The last time you visited your childhood home/neighborhood?

[True Dough]

On a cross-country trip with my wife several years ago, we were passing by the town I grew up in and I pulled into the subdivision to show my wife our old family home.

It was still there, but what struck me was how this expansive neighborhood in my mind's eye as a kid was, in reality, so tiny as an adult. Such a stark contrast.

Have you ever gone back to check out the place where you grew up?

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Drove by my family's farm in 2023. My parents sold it in 1970.

[LuckyCharms]

2. A couple of weeks ago? I might have posted about it...

Walked to my childhood house after getting a haircut. It's so run down now.

I did the same thing in the late 90's...only that time, I knocked on the door because I wanted to see the inside.

At that time, I first visited a lawyer friend directly across the street, that I've known since I was a child.

He informed me that the person who just bought the home was currently inside the house, doing renovation work, splitting my large childhood home up into apartments. So I kept knocking on the door until he answered it.

He was sweating and working hard, and he wasn't in a very good mood, but I talked him into letting me inside, and in return, I would tell him some history about the house.

Everything was different inside, and not in a good way. It freaked me out a little.

[True Dough]

3. That's right

I remember that post. Has your hair fully recovered by now?

[LuckyCharms]

5. One of them has.

The other one is still recovering.

[True Dough]

7. So you look something like this?

[LuckyCharms]

9. No, the only hair I have is on the tip of my nose...

in addition to the one stray hair in my "private area".

[True Dough]

10. So, downstairs, that would be

your mane vein?

[LuckyCharms]

11. Hmmm...I'd say it's more like a "sprout".

[EverHopeful]

4. Timely question

My brother and SIL just drove us by our old house and through the neighborhood about a month ago. Before that it had been decades since I'd seen it. It looked nice and someone had made some nice improvements.

We didn't knock or try to see inside but it was nice to see it looked loved.

[True Dough]

8. I didn't ask to go inside either

But I can certainly picture all of the rooms in my mind. It would never be the same now anyway.

[Emile]

6. I drive through my childhood neighborhood every

now and then. It's really upsetting to see how run down the neighborhood is.

[Marthe48]

12. I think George Carlin suggested going through on your knees

to get that perspective from childhood

The home I grew up in is gone, but I have been to my friend's house quite a bit in the last 15 months. Her sister is planning to sell it, so I won't have any ties to the place I grew up. Just memories.

On the upside, I am always welcome at her sister's home and I'm glad I am part of her life

[mopinko]

13. got to go in after my mom's funeral in 2000.

it was on the market, and my bil was a realtor. it did seem smaller.
knocked on the door 2 yrs ago, and gave the new owner a book about the pretty famous artist who also grew up there. was hoping to get a peak, but no.

i found out it was on the market in 2020 about a mo after it sold. i was so mad.
it’s had a lot of changes, not all for the better.
when we went in, a lot of the woodwork was being stripped. it had always been painted. the next idiot repainted it all. and painted the brick fireplace! (tho i admit i love the color, and it hasnt functioned in many, many decades.)
https://www.redfin.com/IL/Aurora/480-N-Lake-St-60506/home/12579482

[debm55]

14. I went in 2014, The house was gone. The neighborhood was so run down.

Last edited Sun Sep 21, 2025, 11:43 AM - Edit history (1)

[mopinko]

17. mine shd b on the national register, if u ask me.

the artist was ruth van sickle ford. she had quite a career. not remember much now, mostly cuz she was known to b an epic bitch. (tho she was extremely kind to others.)
i grew up hearing stories about her. it widened my small town world. she does have a devoted fan base, tho, of which i am a huge 1. own several of her paintings.
a woman who wrote a book about her, who became my friend, rly wanted to see the house turned into a museum for her work. sadly, she died b4 we had a chance to do that.

this is the house she built, and moved into when she moved out of that 1. it’s on the register.
https://www.wttw.com/most-beautiful-places-in-chicago/dazzling-homes/sam-and-ruth-van-sickle-ford-house

[debm55]

18. Beautiful home.

[mopinko]

19. it's amazing. it's small, but so well designed. she used to have huuuuge parties there.

[mwmisses4289]

15. Only via Google earth.

We moved around a bit, and I really have no desire to go visit them.

