I asked my daughter The Heir to take some pictures for me while we were home in Western Maryland. The red brick house pictured here is protected from tear-down because it is historical. It was probably built around 1840, which means in all likelihood that it housed wounded soldiers from Antietam. My daughters and I were able to take a tour because the house is empty and someone had broken in, so it was easy to open the door.
The other pictures are the "neighborhood" in which the 1840 house now finds itself. Within 10 years it will be surrounded. The roads have been plotted out, the sewer lines laid. The developer is just waiting for the current real estate bust to turn around, and then he'll start churning out "luxury homes" again. But he can't demolish the old farmhouse. It will sit there till it crumbles from a broken heart.
My sister is concerned about the old house. Since it was broken into, she is sure it will be used by teenagers for Satanic rituals. If you ask me, the devil's not in that house. He is nearby, though. He creates a wasteland and calls it progress.
If you want a luxury home with a view, here's a nice one. It has an enormous solarium facing southwest.
There is no need to ask the bored gods to curse this development. The builders did that when they loaded the luxury homes with great big windows that will catch every ray of afternoon sun, all summer long.
Pay no attention to that sound in the distance. It's just a way of life crumbling. It will soon subside.
5 comments:
i would much rather live in the old homestead than the mcmansions...sad sad sad..
What a shame that farmhouse can't be rehabilitated and filled with a family again.
And how familiar that wasteland is. The devil is a busy guy.
I lived in hell itself -- Loudoun County, Virginia. Over nearly 10 years I saw that cancer of "development" gnaw away at a once-bucolic way of life.
I'm much happier having dumps of trailers 100 yards away with rednecks for neighbors, than a duplicate house 3' from mine.
My heart goes out to you, Juanuchis. Loudon County is Ground Zero in the sprawl zone.
What a horribly ugly monotonous subdivision! I do not understand what people find appealing about living somewhere that all the homes are the same. Stepford Wives anyone?!
The area my grandparents live in once was completely rural. Last time we visited, I didn't recognize half the valley as we drove down the highway because of all the housing developments. On former pastures and cropland.
Humans can be such blithering idiots.
I still wish I'd had a big pile of cash when they had to sell their farm. The alfalfa field I used to spend summers working in is now subdivided with four houses on it. :/ totally depressing.
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