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Havens | Wellsboro, Pa.
A Quaint Town With ‘Quiet Things’ to Do
By DAVE CALDWELL
Published: March 30, 2007
NYTimes
Some storefronts have changed over the years, but Main Street has held tight to its charm. Wellsboro is not just a place to zip through on the way to nearby Pine Creek Gorge, which is often called the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. Park your car, slip a dime in the meter, stroll through town — and putter into the past.
“I tell people you can set your watch back 50 years,” said Nelle Rounsaville, who moved to town 20 years ago and who now owns two bed-and-breakfasts in town and the Wellsboro Diner, an all-porcelain, drum-shaped eatery that has hunkered at the corner of Main Street and East Avenue since 1939.
Wellsboro, a town of about 3,300 residents 240 miles northwest of New York City, has become a popular place for second-home buyers who want to remember their first homes — as in, the homes they grew up in.
The town prides itself for being clean, safe and slow-paced. Fittingly, a fountain with a statue of Wynken, Blynken and Nod sits on the wide town green, across Main Street from the old stone Tioga County courthouse and the equally old brick jailhouse.
Real estate prices are low compared with those in many other places in Pennsylvania. Grover and Debra Wolf, who own a tree-care business in Oley, Pa., near Reading, bought a three-bedroom, 100-year-old, wood-frame house near the center of Wellsboro last August for $173,500.
The house was moved 50 to 100 feet about 15 years ago so that the lot could be subdivided, Mr. Wolf said. It was placed on a cement-block foundation and fitted with new plumbing and a modern kitchen. But the original oak woodwork remains.
“We bought all the charm — with all new fixings,” Mr. Wolf said. “I didn’t want to spend a lot of time when I came up here working on a house.”
While in Wellsboro, which they visit every two weeks, the Wolfs like to explore the town with their son, Tanner, 7, and venture to Pine Creek Gorge, which is about 10 miles west of town, not far off United States Route 6. “For us, it was getting our child to an area that was safe,” Ms. Wolf said, “an area promoting small community.”
Pine Creek Gorge, formed by melting glaciers and dotted with trees that show off blazing colors in the fall, is itself a destination. A railroad bed along meandering Pine Creek was turned into a bicycle trail. The gorge, which cuts deep into the Appalachian Plateau, is also an ideal place to hike, fish, hunt and camp and to ride snowmobiles and horses.
“There are things to do, but they’re quiet things to do,” said Scott Wilcox, a Wellsboro native and agent for Century 21 Wilkinson-Dunn, which is on Main Street.
The Scene
Shops along Main Street have slowly changed hands in the past few years and have become tonier. On the south side of Main Street are the Fifth Season antiques store and Pine Creek Outfitters (which offers raft trips and canoe and bicycle rentals). A former five-and-dime is now the Blue Thistle Boutique, which sells women’s clothing, and a popular Italian restaurant, the Timeless Destination.
Just off Main Street is a bagel shop and an old-timey movie house, the Arcadia — “Tioga County’s Finest Theatre,” the marquee reads. Plans are under way to build a performing arts center not far from the old courthouse and the jail, which is now home to the chamber of commerce and the Tioga County Visitors Bureau.
“Don’t ever call this place ‘hillbilly,’ because the people are sophisticated,” said Ed Lodge, who lives part time in Chester County, Pa., and bought a 2,500-square-foot second home in Wellsboro for $305,000 in November 2005.
The gaslights stop a block or two west of the town green, and Main Street turns residential. The street, and the small neighborhood that surrounds it, are lined with simple and handsome older homes, many with wood frames, but some made of brick. Wellsboro is nestled in tall hills, which are covered with trees that seem to trudge up the slopes.
Marsha and Bob Chesko first drove through Wellsboro eight years ago, when they still lived in Orlando, Fla. They liked the town so much that they ended up buying the Sherwood Motel. Most of their guests come up the same week every year, and request the same room.
“We’ve watched the ‘Andy Griffith Show’ on TV,” Ms. Chesko said, “and we said to each other, ‘This is just like Mayberry.’ It’s such a small, quaint town.”
Pros
United States Route 15, which connects Tioga County to Interstate 80, has been widened in recent years, trimming the weekend trip for second-home owners substantially. Mansfield University is about 15 miles to the east, and offers sports and cultural events. A newsworthy crime is often a whodunit that centers on a blown-up mailbox.
Cons
On summer and autumn weekends, the streets in Wellsboro can be clogged with traffic. Wellsboro has a McDonald’s and a Dunkin’ Donuts, but it is still a small and isolated town. The closest Wal-Mart, for example, is in Mansfield.
“The very things we like are the things that 18-year-olds growing up here don’t like,” Mr. Wolf said.
The Real-Estate Market
Richard Tickner, an agent for Koch Homestead Realty in Wellsboro, estimated that the value of homes in Wellsboro and in the region has increased by 12 to 15 percent since 2000.
Mr. Tickner had his best year ever in 2006, but said: “We don’t get the great big ups and the great big downs as in other places. It’s very stable.”
Kathy Doty, a broker with Penn Oak Realty in Wellsboro, said: “We always appreciate in value, but it’s a slow, steady climb. People realize they’re moving here because they like the area.”
Mr. Wilcox, the Century 21 agent, said that second homes were used differently now than they had been in the past. State Route 287, which weaves through mountains north into town, is speckled with hunting cabins that are now used at times other than deer season.
“When I was growing up, people would come up and use their hunting camps one or two weeks the whole year,” Mr. Wilcox said. “Now, they’re using them two or three months out of every year.”
Paul and Ellen Harrison, empty-nesters who own a general contracting business in Easton, Pa., bought a two-bedroom cabin on eight isolated acres west of town in 2001 for $105,000. They nearly sold the cabin two years later for $140,000, but decided to keep the property after prospective buyers backed out.
Mr. Harrison estimates that they spend every third weekend at the cabin, which sits among thousands of white birch trees. They have rented the cabin to cover their costs (their Web site is
www.whitebirchcabins.com), but Mr. Harrison said they were thinking about keeping the place to themselves.
“It’s pretty hard to leave once we get there,” he said.
Lay of the Land
POPULATION 3,342, according to a 2005 estimate by the Census Bureau. Tioga County’s population is estimated to be about 41,000. The population of the county can swell to approximately 80,000 on summer and fall weekends.
SIZE 4.9 square miles.
LOCATION North-central Pennsylvania. Wellsboro is about 50 miles north of Williamsport, 135 miles north of Harrisburg, 230 miles northwest of Philadelphia and 240 miles northwest of New York City.
WHO’S BUYING Mostly residents from south-central Pennsylvania cities, like Reading, Harrisburg and Lancaster, and residents of the Philadelphia suburbs.
GETTING THERE From the New York area, take Interstate 80 west to Exit 210B, to Route 15 north, to Route 6, then 12 miles west into town.
WHILE YOU’RE LOOKING The Sherwood Motel (2 Main Street, 570-724-3424;
www.sherwoodmotel.org) offers rates of $79 to $105 from May 1 to the first weekend in December, and $63 to $73 at other times. La Belle Auberge, at 129 Main Street, and La Petite Auberge, 3 Charles Street (570-724-3288;
www.nellesinns.com), two bed-and-breakfasts on the west side of town, offer rooms starting at $155 on weekends from May through early December, and $135 for the rest of the year.
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