[GreenWave]

16. About ten years ago for final estate matters.

The area looked like a war took place.

[hunter]

20. Every place I lived as a kid has gentrified.

We always moved away before then. It was almost as if my parents would see a luxury car in someone's driveway and say, "SHIT! There goes the neighborhood."

If they'd ever stayed in one place they might have been multi-millionaires.

But I'm with them. I wouldn't move back to the neighborhoods of my childhood even if I could afford to. The places I knew as a kid have been completely obliterated by the wealthiest one percent.

[Luciferous]

21. My parents still live in my childhood

home, but it's crazy how much the area has changed and developed over the years.

[Iggo]

22. The house? Decades ago. (And it's only about 3 or 4 miles from where I've lived for the last 18 years.)

The neighborhood? It could be argued I still live there. Or “live there again” depending on how you look at it. I moved away from there in 1974, and I’ve lived all over LA, Orange, and San Bernardino Counties since then. But I moved back to this area in 2007. So a dozen or so years when I was a kid, 18 more years as an old guy, and a whole lifetime in-between. But I haven’t felt the need to go back down that little street in a long long time.

[mnhtnbb]

23. Yes. About 12 years ago I was

in the town where I lived from 1954-65. Our house was a new 3 BR 2 1/2 BA ranch style with den, enclosed porch and a full basement on a very large lot in NJ, just 45 minutes train ride outside NYC.
The house had been mansionized. It was two stories and a pool had been constructed in the lower of our two levels back yard. It was hideous. The house my parents had paid $35K for in 1954 was then valued over $1M. Unbelievable. And now? I just checked on Zillow, which says it's worth $2.3 M.

[hunter]

43. My grandparent's house in Los Angeles suffered a similar transformation...

... from modest early twentieth century Spanish Revival bungalow to 1990's tasteless McMansion with a swimming pool in back.

A few years ago the front of the house was restored to something close to the original, using upscale materials and matching the rest of the now very affluent neighborhood of multi-million dollar homes with professionally manicured front yards.

[mnhtnbb]

44. My oldest son was born in 1986 at Cedars Sinai in L. A.

We brought him home to a house in Rustic Canyon that backed up to Rustic Canyon park. Five minutes from PCH and the beach. We sold it for $840K when we left Los Angeles in 1988 and started our various moves across the country, ending in Chapel Hill, NC in 2000. The people who bought from us sold it for $1.374M in 1992. The house was on the extreme edge of the fire that destroyed Pacific Palisades in January this year. Zillow says it's now worth $5.5 M and Realtor com says $6.5 M!
The photo on those websites of the house from the street looks just like it did when we drove away in 1988.

[hunter]

46. It's crazy. My parent's first house was like that, a couple of blocks from the beach.

It was totally working class then -- shipyard workers, cannery workers, oil field workers, fishermen, etc..

My grandparents and great grandparents told my parents it probably wasn't a good neighborhood to raise kids in and helped them buy a house closer to Hollywood, which was where my parents were working when they met.

Now these little homes near the beach, those that haven't been torn down and replaced or significantly upgraded, sell for three or four million dollars.

This reflects the growing disparity between the "haves" and the "have nots."

It's interesting reading the stories of people who have had the opposite experience. One of the towns where my wife's mom grew up is just a shadow of it's former self. The house her grandparents lived in was abandoned, later burned down, and now all that remains of it is the driveway and front walk. The population of the town has been declining for decades now.

[Skittles]

24. hard to say for a GI brat

I moved a dozen times while growing up

[LogDog75]

25. I didn't have one home or neighbohood when I grew up

My dad was in the Navy and we moved often until I was 16 when he retired and we move here where he bought a home about 10 years earlier. I live about a 15 minute walk from my parents home. My sister and her husband bought a lot next to my parents, built a house there, and have lived there for the past 39 years.

I have looked at the places we lived at in Tennessee and Connecticut on Google Earth. The house in Tennessee is on Naval Air Station Millington but there is no street view of the house; only an aerial view. The house in Connecticut is viewable on Google's street view and the house looks like it hasn't changed since the early 60s. It used to be on a large lot, probably three acres with half the lot wooded but there are now houses on wooded part.

