Editor, The Smithfield Times:

Those of us who have lived in Smithfield for 20 or more years remember when Newport News developer Lewis McMurran bought the Betts-Hooper land in the Jericho section of Smithfield, planning to essentially erase the forests and fields where Windsor Castle Park now exists and put down what he cutely called “Villages of Windsor Castle,” which would be a larger version of the Grange development now being pushed by Joseph Luter IV. 

It would have had close-together single-family homes, multilevel apartments, duplexes, condominiums, commercial property and other features. Luter IV’s father, Joseph Luter III, came to the rescue and, after a long and difficult bargaining back-and-forth with McMurran, bought the property and built the park we have now. He then gave the park to the town. 

Why is the gobsmacking irony of this lost on everyone?

 

Dave Goodridge

Smithfield