Come down the road into Unison and the village arrives the way it always has. A bend, a stone wall someone laid by hand, a few houses built when the road was new, and then open pasture again. It is close to what a traveler would have seen here two hundred years ago. Villages like this one usually disappear a field at a time. This one has not, and not because anyone forgot about it. Every generation that has lived here has decided, again, to keep it.

Since 2001, that decision has had an organization behind it. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, run by neighbors, working to protect the history, the landscape, and the community life of Unison and the Loudoun Valley countryside around it.

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Our Mission

To keep the historic village of Unison and the countryside around it recognizably itself, through advocacy, education, and preservation.

 

What We Do

Protecting Our Heritage

There is no museum here. The historic houses have people living in them, and the historic fields are still being worked. Our job is to keep it that way, and to make sure the record of it cannot be lost. Unison is listed on both the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places, and in 2011 the 8,000-acre Unison Battlefield Historic District, was established, so the war fought across these fields cannot be quietly built over.

Defending the Landscape

Open land stays open because somebody sits through the hearing. When a proposal comes before the county, that is usually us, with as many neighbors as we can bring along. We organize neighbors, work with county officials who know us, and help landowners place their property in conservation easement, which is the most durable protection available. So far it has held, and the countryside is still open.

Fostering Community

Preservation depends on neighbors knowing one another, so we spend about as much time on porches as in hearing rooms. We work out of the historic Unison Store, which this Society restored and still maintains, and we are working to improve it to make it into our community hub, what a village store has always done. We publish a newsletter about the things that affect life here: groundwater, well water, what is on the county docket. We host workshops. And on summer evenings we put chairs on the porch for Music on the Porch, and once a year the whole village turns out for Unison Heritage Day.

 

It Takes a Village

This village has come through a war, two centuries of change, and more development proposals than anyone cares to count. What would undo it is not any of those things. It is neglect, and neglect is the one thing we can prevent.

Whether you have lived here your whole life, farm down the road, or came for the Virginia history and stayed for the afternoon, there is a place for you here, and something here for you to do. Help us hand this valley on the way we found it. Join us in keeping Unison, Unison.

 

Get Involved

• Become a member or make a donation

• Subscribe to the newsletter

• Join us at the next event

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WHO WE ARE

Unison Preservation Society Board of Directors

Kim Roszel, Chair

Molly Townsend, Treasurer

Logan Cumberland, Secretary 

 

Ron Blankenship

Christine Case

Coe Eldredge

Robin-Eve Jasper

Gillian Sims

Jack Woulfe

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Advisory Board
Harry Bigley
Steve Chase 
Jane Covington
Julie Diehl
Maria Eldredge 
Susan Ferster
Kim Hart
Caroline Helmly
Tom Hopkins
Howard Lewis
Tobin McGregor
Gordon McKinley
Zach Roszel
Owen Snyder
Linda Stuntz
Chris Townsend