Building Shaped Like a Coffee Pot

Lexington, Virginia

On Highway 60 between Lexington and Buena Vista, a building that almost looks like a coffee pot sits on a the right side of a curving grade. The two-story corrugated metal structure qualifies as coffee-related by virtue of its roundness and the attached spout and handle.

Ellen Bryant shed some light on the origins of the big pot. Her grandfather's brother Kenneth Wills built the coffee pot in the late 1950s (the family usually referred to it as a teapot). "He operated it as a restaurant for a long time, until he moved his family to Virginia Beach. Kenneth Wills died in 1964 from a heart attack. His wife still resides in Virginia Beach."

The coffee pot has been inhabited by a succession of business; in the 1990s a vacation canoe rental operated from there. In 2010 the building was open for business as a fresh fish market, but closed by next report in 2012. The distinctive coffee pot elements are always visible.