In 2020, my late husband Rich and I purchased a lovely home in a gated community in Southeast Georgia in the quaint and historic city of St. Marys. We weren’t seeking the gated HOA lifestyle, in fact Rich disliked the idea, but we’d found a home with amenities that we’d never be able afford in our home state of New Jersey with the bonus of mild winters.
We’d been visiting the city for years and ended up purchasing this home with the help of a realtor Rich and I‘d met while strolling downtown a year earlier. We’d taken a subsequent trip just to tour homes for sale, but having lost out on so many bids, we’d decided to postpone our potential move.
Until an alert updating new homes for sale caught my eye. There it was. Our Dream Home!! We bought it online, no boots-on-the ground visit required. It was perfect for us and even offered a third garage/workshop and oversized screened lanai and a spacious beautiful yard that bordered a dense tree farm that blocked the distant buzz coming off of Interstate 95.
Rich loved the seclusion and peaceful time he spent out in that big outdoor room where we often sipped wine and enjoyed music (he loved music) and the call of the chuck-will’s-widows, owls and bobwhites. It’s where we had our last meal.
After Rich’s passing, my elderly mother came to live with me and for a time my dad. My father, like Rich, adored the lanai area and would sit for long periods singing back to the birds. At the time his dementia was advancing and he found this soothing.
When we’d bought our home, it was generally believed that the woods would remain owned by a long-term tree farm family with nothing in the wind for development. But, that unfortunately quickly and suddenly changed last year and now due to clear cutting and bull dozing, my former backyard is barely recognizable and I’ve been told this plan has been in the works for 20 years.
For the record, I’m not currently residing in that home as it is occupied by gracious and understanding tenants. I’m two hours south now in rural Northeast Florida where before all this even began I felt an urgency to flee a home that once-upon-a-time offered me so much comfort and a sense of security, not unusual for many who’ve found themselves in a life profoundly changed.
People point out that 30-plus years ago, our development was also once a wooded natural area, too. True. But there were no homes abutting and homes were built with old-school quality homebuilders; no clear cutting was done, especially not at this level where 250 homes will soon be constructed just over a landscaped berm and fencing, and that’s just for starters. There will be a new golf course installed and many more amenities.
And yes, I’m aware that several years before Rich and I moved in, the woods were harvested, but replanted for regrowth, not for future homesites.
There are many of us who understand that development is inevitable. Yes we know it will be lovely once the dust settles and all is prettied up. We hear that daily. The berm is in process and swales will be carved out soon with planting of vegetation in the fall. But, it is the way this intermim phase has been handled is what many find upsetting. Afterall, the “powers-that-be” had 20 years to work with an established neighborhood affected by this huge endeavor.
I recently commented on a Facebook Community Page half-jokingly offering my backyard for the upcoming Home and Garden tour to be held in our community next week. I know this is an important charity event, but I proposed that my stop could be perfect for those who disliked trees and greenery and cautioned they should bring dust covers for their wine glasses. I would make a charitable donation for each person who dared to show up! So far, no takers.
Our particular area of this subdivision was designed to offer residents a low-mantenance stress-free life with built-in landscaping (iffy at times) for which we agree to pay extra beyond our HOA fees. It’s a place where some older established community residents who’ve outlived the need for larger homes go to downsize. We had (and I still have) good friends and great neighbors there and we stay in touch. My immdediate next door neighbor, a US Marine Corps veteran in his mid-80s, has been in his home since 2004 and had become a good friend to Rich, who served as a Navy Corpsman, a “doc” for the USMC. Now, instead of enjoying his life here he sits and watches his sanctuary disappear and talks of a move.
I truly mourn those woods and my special time I enjoyed with Rich. He would reside next to them for a little under two years before passing. With their disappearance a little bit of my history with him is erased. I know I’m very fortunate to have called that place home, but it’s still very sad to see it change so much so drastically. Some call this progress, but I say be careful what you wish for. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Maybe our home values will improve as a result and my home will provide a haven for another in the future. I know not everyone agrees with how I feel about what has happened, but I ask that they graciously respect my opinion as I do their’s.
This one’s for you, Rich. Corpsman Up!
