Boylan Heights bar at center of U-Va. drinking scene

CHARLOTTESVILLE — It’s Saturday night at Boylan Heights, one of the largest bars near the University of Virginia, and the upscale burger joint undergoes a transformation. In the upstairs dining room, the music is turned up to blaring, the lights dim. The bartenders switch from glasses to throwaway plastic cups. Security guards take their places. And a line of guys in button-downs and women in heels begin streaming up the stairs.

This is the place where the tempestuous relationship between George Huguely V and Yeardley Love often played out. Just down the street from where they lived, it was their favorite bar, their extended living room, their off-campus dining hall. It was the setting for pivotal conversations, family gatherings and boozy celebrations. It’s where Huguely handed out his phone number to women, where a crowd of student athletes often materialized, where Love and her roommates had brunch the last day she was alive.

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(Jenna Johnson/The Washington Post) - Boylan Heights, a restaurant and bar near the University of Virginia campus, was a popular hang-out of Yeardley Love and George Huguely.

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The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson reports on the closing arguments in the murder trial of George Huguely, who is accused of killing his ex-girlfriend Yeardley Love. The jury will begin deliberating on Wednesday. (Feb. 19)

More on this Story

• For jury, details on Huguely video could be key
• High times at Boylan Heights, the bar frequented by Huguely, Love
• The Huguely case: What makes for a media mob?
• Medical examiner: Love’s injuries came from various impacts

View all Items in this Story

• George Huguely’s videotaped statement played for jury
• Friends considered alcohol intervention for Huguely
• Huguely trial begins Monday with jury selection
• Huguely pleads not guilty in slaying of U-Va. athlete
• Huguely indicted on first-degree murder charge
• Case of U-Va. athlete’s death goes to grand jury
• Love's lacrosse number is retired by U-Va.
• Medical record review for Love denied
• U-Va. slaying prompts campus safety talks
• Report: Love, Huguely fought days before her death
• U-Va. now requires disclosure of criminal record
• Huguely: A man of privilege, rage?
• Huguely's behavior not reported before crime
• Thousands gather at Yeardley Love funeral
• Report: Huguely attacked sleeping student
• Huguely allegedly slammed Love's head into wall
• Huguely charged in death of fellow U-Va. student

“We were just eating, just casually drinking, talking,” Caitlin Whiteley, Love’s roommate and teammate, said on the stand. “We were talking about plans for the summer.”

Now, with Huguely, 24, on trial for murder, the place buzzes with talk of the case, and Huguely’s and Love’s faces flash on flatscreen televisions as the nightly news soundlessly delivers the latest developments.

The preppy sports bar might seem like an institution to undergraduates who cycle through town every four years, but the place has been open just over three years. Boylan Heights is named for a neighborhood in Raleigh, N.C., (along with a 1980s album by the Connells, a Raleigh-based pop-rock band) and has an academic-themed menu that labels appetizers as “registration” and desserts as “extra credit.” You can order “The Valedictorian,” a vegan burger made from brown rice, carrots and pecans — or create your own using a No. 2 pencil and SAT-style bubble sheet. And then there are the only-in-a-college-town drink specials, such as $3 pitchers on Sundays.

When 22-year-old Love was found dead and Huguely was arrested on May 3, 2010, their circle of teammates and friends was forced to do something rarely asked of college students: Document with legal precision everything that happened that weekend, including who slept at whose apartment, who drank with whom, who got what text messages and who noticed that Huguely had yet again become wasted on what they called “Sunday Funday.”

Many of those friends took the stand this month, sometimes with their parents sitting in the courtroom, to say those things out loud. In that sometimes embarrassing testimony, Boylan Heights was frequently the backdrop.

One of the women who testified had spent time with Huguely late on a Tuesday night, just days before Love died. She was asked about that night by Commonwealth’s Attorney Warner “Dave” Chapman.

“I saw him at Boylan Heights and then saw him at my house,” she said. “He called and said he was coming over.”

Chapman asked if Huguely described what had happened earlier that night. Others had testified that Love stormed into Huguely’s apartment, yelled at him for seeing and texting other women, and hit him with her purse. “He did not.”