[Ocelot II]

26. I've been by a few times since I'm still in the same area.

We moved there in (I think) 1957 - it was a smallish postwar bungalow. It was close enough to the zoo that sometimes we could hear the lions roar in the morning, which we thought was cool. A third kid came along in 1960, so parents added a bit onto it, but it was still pretty small compared to newer houses. We moved to another place in 1969, and subsequent owners have added on even more - it looks a lot different now with a new front porch, and the big tree in the front yard is gone, replaced by a smaller one - the original was an elm, so I suppose Dutch Elm disease got it. From Google Earth it looks like there's some kind of deck in the back yard and some big trees. Since it's been altered so much it doesn't look smaller than when I was a kid, because it's actually bigger.

[MIButterfly]

27. A couple of months ago, I drove through the complex I lived in from age 10 to 15.

That was in the mid to late 60s. I don’t know why I went there; I was miserable living there. They're condos now. The end unit we lived in was very small. I don’t remember it being that small. The thing that struck me, though, was how well-kept the grounds were after all these years. And they still have the highest speed bumps I've ever seen in my life!

[sdfernando]

28. Well, growing up in an Army family we moved a lot. Mom and Dad did have a house in El Paso

but I only spent about 4 years there before we moved again. Last time I was at that house was in 2007, 2 years after my mother died. Dad decided to sell that house and this was the last trip to see it. I hardly remembered the house, it was really small for 2 adults and 5 kids. It was originally a small 1-bedroom house but they added an extension to move the kitchen and create a new small living room and family room. The original living room became the master bedroom, the original kitchen was made into another bedroom. I had absolutely no memory of the bathroom at all...and I used to wonder why, as kids we were always outside....well the house was tiny!...and hot with no A/C. I also remember my Mom would send me or my brother to the five & dime up the street, alone, to get stuff. The street the store was on was really busy so was surprised she would do that....but times were different and it was a lot safer back when I was a child.

[doc03]

29. Haven't been in my childhood home or property since 1974 and it is only 100 yards away. nt

[rsdsharp]

30. My mom sold the house in 1985, and passed away in 1988.

Since we cleaned out the house in ‘85, I’ve only been back once. I had to attend a hearing in about 1996. I got there early, and drove down Main Street, past my best friend’s house, went by the high school, and then stopped by my old house.

I got out of the car, and took some pictures. The house now had air conditioning, the back door had been removed, and a huge deck took up much of the back yard. I haven’t been back since, and wouldn’t have gone then if I hadn’t had to.

[TexLaProgressive]

31. My childhood home is a victim of katrina

I did visit when I was in my 20s and the neighborhood had miraculously shrunk.Now the house I lived in from age 13 one in Houston is different. I was driving our niece home to Pearland which is south of Houston. “Wanna see where I grew up?” “Yeah.” So I turned down my street. I couldn’t find the house. All the houses had been torned down to be replaced by ugly gray blocks of apts.There was one wonderful house left a few houses down from ours. It was painted every color of the rainbow, not pastels but viviid. I guess they were holdouts.

[Americanme]

32. Yes!

A few years back, my sister and I ran a 5k in the town where we grew up. Afterward, we walked to our old home. I remembered having a huge front lawn, it was now tiny. Our big old house was not really that big. Our block, which we thought was quite a trek to walk around, was a short block. I was probably 10 years old when we left that town. Memories can be strange.

[subterranean]

33. I found a video tour of one of my childhood homes a few years ago.

The house was up for sale, and the real estate agent posted their walk-through of the house with commentary. It was interesting to see how it had changed compared to the way I remembered it.

[mike_c]

34. 1983, I think

That summer I left for grad school in Georgia and I've never been back. Don't have any family there anymore and I'm sure I wouldn't recognize the place.

[Wicked Blue]

35. About 35 years ago, before moving to Maryland

Now back in NJ again, but it's a long drive and I have no inclination to see the place again.

[Jilly_in_VA]

36. 2001

It was the last HS reunion I went to. My late ex and I went to my old neighborhood. We were photographing the house I lived in age 7-21. The man who lived there came out and asked us why we were taking pictures. I explained that I had grown up in that house, and he said, "Oh, how interesting. Would you like to come in and see it now?" We said sure, and he led us on a tour. It still looked very much as it had except for a few things upstairs. All the beautiful built-ins that my dad had put in my room had been ripped out, and the big front bedroom that my brothers shared had been divided into two. I was able to tell him that that was not, in fact, a load-bearing wall, since they were considering ripping it out, and I told him several stories about the house that he quite enjoyed, including when the kitchen cabinets and the downstairs loo were put in, and a couple of funny stories. I haven't been back since. My home town has changed too much and there's nothing and no one there for me any more.

