Steve Hedberg

As of this summer, two institutions will be closing.

After Finals Weekend, the Villa Diner and the Cavalier Inn will be knocked down as the UVA Foundation, which provides real estate services for the University, redevelops the area.

The Cavalier Inn was built in 1965; the UVA Foundation purchased the property in 1998, according to Tim Rose (Grad ’93), chief executive officer of the University of Virginia Foundation, and Colette Sheehy, UVA senior vice president for operations. While no concrete plans have been made to replace the inn, “recommendations from a Hospitality Task Force appointed by University President Teresa A. Sullivan reflect the need and demand for a new hotel and conference space on the Ivy Corridor site,” Rose and Sheehy noted. When asked about plans for the site, Rose and Sheehy said, “We are still studying the site and which programs are best suited to be located there. No final decisions have been made and there is no specific timetable for construction other than the central green space, which we would begin after demolition of the Cavalier Inn” in June 2018.

Ken Beachley and his wife, Jennifer, have owned the Villa Diner since 2005, when they bought it from a restaurateur who’d operated a Mediterranean-meets-Italian menu there since the 1980s.

“It has a very neighborhood feel,” Beachley says of the Villa. “We know most of our customers by name, and we encourage that feeling. Even regular customers get to know each other.”

Beachley says he’d been told for years that UVA—from whom he rents the land and space—might demolish the current properties. Still, he says, “It’s sad, and we really do have a lot of customers who will be sad.”

Beachley says he is finalizing contracts to open the Villa Diner in a new Charlottesville location by July 1, 2018.