Big changes coming to Back Bay Wildlife refuge

When Jared Brandwein moves into his new office this winter on Asheville Creek, all he will be able to see through his windows is water.

With floor-to-ceiling panes overlooking a tributary off Sandbridge Road, the manager of Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge will have the illusion that he is on a boat. In fact, every room in the building, which will also be a visitor center for folks going to the main refuge property south of Sandbridge, has a water view.

Stunning views are not part of your ordinary, rustic wildlife refuge office. Nor are up-scale qualities like a two-sided fireplace, antique wall paneling and carved, built-in headboards.

But the features will all be carefully preserved in the new office, originally a home designed by the late architect Lewis Rightmier,  well-remembered locally for designing homes integrated with the landscape.

 The house is on property purchased five years ago by the refuge as part of an ongoing effort to buy land around Back Bay to protect the bay’s water quality. And the house happens to be centrally located to serve the far-reaching refuge property. 

The structure is being renovated with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as stimulus  money. A $528,000 contract was awarded this summer to Casa Builders of Virginia Beach to add new siding and a new roof and to install a new heating and cooling system, among other work.

The refuge also received $30,000 in stimulus funds that doubled the size of the Youth Conservation Corps program this summer. Twelve high school students and three leaders worked over the summer to rehabilitate trails and fences, plant trees and shrubs, and thin reforestation sites.

Stimulus money is supposed to go to shovel-ready projects that can benefit communities immediately in this poor economy. Plans for Rightmier House renovations were ready for a contractor, Brandwein said, and went to the top of the list of possible stimulus projects of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

 “It was way more than shovel-ready,” Brandwein explained. “We had already bid it out, last year, but we were under budgeted for the bid.”

The home and property  are across the road from another large parcel of refuge property acquired along with many others over the years to protect the bay.

Originally the refuge was  only on the barrier spit south of Sandbridge on the east side of Back Bay. Now, with acquisitions, there is refuge property along Sandbridge Road on the bay’s northern end and off Princess Anne Road on the bay’s west side.

New offices in the Rightmier House will put several refuge staff halfway between both sides of the refuge, Brandwein said. They will no longer have to drive for  about a half  hour from offices below Sandbridge to reach refuge property on the west side of the bay.

The refuge will continue to maintain a presence  in the former administrative offices below Sandbridge, where most visitors go to view wildlife. They hope to reconfigure the old space for more nature exhibits and to add a gift shop.

“We’re not going to divorce that section,” Brandwein said.

 But the Sandbridge Road offices also will make it more convenient for refuge staff to meet with people from the city and other agencies with whom the refuge does business. Molly P. Brown, president of the Friends of Back Bay, hopes the higher visibility and more convenient location will attract more refuge volunteers, too.

In addition, tourists will be able to stop at the Rightmier House to learn a little about the architectural gem and to pick up information on the refuge, as well as False Cape State Park and Little Island City Park, both also south of Sandbridge.

“It will be a gateway to the Sandbridge area,” Brandwein said.

Mary Reid Barrow, barrow1@cox.net