the beauty of land nestled on the Virgin-
ia side of the Shenandoah Valley? It's not
something he has to wonder about. It's
something he knows, something he sees
every day.
"Three thousand acres and it looks just
like it did in the day," he said.
Audley Farm is part major business,
breeding and selling both Thoroughbreds
and cattle, and part living museum. It is
where a young man named George Wash-
ington spent many an hour working as
surveyor, where his ward and his wife's
granddaughter from a previous marriage,
Nelly Custis Lewis, lived out her final days.
It was a place once owned by Washington's
cousin, Warner Washington, where Rob-
ert E. Lee visited often to socialize, where
an estate house was built in the 1790s and
is still in operation today. It was where
the first Triple Crown winner, Sir Barton,
stood at stud. It is a place that progresses
without succumbing to unlikeable sides of
progress.
