Susannah Hornsby and Leslie LePage by the sign welcoming home Sam, LePage\u2019s son, and also reminding him of some outdoor chores. Submitted photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nPeople passing through Yancey Mills on Hillsboro Road are sure to see Harry: In fact, more than a few people drive by specifically to see him, especially as the seasons change. It\u2019s hot now, so Harry hangs around the back yard in his swimsuit and beach accessories, including the floaties that he might need should he take a swim.\u00a0 <\/span>Unfortunately, the scanty attire draws attention to Harry\u2019s lack of muscle tone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nNo need to worry. It\u2019s natural that Harry has no muscles, nor fat, nor even skin. He\u2019s a skeleton, his 12-foot length propped up in the yard of Jessie Mustian. As you might have guessed, Mustian is a fan of Halloween.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s actually more than a fan, Mustian said: \u201cI\u2019m a huge Halloween fanatic.\u201d For her birthday in October 2020, she had just moved to her home in Yancey Mills, a home she has come to love, not only because of the area\u2019s natural beauty, but because of her neighbors, who turned out to be a lively, imaginative, close-knit group of friends who cheer for Harry\u2019s seasonal outfit changes and are the living invitees to an annual Halloween party at the Mustian household.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.crozetgazette.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Yancey.-Jessie-Mustian-Harry-and-mutual-friends-enjoy-the-warm-days-in-their-Hillsboro-Road-backyard.-Submitted-scaled.jpg\")
Jessie Mustian, Harry, and mutual friends enjoy the warm days in their Hillsboro Road backyard. Submitted photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cWhen I was about to celebrate my birthday that year, these 12-foot skeletons had just come on the market,\u201d Mustian remembers. \u201cI told everyone who would listen that this would be the ideal birthday present for me.\u201d Privately, she had little hope of becoming a proud skeleton owner. \u201cThey were expensive, and they were an immediate hit, selling out everywhere,\u201d she said. Somehow, family and friends found Harry, chipped in to buy him, and surprised Mustian on her early-October birthday.<\/p>\n
It seemed a shame to relegate the bony bon vivant to storage after just a few days in the spotlight, so Mustian decided to keep him as a permanent fixture whose outfit signals an upcoming cause for celebration, whether Christmas, Easter, St. Patrick\u2019s Day, or a welcome change of seasons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nSo far, passersby have received Harry as a light-hearted welcome to the neighborhood rather than a ghoulish reminder of the impermanence of the human body. Mustian and Harry get letters and postcards from strangers thanking them for the display and encouraging them in their efforts to bring a smile to the faces of people they don\u2019t even know.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cLight and joy,\u201d Mustian said: \u201cthat\u2019s what we were after.\u201d<\/p>\nMustian\u2019s talent for entertaining and bringing people together is more than you would expect of an amateur. She\u2019s actually a professional, having just accepted a job directing activities at the Sentara Martha Jefferson Community Health and Outreach Center in Charlottesville.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe Plant Doctor<\/b><\/h3>\n
Across the road, Mustian\u2019s neighbor, Katie Kempson, has amassed a huge array of plants that, like Harry, attract attention in this interesting neighborhood. Although she undeniably has a green thumb, Kempson did not buy them or even plant them. \u201cAll of them were brought to me because they were struggling for life,\u201d she said. Kempson, AKA \u201cthe plant doctor,\u201d has several strategies for nursing sick flowers, succulents, shrubs and house plants back to health. First, she checks the soil\u2013\u2013\u201cif they\u2019re from around here, it\u2019s probably clay,\u201d she noted\u2013\u2013then she mixes up a vitamin-rich potion that almost inevitably promotes healing. \u201cSome of them have been over-watered, and some under-watered,\u201d she said. After monitoring the water intake, Kempson carefully checks the plants over time.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.crozetgazette.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Yancey.-Katie-Kempson-welcomes-people-to-the-neighborhood-with-a-thriving-border-of-plants-all-at-one-time-needing-care-thats-shes-restored-to-health.-Submitted-scaled.jpg\")
