Entrepreneur Aims to Bring Flair of Lahore (Pakistan) to Lahore (Va.)

By Sandhya Somashekhar

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 12, 2007; Page B01

LAHORE, Va. On his first drive through this central Virginia town, Noor Naghmi didn't notice the barns or cow pasture, or the tractors driving  by. He imagined gardens and domes and spires. He pictured arabesque archways reflected in glossy pools. He saw all the grandeur of his home town of Lahore, Pakistan, which he had left more than three decades before.

So he decided to buy the town.

"I didn't know where to start, what to do," he recalled of that day two years ago. "So I went to a Realtor there, and I said, 'Look, I want to buy Lahore.' "

If the $3 million deal goes through, he will renovate a handful of boarded-up buildings in hopes of turning them into a regional tourist attraction for South Asians and others.

His plans include a banquet hall fashioned after his home town's famous Shalimar Gardens. He envisions a library and a museum dedicated to the histories of both Lahores. He wants to open a bed-and-breakfast to serve chickpea curry alongside eggs and toast. And that is just the beginning, he said.

At the moment, it's difficult to imagine Naghmi's vision. The center of the 1,500-resident farming town about 75 miles south of Washington is a strip of whitewashed buildings on a quiet stretch of road. An old water pump sits idle. A faded Esso sign creaks in the breeze.

The venture is an expensive gamble for Naghmi, 49, a real estate and mortgage broker who lives in Fairfax County with his wife and three children. But it is a small price to pay to fulfill a dream, he said.

"I have this feeling I was born to do this," Naghmi said. "People might think I'm crazy for saying so, but that is what I believe."

He has as many skeptics as boosters, and some of the most apprehensive, he said, are his family members. But Naghmi did not reach this point in his life by avoiding risk. Immediately after graduating from Oxon Hill High School in Maryland, he pursued his first dream -- acting. He performed in films in Pakistan before returning to the United States to marry, raise children and start a business. He says he thinks that his successful ventures will help to make his Lahore dream possible.

His connection with the Virginia town began when he was a teenager in Pakistan in the early 1970s, when he read about it in a local newspaper article. The story was written by Akmal Aleemi, a Pakistani journalist on a fellowship in Washington who had stumbled upon the town during a meandering weekend excursion.

"Everyone thought I was joking, till one of my companions noticed the road sign that had made me stop," Aleemi wrote, according to an English translation that Naghmi has. " 'God is great,' one of my friends said. 'Look, it has only taken us four hours to get from Washington to Lahore.' "

While their Lahore was a teeming city of millions, this Lahore was a quiet community of about 25 cattle-ranching families. Their Lahore's history reached back 3,000 years, but this one's started in the 1800s, when the owner of the general store picked the name out of a book on India.

Still, Aleemi wrote, it assuaged a bit of their homesickness.

"When we finally drove off, we all took one farewell look at Lahore, which had brought us home thousands of miles away from home," he wrote.

Naghmi's father, also a journalist, moved the family to the United States a short time after the article was published. But it wasn't until two years ago, at a dinner party, that Naghmi thought of the town again. A friend asked whether he knew there was a Lahore in Virginia.

In an instant, he felt the thrill he had when he read that article, he said.

"I got on the Internet the next day," he said. "I went to Lahore that same day. I was so excited. Just to drive on that Lahore Road, it was like a dream. Maybe I'm homesick, I don't know. But I knew I had to do something."

After a quick drive through town -- it's over in a blink -- he headed to nearby Orange, walked into the first real estate office he found and announced his intention to buy the town, he said.

"He came in with a coat and tie, Indian in color, and I said to myself, 'What in the world is this?' " recalled the broker, G. Alex Waugh Jr.

The 235 acres Naghmi sought, including the center of the town, were owned by Nancy Wallace, a farmer and tough negotiator who said she had no plans to sell, although "everything I have is for sale, for the right price," she said.

After a year and a half of tense negotiations, Waugh and Naghmi persuaded her to sell. The deal will be sealed if the county agrees to grant Naghmi a special-use permit to operate a bed-and-breakfast in an area now zoned as agricultural. Local leaders say it will probably go through.

Naghmi's offer has been cautiously welcomed by residents, who miss the general store that closed, as so many mom-and-pop businesses did in the 1990s. They have longed to see something in its place -- especially a venture that would create jobs. In the community, rooted in the state's agricultural past, the dominant industry has languished, its farmers have dwindled in number and its open space has been gobbled up by housing developments.

Many say Naghmi's plan is best for what it lacks.

"Anything you can do with this block of land that is not growing houses will be welcomed by the people of Orange County, and that's a fact," said Walter Smith, a cattle rancher and planning commissioner who lives in Lahore.

Some supporters of the project worry that the some in the conservative area might not accept the dark-skinned customers, with their foreign dress and accented English, that the development is meant to attract.

"We have told him, for now, take it slow," Waugh said. "There will be that time, and it will come, but let's take it slow."

But Naghmi is barreling forward, confident that his vision will gain approval from the county and the project's neighbors.

"A Lahori is a Lahori, no matter where you are from," he said. "There is a saying, 'If you have not seen Lahore, you have not been born.' "

He has begun negotiating with a film studio in Hyderabad, India, to create the facades for his buildings. He recently put up a sign -- written in English, Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi -- advertising the coming of the Lahore Museum.

As he develops his project, Naghmi has promised to keep local history in mind and to preserve most of the open space around it.

He plans to leave the pump out front and the old metal gas station sign swinging across the street. The museum, he said, will showcase the history of one Lahore in one room and the other Lahore in another. He might augment the front porch with comfortable rocking chairs and a checker board.

Will people come?

"No, I don't think it will work," predicted Smith, the planning commissioner. "Then again, I have a reputation for being pessimistic."

Naghmi said it will succeed -- although maybe not in his lifetime, and maybe not in terms of profit. But he's willing to gamble.

"What did I bring here? When I came to this country, I had one dollar in my pocket," he said. "This country is for people who work hard and have dreams, and I think my dream is going to come true."

Staff researcher Eddy Palanzo contributed to this report.