I am overwhelmed by the automobiles at the culmination of the Monterey, California Car Week: The Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance. It quite takes my breath away, it being light years away from my price-point for automotive fun, which runs more to the demolition derby.
Our pal Mules volunteers to keep order at the Concours, watching to ensure the millionaires don’t riot or start looting. He had the early shift, and was there for the 0600 watch on the Stillwater Cove gate. at the far end, the tee area of the 18th fairway of the Pebble Beach course and the early morning drive-on:
(Photographer Tom Scott caught the formation arriving to take their places on the 18th fairway of the famed Pebble Beach Country Club).
“Some 220 prized cars stretched the length of the fairway, coming from five continents, 17 countries and over 3 dozen states….
The duties at the little-used entrance passed quickly and then it was my ‘car time’….. this is my 7th or 8th Concours, I know the layout and the routine…. but the bottom line is.. given the numbers, the variety and the crowd…. it’s hard to cover it all… and it’s one of those hard to describe events … without seeing it….”
The Concours is something very special- this year there were seventeen of only 99 Rucker automobiles ever built- they were the first front wheel drive cars, luxurious beyond belief, and I had never even heard of them before I got the summary note from Mules.
Between the various shows and auctions, something like a third of a billion dollars was spent on exotic motorcars this week in Monterey. It is a world apart from the one I am looking at this Monday morning at the farm. I ache from the stoop labor of yesterday- weeding my driveway, of all things, and my fingers are mangled from grasping for the pesky tap-roots amid the gravel.
I have other chores this morning- starting the Syclone, which is ready for another round of restoration, and the LTJG’s explorer after policing up the piles of mown grass in the front yard. I was about ready to collapse when I was done right around cocktail hour, and picked up this week’s edition of the Clarion-Bugle to catch up on local events in bustling Culpeper.
I was thunderstruck when I saw the article below fold by freelance writer Wally Bunker. The Spite House on Fleet Wood Hill is coming down!
My research indicates there is no relationship between the Cadillac Fleetwood and the history site of the heaviest fighting in the Battle of Brandy Station. There is a tangential relationship between the famous battle- largest cavalry engagement in North American history- and my Ford Crown Victoria P-71 Police Interceptor, when I drove it there one time to inspect the ground.
Looking at the commemorative marker near the summit of the hil, I discovered that I was also looking into the garage of Mr. Tony Troilo, whose family had lived on the summit for many years. The site had been the headquarters of General J.E.B. Stuart, and stayed in private hands after the war. Word was that the garish mansion was in retaliation for no one having deep enough pockets to pay what Mr. Troilo wanted for the property.
I don’t know about that, but I do know this: last year, several hundred preservationists (and me) donated modest sums to raise funds for the Civil War Trust to buy Tony for $3.6 million. In exchange, the Trust gained title to the land soaked with the blood of Rebels and Union troopers amounting to 56.5 acres at the epicenter of the fierce fighting on June 9, 1863.
There are also two houses, outbuildings, and an in-ground pool.
The battle marked the beginning of the Gettysburg campaign, the high watermark of the Confederacy, and the occupation of Culpeper by U.S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac the following winter.
Other actors in the great drama who appeared on Fleet Wood include Col. John S, Mosby, the famed Gray Ghost who conducted a daring twilight raid on Union wagons left behind when Union forces headed to the Mine Run Campaign. Mosby and 125 Partisan Rangers burned 40 wagons, took 23 Union prisoners and captured 112 mules and seven horses before heading to Woodville in Rappahannock County.
According to Bunker, “Demolishing the modern day structures will clear the hill to make it look somewhat like it did more than 150 years ago.. The newest and largest, which has been characterized as a McMansion, was occupied by the Troilo family in Dec. 2007.”
It is an ugly house, and it despoils a place that should be viewed as a national monument. I look at the damned thing everytime I drive to the farm in the Panzer of the Police Interceptor.
This is how it looked when I first got the Bluesmoibile:
(The 2004 Crown Vic P-71 Police Interceptor on the battlefield with the Spite House over its imposing right shoulder. Photo Socotra).
“It was a home,” Troilo is quoted as saying. “Now, it’s a house.” I am looking forward to when it will not be a house, but be gone, and the foundation hauled away. With the millions in his pocket, Tony can be philosophical. Bunker quotes him as saying that his father told him never to fall in love with material possessions, incluing houses.
“You never love something that can’t love you back.”
I don’t know about that. I love history, and I respect the history that happened on that hill. And I have to say that this news makes me happy.
I may not love my cars, but I do have to say that I have an extraordinary fondness for them. Which is not to say that the demolition derby can’t be grand fun, too.
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303