Articles:

Reward For Renovators
Firm to be honored for breathing life into Richmond's Union Hill
Richmond Times - Dispatch - Richmond, Va.
Sep 21, 2008

Elaine Odell didn't feel comfortable walking along Venable Street in her Union Hill neighborhood 10 years ago. She does now.

Odell credits her growing confidence in part to Three Strands Management, a real estate development company that has renovated homes on Venable and other streets on the northern edge of Richmond's Union Hill.

"Ten years ago, many of the houses didn't have anyone living in them," said Odell, owner of Church Hill Photography. "Three Strands has taken houses that have been open to vagrants and illegal activity and renovated them so people want to live in them.

"They have really helped revitalize Venable Street, which is so important to Union Hill," she said. "They took a shot at Venable when no one else would."

Those efforts are the reason the Alliance to Conserve Old Richmond Neighborhoods will honor Three Strands next month with its Andrew Asch Historic Developer Award. The award, named for the man who led the renovation of Shockoe Slip in the 1970s, is part of ACORN's ninth annual Golden Hammer Awards on Oct. 7.

"Three Strands also sees the potential for stabilizing and revitalizing neighborhoods," said David Herring, ACORN's executive director. "It has taken the northernmost section of Union Hill, a challenging location, and has finished nine properties and is working on others to restore in that section of the neighborhood."

Gray and Cynthia Oliver started Three Strands in 2000. At the time, Gray Oliver worked as a business development manager for Procter & Gamble, and Cynthia Oliver had a real estate broker's license. Tory Smith joined the company in 2006 after owning Raleigh Homes Inc.

Three Strands renovates properties, most of which are historic, and builds homes.

Gray Oliver and Smith met at Douglas Freeman High School in Henrico County, where both played on the football team. Oliver went on to play at the College of William and Mary and Smith at Virginia Tech.

"There's a unique skill set required to do historic restoration as opposed to new construction," Oliver said. "It's a different learning curve. Tory brought in a new level of expertise."

At first, the Olivers had no intention of doing historic renovations. They were investors, buying and remodeling attractive houses in need of some cosmetic work and renting them after the work was complete. We never flipped a house. We retained them," Gray Oliver said. "We wanted a more valued proposition."

In 2003, their focus changed when former production partner Bossie Greene showed them a vacant, boarded-up house at 541 Mosby St.

Even though the house had suffered years of decay and neglect, Oliver and Greene could see that the house was well-built. It was an architectural gem waiting for renovation.

"I told Bossie that Cynthia and I were thinking that these types of historical structures would fill a need: to bring individuals back to the neighborhood," Oliver said.

The Olivers renovated the property and sold it for less than $100,000.

A year later, they renovated and sold two historic Victorian houses on nearby Cedar Street. The couple completed the renovations without using historic tax credits.

"We were unaware of the credits," Oliver said.

They learned about tax credits when they began working with ACORN in 2005 on properties at 2235 and 2235 1/2 Venable St. The properties had been slated for demolition by the city.

"They were beautiful brick structures that had been built in the 1880s and 1890s that had been lived in by vagrants for quite some time. It was a party house for them," Cynthia Oliver said. "The backyard looked like a city dump."

The house at 2235 Venable had four brick exterior walls but no roof and no interior walls.

"It looked like it had been bombed out in the war," Smith said. "It was fairly unsafe to work in when we started."

After being renovated, the house at 2235 Venable sold for $310,000 and the home at 2235 1/2 Venable for $270,000.

Most of the buyers of the historic properties that Three Strands has sold in Union Hill have been dental and nursing students at Virginia Commonwealth University's medical school campus, as well as doctors in residency.

Three Strands hopes to create a rebirth in Union Hill, an area north of Church Hill that claims Venable and M through O streets and 21st through 27th streets.

"The block Three Strands renovated on Venable has turned the tide," ACORN's Herring said. "Now that block is predominantly homeownership.

"They have really brought value and people back to that most northern boundary of Union Hill. People are getting involved in the neighborhood. It's a ripple effect that goes beyond renovating a house. It's re-establishing communities."

Three Strands has renovated 30 houses in the Richmond area since 2000. The company markets the majority of its homes to buyers who want affordable housing costing less than $200,000. Twelve have sold for under $175,000.

Three Strands' revenue and unit growth have increased about 30 percent annually since its founding, Gray Oliver said. The company expects this year to complete 12 to 15 homes, most of them new construction.

Each of the historic structures the company works on is unique.

"Gray has all the vision and creativity and excitement. Tory tempers that with reality, what is structurally possible and allowed by code," Cynthia Oliver said. "I am the bridge between the two. It's a working partnership."

Rachel Flynn, Richmond's director of community development, has worked with Three Strands on the properties it has purchased and sold.

"Union Hill is still an evolving neighborhood," Flynn said. "We need people like Three Strands who will take the risk to go into neighborhoods that are evolving."

Blighted properties bring down the neighborhood, so "contractors like Three Strands are part of the solution to prevent the need for government to intervene," Flynn said. "I would love to have more Three Strands."

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