Katie Kempson welcomes people to the neighborhood with a thriving border of plants, all at one time needing care, that\u2019s she\u2019s restored to health. Submitted photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nKempson started out providing a bit of a plant ICU for plants from a couple of friends; word got out and she became overrun with her vastly improved patients. \u201cIdeally, I\u2019d nurse them back to health and the owners would come and pick them up,\u201d she said.\u00a0 <\/span>In reality, many of the plant owners are convinced that their plants would once again suffer under their care, or they forget, or they move away, leaving the plant doctor with a huge number of now-healthy plants. Many of them can be seen from the road growing and thriving as a great counterpoint to Harry\u2019s all-too-dead affect.<\/p>\nLike Mustian, Kempson is no hobbyist, but a serious, credentialed professional. She has a master\u2019s degree in landscape architecture from Virginia Tech. She moved to Crozet to oversee the median plantings in Old Trail and has gone on to direct the landscaping at Crozet Mini-Storage for Creation Appreciation, an Afton firm. The lush vegetation at her home pales in comparison to the thousands of ground cover plants, 91 trees and 454 shrubs she\u2019s planting to soften the new construction.<\/p>\n
News You Can Use<\/b><\/h3>\n
Continue east on Hillsboro and you\u2019ll come to another imaginative structure, this one conceived and maintained by Suzanna Hornsby. Hornsby moved to Crozet in 2001 because of good memories of her years living in the then much smaller Crozet community as a student at UVa. \u201cI\u2019ve seen Crozet grow,\u201d she said, \u201cand it seemed as though as we attracted more people, we actually got farther apart.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThat feeling increased during the isolation of the pandemic, and started Hornsby thinking about how people gathered local information before the popularity of social media: \u201cThey\u2019d go to the town square,\u201d she said, \u201cor hear talk among neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.crozetgazette.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Yancey.-Patriotism-is-alive-and-well-on-Hillsboro-Road.-Submitted-scaled.jpg\")
Patriotism is alive and well on Hillsboro Road. Submitted photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nShe mentioned the Crozet Gazette: \u201cWe all love it,\u201d she said, \u201cbut since it comes out monthly, I wanted a way to alert people to happenings in the neighborhood and beyond day to day.\u201d She had a good connection with the schools through her daughter, a student at Brownsville, and thought the schools could also benefit from public reminders of upcoming events.<\/p>\n
She hit upon the idea of a sign that could be seen from the road, and started scouring Facebook Marketplace for a suitable model. Sure enough, she located a large sign that came with all the letters she\u2019d need to make frequent changes.<\/p>\n
To enable people to find out a little more about the basic postings, a friend made her a vinyl QR code that people could scan to get the rest of the story. Since then, the neighborhood has been alerted to upcoming elections, birthdays, patriotic events, ways to support local nonprofits, even the approach of the full moon.<\/p>\n
Rain or shine, Hornsby fulfills her mission, changing the sign by hand whenever needed. When she\u2019s out there braving the elements, people often stop and thank her for the community service.<\/p>\n
Like her neighbors, she knows more than a little about how to accomplish her goals. She\u2019s a professional public relations specialist, a talent that shows in her wonderful website, crozetnewzyoucanuse.com. That\u2019s where you\u2019ll find the way to announce your event or personal milestone to everyone who travels along Hillsboro Road.<\/p>\n
The three neighbors each have their own way of presenting their interests to those who roll through Yancey Mills, but they share the same mission (in Hornsby\u2019s words): \u201cConnecting the community, one drive-by at a time.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.crozetgazette.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Susannah Hornsby and Leslie LePage by the sign welcoming home Sam, LePage\u2019s son, and also reminding him of some outdoor chores. Submitted photo. People passing through Yancey Mills on Hillsboro Road are sure to see Harry: In fact, more than a few people drive by specifically to see him, especially as the seasons change. It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1950610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1950609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Yancey-Mills-Roadside-Entertainment-Community.-Susannah-Hornsby-and-Leslie-LePage-by-the-sign-welcoming-home-Sam-LePages-son-and-also-remin.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1950609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1950610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1950609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1950609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1950609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.crozetgazette.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Yancey.-Susannah-Hornsby-and-Leslie-LePage-by-the-sign-welcoming-home-Sam-LePages-son-and-also-reminding-him-of-some-outdoor-chores.-Submitted-scaled.jpg\")