Aldie, VA (Dec. 1, 2025) — After nearly three years of careful evaluation, The Piedmont Environmental Council has made the difficult but necessary decision to carefully deconstruct the 1927 Gilberts gas station structure at the Gilberts Corner Farmers Market, located at the intersection of U.S. Routes 15 and 50, in the interest of public safety. The decision comes after a multi-year study with Virginia-based historic restoration specialists and engineering firms determined that the building’s condition makes historic restoration unfeasible and that renovation would require the cost prohibitive replacement of most of the historic structure. Deconstruction will begin on Tuesday, Dec. 2.
“As part of our commitment to create a safe and vibrant Gilberts Corner Market for all who sell and shop there, we’ve made this decision after careful study and consideration and with reverence for the gas station building’s place in the history of the region,” said PEC Gilberts Corner Farm and Land Manager Dana Melby. The Gilberts Corner Market will operate as usual during deconstruction.
PEC took ownership of the Gilberts Corner Farmers Market in 2019 and raised funds for both an archaeological study of the site to identify any significant historic or cultural resources at the site and the extensive study of the 1927 gas station building. “Though earlier studies suggested the building wasn’t viable for restoration or preservation, we proceeded with a commitment to explore all possible options and are disappointed that we were not able to achieve an adaptive use,” Melby said, adding that renovation to make the building safe would have required replacing virtually every piece of the building, leaving virtually none of the original structure intact. Therefore, recognizing the building’s unique place in the history of the region, PEC has painstakingly worked with historic preservation specialists to fully document its architectural details, including logs, photos and schematics, for any potential future reproduction. The deconstruction, scheduled to begin as soon as county permits are issued, will involve meticulous salvaging, cataloging, and storage of essential and historically important elements such as millwork, glass, light fixtures, doors and transoms.
Gilberts Corner and Gas Station
Once the last waystop heading west out of northern Virginia, before Route 15 stretched any further south, Gilberts Corner was named for William Augustus Gilbert, who bought 150 acres there in 1917 and built the original 22’ by 40’ wood lathe and stucco gas station in 1927 to support the area’s growing automobile traffic. Gilberts Gas Station became better known for its thick ham sandwiches and milk than for the 12-cents-a-gallon Sinclair gasoline sold there.
In 1952, Gilbert’s daughter and son-in-law, Ruth and Herman Wright, took over the business, and in 1956, the gas station building was moved back eight feet from the corner to make way for a traffic light, as U.S. Route 15 was extended farther south. The 1960s saw the ham sandwiches and milk phased out due to health department regulations. Gilbert’s gas station permanently closed in 1982 and its windows and doors boarded up in the years that followed. Today the failing building that marks its namesake intersection is viewed by some as an eyesore and by others as a historic landmark.
Gilberts Corner Conservation
In the 2000s, the abandoned gas station site and some 300 acres of surrounding lands were the focus of intense development pressures, planned for retail strip malls, big box stores, and sprawling subdivisions that would have forever altered one of the last remaining rural intersections in Northern Virginia. However, local residents mobilized to buy, preserve and donate much of that land to the Piedmont Environmental Council.
Today, the site of the old gas station is best known as the Gilberts Corner Market, a popular weekend destination to pick up authentic French pastries, locally famous barbecue, kettle corn, ice cream, fresh produce and meat. After taking ownership of the market in 2019, PEC has been working to enhance the market’s history as a place to find local food and fiber, which includes a long-term lease agreement with a local strawberry farm that uses the fields to grow strawberries for their CSA and sells on-site during the season.
On the lands enveloping the market, PEC has adopted and implemented a land management plan that focuses on public education and civic engagement, and the area has become a public access point to outdoor recreation, natural resource conservation and restoration, local food production in service to others, and historic preservation.
The centerpiece of Gilberts Corner is PEC’s Community Farm at Roundabout Meadows, which annually engages several hundred volunteers who help grow and harvest more than 55,000 pounds of vegetables, herbs, and fruit for donation to food pantry partners in Clarke and Loudoun counties. Just south of the community farm, about 100 acres is leased for livestock grazing, where PEC has implemented Agricultural Best Management Practices, including exclusion fencing, hardened crossings, and alternative drinking water supply for cattle, aimed at improving water quality along Howsers Branch and, ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay. Each year, a portion of the pastures are voluntarily enrolled in the Virginia Grassland Bird Initiative’s Summer Stockpiling practice, creating conditions that support native grassland bird survival.
In the southeast quadrant of Gilberts Corner, PEC has restored and created an 11-acre wetland and wildlife preserve accessible for education and passive recreation. A loop trail and the Bull Run Overlook, designed in collaboration with the Fauquier and Loudoun Garden Club and NOVAParks, meanders down the Old Carolina Road roadbed through the preserve’s open fields and around a majestic oak grove to Howsers Branch streambank.
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The Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) works to protect and restore the lands and waters of the Virginia Piedmont, while building stronger, more sustainable communities. Founded in 1972, PEC is a locally based, community-supported 501(c)3 nonprofit and accredited land trust. At the core of PEC’s approach is a focus on educating, engaging and empowering people to effect positive change in their communities.