I’m sure that many in the Page County community are aware of the housing development being built on the old Henry Kauffman farm on Kauffman’s Mill Road.
I recently learned that the builders have given the development a name — “The Overlook at Kauffman’s Mill.” They have also registered the web domain kauffmansmill.com to redirect visitors to their own website - an inventory of house layouts and available plots. This is all very misleading.
Kauffman’s Mill and the Kauffman family have nothing to do with this housing development. The new houses will not even be near, much less “overlooking,” the historic mill site.
I reached out to the builders directly to share my concerns and to ask if they would consider alternatives to using “Kauffman’s Mill” in their brand.
Their response was brief and professional, but dismissive of my concerns.
One can only assume that they opportunistically latched onto the name of a nearby historic landmark to invoke a sense of charm and nostalgia in the naming of their housing community.
The perceived association between our family’s name and this project really bugs me. If you know me, or knew my parents or grandparents, then you know how much the Kauffman’s Mill Homestead and our family’s history means to us.
My ancestors left an amazing trail of history down that little dirt road, from milling operations starting in the 1770s to dances at the Riverview dance hall in the 1920s -1950s. That’s our family’s mark on Page County — not this housing development.
I created a Kauffman’s Mill Facebook page. Feel free to follow it HERE. Not much there now, but I will be adding more content to it.
Greg Kauffman
Luray, Va.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: According to the Figueroa Homes website, “The Overlook at Kauffman’s Mill” will be “perched above the Shenandoah River in an exclusive 20-home community.”
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