Kelly & Rick Sheridan

Both Rick and I lived in Manhattan all of our adult lives. I had a career in magazine publishing, and Rick was the director of the photo studio at the American Museum of Natural History as well as a freelance TV and theater director. When Rick decided to take early retirement from the Museum to take care of me full-time after I sustained a brain-stem injury, we knew we’d have to retire outside of New York City because of its formidable high cost-of-living. We wanted to move to another urban environment but didn’t want to move to another large city (because we’d surely constantly compare it to Manhattan, which we adored). We wanted to try a small city that had its share of restaurants and galleries and amenities.

We selected Asheville, NC. While driving to Asheville to meet the moving van containing our furniture and belongings, we stopped for an overnight in Roanoke. We drove through downtown and were very impressed by the revitalization taking place. The new art museum. The market district. The variety of eateries. The construction and remodeling underway throughout downtown. We drove past a building that advertised condos for sale. An hour later we toured three lovely loft-like SoHo-reminiscent condos. The condos felt so comfortable and familiar to us that two weeks later we decided to abandon our Asheville plans and move our furniture and belongings out of NC and north to VA. We decided to buy one of those lovely condos and join the revitalization of downtown Roanoke.