When the pandemic hit, Susan Goldberg and Geoffrey Etnire found themselves stuck in DC. Goldberg, the Editor-in-Chief of National Geographic, and her husband, a real estate lawyer, no longer had a way to escape their crowded city life.

Susannah Garrett decided to go for a run along Alone Mill Road, where she lives with her husband Walter. Barely a minute after she started running, she saw something that made her abandon her exercise: a realtor hammering a “For Sale” sign into the ground in the property adjacent to Susannah and Walter’s. Sprinting back to her house, she called friends to tell them the lot that they had all had their eye on for months was finally on the market. But it was all for naught: “Before I could even get three phone calls out they said it had already sold.”

The Goldsteins moved into their home in Lexington in August 2020. Since then, they spend five to six days a week in Lexington, and the rest in their Chantilly home. They’re not sure what they’ll do with their D.C. home yet, but they see their future revolving around Lexington.

Xavier was making a drive to Staunton when he came across a 5-acre plot in Fairfield that would be his future home. It’s a long way from D.C., and an even longer way from his birthplace in Béziers, France. But his dream of creating a sustainable food forest is here, amongst the vistas and villages of Rockbridge County: “I think this will be my last, big move.”