Congressional Record/Volume 167/Issue 4/Extensions of Remarks/Honoring Trever Aubria Carter, Jr.
HONORING TREVER AUBRIA “T.A.” CARTER, JR.
HON. H. MORGAN GRIFFITH
OF VIRGINIA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
Mr. Griffith. Madam Speaker, I rise in honor of Trever Aubria “T.A.” Carter, Jr., who passed away on December 27, 2020 at the age of 93. T.A. was a veteran, architect, and philanthropist in Virginia’s Roanoke Valley.
T.A. was born on December 20, 1927 to Trever Aubria Carter, Sr. and Pernell Jackson Carter Smith. He graduated from Jefferson High School. After serving in the United States Navy at the end of World War II, he earned a degree in architecture from Virginia Tech.
The properties T.A. helped develop dot the landscape of western Virginia. He launched the Double T Corporation with T.D. Steele and also worked in partnerships with other businessmen. Among the locations T.A. helped develop were Crossroads Mall, the first enclosed shopping mall in Virginia, and Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke, University Mall in Blacksburg, Hunting Hills Country Club, properties for the Marriott hotel chain in Roanoke and Blacksburg, and residential neighborhoods including the Stonegate neighborhood and the Stonegate Swim Club. He was a hands-on developer who visited his projects every day they were under development.
T.A. contributed to the architecture of western Virginia but he contributed in other ways. He advocated for Explore Park in Roanoke and Bedford Counties. As a devotee of his alma mater, Virginia Tech, he established the T.A. Carter Professorship in the College of Architecture, and he supported Roanoke College in Salem as well. T.A. also belonged to the Salem Rotary for many years.
T.A. was known for his kind and charitable nature, taking an interest in the people of his community and his profession and supporting their endeavors. I was a recipient of his generosity. The Stonegate Swim Club which he built and owned had an initiation fee and a membership fee, but he let a single-parent schoolteacher in the area pay the fees in installments for her children so they could use the facility. As one of those children, I enjoyed the opportunity to swim and took it up as a lifelong hobby. I am a member of that swim club to this day.
T.A. is survived by his wife of 71 years, Jeanette Watson Carter; his daughter, Treva Jean Carter and fiancé Alan; his son, Edward Paul Carter and wife Juliette; his granddaughter, Amber Miller Mason; grandsons Jeremy Wyatt Carter and wife Kel and Benjamin Gerald Carter and wife Melissa, and great-grandchildren Maggie, Carter, Wyatt, and Millie. I wish to offer my condolences on the loss of T.A., who did so much for the development and support of the Roanoke Valley.