Sporting

For the next three hours or so, until the sun begins to set, this outdoor scene will play out again and again on the 3,500-acre Virginia estate known as Blandfield Plantation. Along with Royall, Pam and Pam’s brother, Mark Kiecker, the hunting party includes a few of Royall’s close friends: Judge Isaac Freeman, who proves to be an old hand at bird hunting; Richard Farland, who can hit just about anything flying; and Blair Farinholt, an avid waterfowler. Working in pairs, the hunters, led by Specter’s pointing and Pomfret’s guidance, flush quail. Bill Royall is impressed. “The birds are fast and plentiful,” he says. “This is as close to wild bird hunting as I have ever experienced on a preserve.”

For the quail hunting enthusiast or waterfowler, Blandfield Plantation seems to be a must-hunt destination. The sprawling property, just off Route 17 north of Tappahannock, has a rare mix of qualities—breathtaking views, impressive historic structures and abundant birds and waterfowl. The long, gravel drive winds past the restored Blandfield manor home built by Robert Beverley and completed in 1773, past waterfowl and quail habitats to finally end at a hunting lodge designed after the old Parramore Island Coast Guard Station on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The 5,000-square-foot lodge is perched on a cliff overlooking a 600-acre marsh and the Rappahannock River.

Blandfield looks like an estate that’s always been grand and well tended. But as anyone who’s owned or managed big properties might suspect, that wasn’t always the case. In the early 1980s, the estate was in somewhat sorry shape. The manor house had fallen into a state of disrepair, and the land seemed poised to become a high-end development. Then Mr. and Mrs. James C. Wheat Jr. and their son, James Wheat III, purchased the property. Wheat III, known as Jimmy to his friends, is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney and the University of Virginia who worked in the investment banking industry for years, including a stint with Wheat First Securities—a later iteration of J.C. Wheat & Co., an investment bank founded by his grandfather in Richmond in 1934. (Wheat First Securities, after a merger and an acquisition, was eventually absorbed by Wachovia Securities.) He says that after his father died in 1992, he spent 10 years working to pay off roughly $1 million of debt on Blandfield so that he could repurchase the land from the original investors.

As an outdoorsman, conserva­tionist and operator of a hunting business, Wheat III says that his goals for Blandfield are “to keep this place in the same, pristine condition it was in 200-plus years ago and to offer guests an experience that cannot be duplicated. Although our family originally bought this place as a place to hunt, our long-term objective was to act as stewards of this property and its future, and not to just live on its past glories.”