[ProfessorGAC]

37. I've Driven By The House...

...where I lived from 3 to 13.
The house where I lived in HS & college is across the street from my wife's cousin.
So, we've seen that one several times.
We only live 30-35 miles away, so it's not a great effort for us to see those places.

[LudwigPastorius]

38. It's still there, but...

there is a new addition that takes up most of the backyard. It's probably larger than the original house.

Looks like the demographics of the hood have gone from lower middle class to upper middle class

[IA8IT]

39. Burned and bulldozed to grow more corn and soybeans........iowa

[nitpicked]

40. I moved around too many times

WHO wants to revisit the apartment that I Finally lived in for three years in a row?

[OldBaldy1701E]

41. We moved too many times to say that about a single structure.

However, I did briefly visit my hometown back in 2023.

It is a shadow of what it was (which was not that much, to be honest). There are collapsing houses along Main Street. The center of town is all but dead. Over half of the storefronts are empty. There is despair and surrender everywhere I looked.

Half of the houses I was raised in are either gone or were remodeled and look nothing like they did.

I did not stay long. Too painful. Too much anger at being correct about the area and its desire to remain in the long forgotten past. Too upsetting to see what was a halfway decent town trying desperately to self-implode rather than accept progress.

[Aristus]

42. 2007, when my grandfather died.

We had his body transported to San Antonio, my hometown, for burial in the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.

I grew up in a tiny house on Sprucewood Lane. We went to visit it while we were there. It was in the middle of renovations at the time, so we were able to walk right in and have a look. I couldn't believe how small it was. At one point, we had three generations living there; my grandparents, my parents, me and my sibs. We must have been crammed in there. No wonder why my Dad turned the carport into a den.

[True Dough]

48. How many siblings, Aristus?

It's wild how much your perspective changes from childhood to adulthood.

[Aristus]

53. Older sister, younger brother.

n/t

[Harker]

45. My parents sold the house I first lived in when I was 9.

My Uncle Ray built it.

My father had worked at Sears in Chicago for 18 years, and it was 1968.

Several years later my mom and I took a trip back to visit friends and relatives, and we stopped to visit the man who had bought the house. He was a Huron, and had done wonders with the place! There was a teepee out by the peach tree, and he had placed a stone atop every post on the split rail fence that enclosed the yard. The real triumph was the huge elongated boulder he had dropped over the septic field to fall in whichever position nature wanted.

The carpets inside were covered by handwoven rugs, and he proudly introduced us to his family, depicted in framed photos on the walls.

Good memories, TD.

[True Dough]

47. Wonderful interlude, Harker

Last edited Mon Sep 22, 2025, 08:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Sounds like a warm welcome and some fond recollections. I hope that gentleman spent many happy years in your old home.

[Harker]

49. I hope so, too, TD.

Thanks for giving me a nudge to remember.

[Kali]

50. January?

at least the house I lived in from 4th grade to college. My sister owns it now. Two other houses in the general area. but there were a few more in different states/cities earlier on from CA to WI.

[CanonRay]

51. My childhood home burned down when I was in college.

[Justice Brandeis]

52. Eight years ago

It has gentrified a lot since the mid-1990's when I left.

[Woodwizard]

54. 1998 helped my parents get rid of stuff.

They were moving from LI to Florida. I never liked LI and did not like Florida when I visited either. It was like a hot LI suburban ald flat ground. Love where I ended up on the Catskill mountains.

[WhiteTara]

55. Never. There were way too many

We moved constantly since my dad was Army.

[Tree Lady]

56. Yes and the people who bought it

Are weird! Hanging things in the trees, built up yard higher but not in a good way. Closed up carport. Whole house looks trashy and my dad kept it so nice. The neighborhood is older but most homes still look nice, they must hate the home.

My girls and I drove there about 5 years ago. I am from Napa close to where Drive in movie was.