Our house in Baton Rouge; like @John Brunner said, lots of "used to be." It had a huge yard, a little over an acre. We moved from here in 1991.
So who else lived in that duplex, Al? Which level did you live in? You don't see too many of them these days.
How weird to see Al's 2-story duplex picture--I was just about to post this... When we decided to move back to Texas in the early 90's, my husband's work transfer went into effect before mine so I remained behind in Baton Rouge for nearly a year to finish a work project and until I could get an assignment I wanted. We sold the house and I moved to the old Spanish Town section of Baton Rouge near downtown. I rented the top apartment in this 2-unit duplex and I loved it. The door to my apartment was on the front porch next to the door to the downstairs unit; it opened and the stairs were inside. There was a nice sized balcony on the back, off the kitchen. I could sit out there in the evenings and see the capitol building just a few blocks away. My husband and I would see each other on weekends, so we did lots of driving in those days.
This is the google street view of my family's old home place in south GA where we lived when I was a kid. The farmhouse was sold and moved off the property after my parents died, and this particular plot of land still belongs to my brother's estate. (My sister and I sold our share of the farm years ago.) The road wasn't paved when I was a kid. The small white structure still there is the well pump house. Strange that it's still there after all this time, and looks to be in fair condition.
So someone bought the old house to relocate to their own property to live in? Have you seen it since? I can understand the motives for taking your own home with you to a new lot, but moving someone else's house... I know you've spoken of the place before, but I don't recall how large the farm was. I'm in an area that might be like the one you grew up in (farms of several hundred acres abound here), but before that I was always in neighborhoods, where one acre was "the big place on the block." ps: I was gonna ask folks in general if all this researching and documenting was stirring up emotions for them as well. I've not thought about these places or those phases of my life in a long time, and had to refer to tax returns to recall some of the addresses from my young adult years so I could look up pics.
Yes; the house was jacked up and physically relocated. When my dad got too old to farm, a younger man leased the land and farmed it. He and my dad became very close; he was very kind to daddy after my mother died and he was alone there. Anyway, when daddy died the guy approached us to buy the house and we agreed. None of us had any interest in living there or maintaining it so we sold it pretty cheap (this was over 20 years ago.) I have seen the house in its new location but it has been painted and had some additions made so it's barely recognizable. It no longer has a fireplace and chimney so I guess dismantling those would have been more trouble than it was worth. The farm was just over 300 acres and has 3 ponds and a natural spring. One of my nieces and her husband bought part of it, directly across the road from the old home place. They built a fancy big house in a spot close to where a tobacco barn used to be.
I like Retained Chain of Custody stories like that. That's nice that someone who has an attachment to your family is living in the home and it continues to serve, and that some of the land stays in the family in one way or another. 300 acres is right in the range of most of the small farms around here. I guess that's the top-end of something that's manageable by a single family. I've met a few folks here our age who grew up on tobacco farms. Some number of them are still on the legacy family property...or at least, on parts of it.