Bows to neighbors’ objections

Text and Photo by Colleen Gundlach

The Gilded Age home located just south of the Norfolk’s Village Green has been a local landmark, where patrons have been served food for more than 60 years. When Felix and Clara Klauer purchased it from Erastus Johnson in 1951, the Mountain View Inn welcomed guests who came regularly to enjoy the Norfolk countryside and the delicious food served there.

This tradition was expanded in 1987, when Richard and Michelle Sloane purchased the Mountain View, and, for the next two decades, ran a thriving, bustling inn and full-service restaurant. This incarnation of the venue was a focal point of Norfolk life, not only for a special dinner but also for weddings, baby showers and many other memorable occasions for locals and sojourners alike. 

When the Sloanes sold the property to Dean Johnson, the restaurant services stopped, but Johnson applied for, and was granted, a special use permit from the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z), to sell antiques while also operating as an inn, with guest rooms and breakfast service. 

Wendy Roberts and her husband Mike purchased the Mountain View in 2018 and renamed it Mountain View Green Retreat, with the vision of a peaceful, healthy environment where people could relax and enjoy Norfolk. In an interview with Norfolk Now that year she said, “I envision this to be a place where people can come to get away from the hustle and bustle of life.”

In offering seven guest rooms, a peaceful atmosphere, spa services and healthy, delicious breakfasts, Roberts has achieved a great deal of success in her endeavor. Looking to expand that vision, she applied late last year for a special use permit to operate a bakery and café in the foyer area of the inn. She said she was shocked at the reaction of some of her neighbors.

In August, 2019, Roberts sent a letter to people who live near the Mountain View, explaining her plans to have all food items prepared on the premises and to have three tables for seating. She invited the neighbors to contact her if they had any questions or concerns. “Not one person knocked on my door or called,” she said.

On December 10, 2019, Roberts said she was shocked to find a group of her neighbors at a P&Z public hearing on her request, ready to object to her plan. “Why didn’t they come to me?” she asked.

Neighbor Megan Huddleston opened the public portion of the zoning discussion, saying she likes the quiet charm of the Mountain View but fears the addition of the café will cause the balance of the “quiet, bucolic setting to be undone.” She expressed the feeling that the traffic generated by people going in and out to pick up baked goods or stop in for lunch would be “wholly inappropriate.”

Attorney Bill Riiska, representing Huddleston, spoke to the 2004 special use permit granted to Johnson when he applied for an antiques store in the porch area. Riiska pointed out that Roberts is serving breakfast to her guests in the porch area now, which he expressed to be in violation of Johnson’s original special use permit. He said that a special use permit for the bakery/café would not “protect the neighbors at all” and that “enforcing special use permits is extremely difficult.”

Riiska went on to say that “this has nothing to do with this nice person sitting here” and that it had more to do with what may come after, with possible later owners. “I have pored over this…and this is a major change to the use of this property.” He stated that the guests at the inn in its current configuration come and stay for a day or two, without a lot of traffic in and out, and that a retail business there would be “catering to a whole different class of people.”

Roberts was visibly upset by this exchange and requested that the discussion be stopped. “My intention for the inn is to create a place for calm, not controversy. I think of my neighbors as friends. They didn’t have to hire a lawyer—they could have come to me. I want to withdraw my application.”

P&Z Chairman Tom Fahsbender discussed the matter further, asking Roberts if she might want to take some time to make that decision before making it final. At the request of some attendees who still wanted to speak, Roberts agreed to hold off and hear the rest of the comments.

Huddleston pointed out that “Bill (Riiska) is my ex-husband and best friend” whom she asked to help out when she had a “gut reaction” to the proposed change at Mountain View. “It’s not meant to be an attack,” she said, referring to it as a “balancing of rights.”

Riiska reiterated the requirements and regulations already on the books relative to special use permits and expressed that his role was to remind the P&Z members of what the rules they adopted are and to give them a “walk-through” of the laws already on the books, in case they didn’t understand them. He stated that the commission should not allow this special use “no matter how delicious the food is.”

Tricia Deans, a neighbor on Windrom Road, was supportive of an accessory use permit for the bakery. “Many people in town love the idea,” she says. “Wendy is a good neighbor. Whether she has one guest there or seven, you can’t tell. The business will not be a traffic creator.” Another neighbor, Alison Warner Smela said that the former antique use generated as many people and traffic as a bakery would. “Many people would love to have [the bakery] in town.”

Neighbor Robert Hobbs proposed that Roberts could open the bakery in “one of the empty buildings downtown so we can preserve the quiet we have.” Roberts later rejected the idea because her purpose is to “maximize the use of the space by running several businesses from the same building.” She said, “I’m already paying the mortgage on one place—the amount of which Bill Riiska brought out at the zoning meeting for the whole town to hear.”

The P&Z voted to continue the matter so that the board could gather more information. In the meantime, Roberts has withdrawn her application, expressing sadness at the rift with her neighbors.