Almighty credits for Virginia community

    Not many golf course communities can claim to have a featured role in a big budget Hollywood movie, but beginning tomorrow across the U.S., Old Trail in Crozet, VA, attains that status.

    Evan Almighty, starring nerdish but hot commodity Steve Carell, opens in theaters nationwide.  For those who have not seen the relentless stream of trailers on television the last three weeks, here's the gist of the storyline:  God appears to a U.S. Congressman and compels him to build an ark in the face of impending deluvian crisis.  Chaos ensues.

    There you have it.  The movie was filmed on location at Old Trail which, at the time, was a brand new community a few miles outside Charlottesville and eager for publicity.  When I turned into the community last year for a tour and round of golf at its interesting course -- click here to see my notes -- imagine my surprise to see a few hundred people emerging from large white tents and walking toward a five-story high structure that looked vaguely like an ark in construction.  Even stranger were the elephants and dozens of other animals tethered to poles. 

   Old Trail's Resident Expert This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. took me on a tour of the community after I wandered through on my own.  I pointed to one of the few houses that were finished, and the only one with a perfectly green lawn.  He drove me around the side to show me it was just a Hollywood facade, nothing behind it but supporting two by fours.  The rest of the community's housing was certainly more substantial and, as I wrote earlier, the golf course playable if a little quirky. 

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