about · since the beginning
Fifty years on Three Notch'd Road.
When this practice opened in 1975, Crozet was an orchard town with a train stop — Old Trail was pasture, and Route 250 was how you got everywhere. Fifty-plus years later, the town has grown into one of Virginia's most sought-after family addresses, and the practice has grown with it, without ever leaving.
That continuity is rare enough to be worth writing down. This is the short version.
The founding: Dr. Taylor
Dr. Taylor opened Crozet's first dental practice in 1975 and built it the only way that works in a town this size: one well-treated family at a time. Kids he treated grew up, stayed or came back, and brought their own kids — the quiet compounding that turns a dental office into a fixture.
He practiced here for decades before retiring, and his film — the founder telling the fifty-year story himself — is coming to this page. The standards he set never retired: plain talk, careful work, and the assumption that every patient is also a neighbor.
The second chapter: 2012
In 2012, Dr. James Willis founded Willis & Associates from this Crozet office with a staff of five — and grew it into Virginia's largest doctor-owned dental group, now 23 locations. Today that group spans the state — and every office it has opened runs on habits that were formed in this one: plain explanations, numbers in writing, the person before the tooth.
And it is still the same kind of place: doctor-owned, run by the family that built it, growing the way it started — one patient, one practice, one handshake at a time.
Today
Today the practice Dr. Taylor started is the longest-serving dental team in Crozet and Western Albemarle — 13 operatories, three full-time doctors, and at least two full-time doctors in the building, Monday through Friday.
Fifty years built the trust. What keeps it is what happens today: a schedule with real room for new patients, treatment plans in plain English with the numbers in writing, and a front desk where a person answers the phone.
That is what fifty years teaches a practice — trust is never inherited. It is re-earned every morning at eight.
Through the years
Dr. Taylor, Dr. Willis, and the early team. 
Ribbon day at the practice. 
Dr. Taylor's founding story, in his own words — September 15, 1975, first patient.
Questions we hear in the chair
- When exactly was the practice founded?
- In 1975, by Dr. Taylor — Crozet's first dental practice, and the continuous care since then is the part that matters most.
- Has the practice always been in this location?
- No — and the move tells you something. Dr. Taylor's practice spent its early decades in a four-operatory office on Crozet Avenue. Around 2014 it moved to purpose-built space at 5690 Three Notch'd Rd Suite 100, Crozet, VA 22932 — today a 13-operatory facility with room for three full-time doctors and technology the old office could never have held. Same team, same standards, far more capacity for a growing town.
- Is the practice part of a chain?
- We're part of Willis & Associates, a family of dental offices across Virginia — so yes, we're a group. But that's not really what this question is asking. Much of dentistry today is owned by private equity firms headquartered out of state: the name on the door stays local, the ownership doesn't. That's what we're not. Willis & Associates is doctor-owned and locally owned, with no private equity and no outside investors. Dr. James Willis founded the practice in this Crozet office in 2012, still treats patients, and still lives here. We believe dentistry works best when the people making clinical decisions are dentists — people who answer to patients, not spreadsheets or investors. The difference isn't the size of the group. It's who the group answers to. Here, that's you.
Serving Crozet for 50+ years. At least two full-time doctors in the building, Monday through Friday.