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Santa's Vintage House

There is also a full video tour of this location if you are interested!!

Now we move along to the kitchen, dining room and the basement!!

This week's home is a side-split and was likely built in the 50s or around that time. It's a great example of the type of homes that were original to the neighbourhood when it was first established. Sadly due to the plot sizes, the scarcity of undeveloped land, its proximity to the lake and a change in the way people value the "things" in their lives, it along with the rest are slowly disappearing. They are being replaced with much larger mansion style homes often lacking in character and architectural design principles. Pretty soon the whole neighbourhood will be filled with large soulless mansions with Teslas and Maseratis parked in front of their 4 car garages.

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On the Main Line of Mid-America

Working to lock down locations of a few slides from back in the day.

I'm not 100% certain, but feel this image was made one mile south of Tolono, Illinois, with the train being northbound. We're alongside the mainline of the Illinois Central of course.

One image by Richard Koenig; taken October 3rd 1978.

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Bozeman, Montana

I was shocked today to see an image of the Bozeman passenger station falling into disrepair. I have two images of the station in better times—when Amtrak's North Coast Hiawatha still ran.

In my shots here we first see an eastbound Burlington Norther freight on the former Northern Pacific line, and then the Amtrak passenger trains arrives. I would ride the NCH between Bozeman and Milwaukee.

[Being a locomotive geek, I see that the BN GP9 on point is a former Northern Pacific engine, running on home rails, built in 1957. The power for the passenger train is a relatively new F40PH built in October of 1977, just shy of two years old.] It should be said that this Amtrak train was named in honor of earlier passenger trains on both the Milwaukee Road and the Northern Pacific—as its long journey would use the tracks of those two railroads. The train operated for Amtrak between 1971 and 1979. Again, sorry to see the station falling into disrepair. I hope it is saved and that passenger trains return to the line. Two images by Richard Koenig—made in August of 1979.

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Abandoned Neighbourhood - House 7

Check out the full video walkthrough in the link below!!

Let's start off a brand new location this week by taking a look at the basement, garage and some exterior photos!!

Across the street from the last house we explored in this abandoned subdivision, this week we explore another two story home that is almost completely original to when it as built in 1988. With a Scarlett O'Hara main staircase, brick fireplaces and 80s colour palette, this large house is like stepping back in time.

Once located down a mature tree lined street and surrounded by forest and walking trails was a group of 14 abandoned luxury houses. They were bought by a developer for prices ranging from $3 million - $8 million dollars. The homeowners were given two years to live in the homes rent free before they were demolished.

Westford Homes was the original builder of the neighbourhood in the 80s, there were 5 different designs of homes to choose from. All of the houses were built in 1988 and each one had a single brick with the builders name on it.

There was opposition to the new development that will replace this one but ultimately it was approved. The current amendment allows for 139 new homes to be built and the size of the houses will be up to 4000 sq/ft. The neighbourhood is already long since sold out and the price of the homes was around the $2 million mark.

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