacks lived and worked here, outnumbering the Quakers. The black population declined sharply during the Depression, as people moved away seeking work. Born here, Ms. Wallace, 73, lives in a neat little brick house owned by the Smiths.
