Hunter's Head Serves Up a Heaping Portion of Coziness and Comfort By Neighborhood Flavor (Washington Pot) Sunday, December 7, 2003; Page PW05 Sitting before a warming fire with a bowl of hearty stew is my idea of how to weather a winter storm. I don't want to hear the windows rattling or the wind howling outside. I want someone else to tend the logs and refill my glass. I want to be at Hunter's Head Tavern in Upperville [Fauquier County]. This is the quintessential hunt country dining spot. It's not pretentious, the food is mostly organic -- much of it grown or raised at owner Sandy Lerner's nearby Ayrshire Farm -- and the welcome is always friendly. Located in the middle of town, just feet from busy Route 50, the tavern occupies historic Carr House, a portion of which dates to the 1750s. The walls are two feet thick, and the building is as sturdy as any modern structure could hope to be. It wasn't always so. Carr House was dilapidated and nearly razed during a multiyear zoning battle that Lerner, a co-founder of Cisco Systems Inc., waged before gaining approval to open the town's only dining establishment. In its two years of operation, Hunter's Head has become the neighborhood place. Open all day, except on Monday, when only dinner is served, Hunter's Head has also become a refuge for day-trippers and a welcome addition for families who have settled in far western Loudoun and Fauquier counties. Though there are separate lunch and dinner menus, basic pub fare -- stew, salads, pot pies and bangers (sausages) -- is served from opening until closing. Customers enter through a courtyard that becomes an outdoor dining room in warmer weather. A short hallway leads to the main room, or bar, which is fashioned after an English pub, right down to the list of beers and wines written on a blackboard and the costumed servers. It functions like a pub, too. Order drinks at the bar, then take them to the table. In addition to the food menu, on another blackboard are printed lists. You also order food at the bar, but a server delivers the meal to the table. To the left of the bar room is the Red Room, which is the original log cabin house. Plain wooden tables, paired with a variety of Windsor-style chairs, fill the room, which retains its original large fireplace. To the right of the bar room is the similarly outfitted West Room, with several delightful oil paintings and prints continuing the English pub theme. A small corner fireplace lends a relaxed and cozy air. The heavy emphasis on organic and vegetarian fare no doubt accounts for some of the tavern's business. Preparations tend to be simple and homey. But it also happens that much of the food is very good, especially the Guinness Beef Stew. Served steaming hot in a shallow plate and accompanied by earthy mashed potatoes, the stew fulfills all my comfort requirements for whiling away a stormy afternoon. Another good choice is afternoon tea. The warm scones are tender and flaky and not too sweet; the finger sandwiches (smoked salmon, cucumber, egg salad and cheese and tomato on a recent day) are tasty morsels that make you wish for more. The fresh greens, served with both the paté platter and the traditional English ploughman's platter of cheese, bread and pickles, were crisp and about as flavorful as lettuces get. The bangers were bland -- typically English -- but the mustard was fiery. Turtle soup, a special one day, was seductively rich, the turtle meat almost sweet. It was a wonderful antidote to the blustery weather, and a reminder of just how good old-fashioned fare can be. The organic beef, raised on Lerner's farm,is the restaurant's signature feature and more than worthy of that designation. The tender steak alone is worth the drive to Upperville. So is the spinach and strawberry salad, dressed with just a sheen of balsamic vinegar. Other dishes aren't so successful, even if they are organic. The shepherd's pie, for example, had little taste and was not the marriage of succulent beef and potatoes that it should have been. The lobster pieces in the lobster club sandwich tasted watery, rather than fresh and clean. And the crab soup had no punch. But save room for dessert, especially the dark chocolate cake and the apple crisp with warm vanilla custard. And ask for another couple of logs on the fire. ********** Hospital's Towering New Addition Fauquier Center First Step In Plan to Expand Services By Ian Shapira Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, December 7, 2003; Page LZ03 Fauquier Hospital officials last week showed off 41 new private rooms and new intensive care and critical care units that they say will improve health care at the facility and better meet the demands of a growing, aging county. The $65 million project is the first major renovation at the nonprofit hospital since it opened in 1956 on a hill overlooking Warrenton. "We want to send a strong signal that we're not just a country hospital," Rodger Baker, the hospital's CEO and president, said Wednesday at an open house that drew more than 200 community members and leaders. The new Fauquier Hospital Tower, a five-story curved brick tower with a sleek, stainless steel roof, is the first phase of an ambitious effort by the county's only hospital to expand services. By the middle of 2005, administrators plan to open a $9 million emergency room three times the size of the current one, a $4 million birthing center and a $7.5 million cancer treatment center in Gainesville to be owned by and operated with Prince William Health System. Hospital administrators said recent census figures offered good reason to expand. Since the 1990 census, the number of residents age 55 to 59 grew 57 percent, those 65 to 74 rose nearly 21 percent and those 75 to 84 grew 37 percent. The new tower's amenities will help physicians and nurses provide health care more efficiently and make the patient's stay more relaxing, administrators said. The spacious private rooms replace tight quarters that often must be shared. Patients will be able to order meals from a gourmet cafe on the ground floor whenever they want instead of during set hours. Mattresses can be inflated on one side so nurses can turn patients more easily to prevent bedsores. Pneumatic tubes located centrally on each floor will allow doctors and nurses to send blood specimens to the hospital lab quickly. Intensive care rooms will have more advanced equipment, such as flat-screen monitors that show 12 views -- instead of just one -- of a patient's electrocardiagram results. More views enable nurses to see different parts of the heart or vessels where there may be problems. "Now we just can push a button right when the patient's having the chest pains, instead of hauling in carts with more monitors," said Sandy Yates, director of the new critical and intensive care units. The outpatient special procedures unit, where minor surgeries, colonoscopies and gastroscopies will be performed, will have 14 private recovery rooms, up from the current three cramped rooms with five beds. The larger recovery space should reduce waiting time for all procedures from about one month to less than two weeks, said Dale Jeffries, director of emergency and ambulatory services. The hospital is paying for the new tower through 20- to 30-year bonds, which will largely be covered by patients' bills, Baker said. The Fauquier Hospital Foundation launched a campaign in September to raise $17 million to pay for the new emergency room, cancer center and birthing center. The money will also go to expanded cardiopulmonary services. The hospital's fundraising arm has received $2 million for the birthing center from the estate of Mary O'Shaughnessy, a Warrenton real estate investor and hospital auxiliary member. The hospital's volunteer auxiliary pledged $750,000 for the expanded cardiopulmonary services. The new tower houses 41 of the hospital's 86 beds. The remaining 45 beds will be in the old section of the hospital until further renovations are completed in two years, Baker said. Patients are to move into the new tower Dec. 30. David Black, 72, of Warrenton toured the new tower during Wednesday's open house and joked that he was ambivalent about the private rooms. "You won't have confusion anymore when visitors of your roommate come," said Black, a retired analyst with the Commerce Department and hospital auxiliary volunteer. "But then, you won't have anyone to talk to."