Student renderings are warmly received

MARTINSBURG - Although the temperatures were chilly, renderings of the Matthews Foundry by West Virginia University landscape architect students were warmly received Wednesday by a crowd of residents and Martinsburg city officials.

"They look great," Jim Gess of Bunker Hill said. "A lot of thought has gone into this project and it was great to get the students involved. This should pay big dividends for Martinsburg and Berkeley County."

Gess attended the informal unveiling of the landscape renderings on behalf of Richard Matthews Keller, whose mother, Hilda Matthews Keller, was the daughter of T.E. Mathews, who, along with his brothers, operated the foundry until 1994.

Journal photo by John McVey

Madison Kovall, a landscape architect student at WVU, explains her concept to redevelop the Matthews Foundry in Martinsburg to Vincent Groh, the owner of the property, Wednesday.

The two-story, limestone structure was built around 1851 by Samuel Fitz of Hanover, Pa. He specialized in metal waterwheels, and the first all-metal waterwheel may have been built in Martinsburg.

When it closed 20 years ago, the foundry was the longest continuously operating industrial site in West Virginia.

Gess said Keller, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who grew up in Martinsburg, is interested in the foundry redevelopment project and imagines he will be pleased with the ideas the students presented Wednesday.

In October, about 30 of Professor Carrie Moore's landscape architect students toured the foundry site beside the Tuscarora Creek at the south end of the North Queen Street underpass. As a class assignment, the students created landscape and land-use designs of the foundry and surrounding property.

"They came up with some really creative ideas," Moore said Wednesday. "They embraced the historic nature of the property. They loved the historic nature of the architecture and the history of the property. And it's on a stream. You don't get a great design opportunity like that all the time."

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Student renderings are warmly received