MTFCA Forum

My wife I have decided that it is time for us to leave NH, seek warmer climate, and build our retirement home with a toy shop for the T, A and fun projects.
After much research we are currently focusing the Winston Salem - Greensboro - High Point and are planning a trip to get a feel for the area and drive by a few lots we found on Zillow.
We will most likely rent while building
My question is, are there places one could store a Model T and A while building a home and barn/workshop in the area?
It could take up to 2 years given the current housing/ building situation.

Don't go there! You won't be happy. Having lived most of my life in N. C. from one end to the other, I will tell you that the coast in the east is beautiful and the mountains in the west are beautiful, in between is pretty bad. In N. H. you need to seek warm days to drive the T. In the N.C. Piedmont you will seek days cool enough to drive comfortably, and in summer you will walk around every day with wet underwear. Before you buy, check out the Hendersonville area in the mountains, cool summer, far enough south that the southern sun makes winters not bad, there is no month in which we don't drive the open T. On the other end, we never turn on the A/C in summer. Better than Hendersonville is Brevard, where we live. I normally don't encourage immigration to our area, but because you have a T you will be welcome. We have an active, if small, Model T group that tolerates Model A folks as well. As a retirement community we have excellent healthcare, the Brevard Summer Music Institute guarantees a cultural life better than anywhere else in the state, and when God decided to give folks a preview of Heaven He created the southern highlands.

I have spent over 20 years in the Lake Norman Area just north of Charlotte and all I can say is way to many people are moving in and the roads cannot handle it. I moved 12 miles north to the small town of Troutman to get away from all the construction and be in the country...... 8 years later Troutman is being built up. I have lived in many places and the best I have seen in the Carolinas is the Charleston, SC area. Its a little pricey but try going 20 to 30 miles south of Charleston and you will love it. Its not to populated and very historic looking. Beaufort is a small town that looks like 1860..... Also the weather that way is a little sticky in the summer but they do not have winter. In the piedmont you will see snow but it is short lived.

Must be all the people moving out of New York!

Fred,

Your wife has been totally understanding of your exploits and work arrangements over the years.

Here is what you do...

Find a place and magically have maybe 1/4 acre cleared with some access to the road or where the driveway will be. Tell her you want space for a 'perc' test to assure you are high and dry...

Have a pad poured maybe 40 x 80...

Drop in a temporary pole for power for the house construction, right next to the pad...

Buy a NoCarolina style Tobacco Shed pole barn in a box and have it erected on the pad...

Have a 100 amp service wired to the pole barn...

Put in a 4-post lift...tell her it came with the pole barn...

Buy a decent 8N or 9N tractor with a good 3-point hitch and put it in the new barn for local 'needs' as 'it will be needed' ...

Ship your cars down with one of the guys...

Roll them in the barn, lock the door...

Proceed with building the house.

If the Missus should balk at any point along the way, offer how much dead money you saved over storing the cars for a monthly fee...offer her an in ground pool and use 100 sq ft of the pole barn as a cabana for the pool if you have to...remind her conditions for pool use will always be better than in NH.

. . .


FWIW, sort of a true story...pic is my son and his grand-daughter...just about where the pool is going to go at his new place with land...or so he tells his other half...tehe....

I haven’t lived in NC in over 20 years but it’s slowly becoming a place I would not readily move back to. Born and raised there, the good old days are gone. Too many parcels of farmland are having multi-million dollar homes thrown up on them and the back roads are getting clogged.

I moved from the cold country to Cary NC in 1979. In 1990, the folks in Cary made it known that my "kind" are not welcome to the posh neighborhoods and by mutual agreement we left Cary to the "elite" ones that don't appreciate motor homes, car trailers, and model T's. We bought into a horse development that allowed me to have 10 acres, a pond and enough room for a barn to house the shop and cars. It is a small farm community that is growing but still has that "good old boy" feeling. There are several T people in the area and enough Northerners to make sure we are not completely out numbered. The locals are great but do not advertise the area as they would like to minimize the growth. Don't tell anyone I mentioned to you the great place called Angier NC.

DickC wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 1:20 pm

I moved from the cold country to Cary NC in 1979. In 1990, the folks in Cary made it known that my "kind" are not welcome to the posh neighborhoods and by mutual agreement we left Cary to the "elite" ones that don't appreciate motor homes, car trailers, and model T's. We bought into a horse development that allowed me to have 10 acres, a pond and enough room for a barn to house the shop and cars. It is a small farm community that is growing but still has that "good old boy" feeling. There are several T people in the area and enough Northerners to make sure we are not completely out numbered. The locals are great but do not advertise the area as they would like to minimize the growth. Don't tell anyone I mentioned to you the great place called Angier NC.

Cary, that was the problem for sure. Containment Area for Relocating Yankees

I think major development is happening all over the Southeast. Here in SW Florida land prices have doubled in the last two years. Where I live was 5 acre zoning, now it's 2 1/4. Every available lot is being purchased and a house is being built on it. That doesn't seem to be enough, so now they are building gated communities where the houses are just about far enough apart to get a zero-turn riding mower through. A quarter of a mile from where we live they are planning a 4,000+ house development that will wipe out a tomato farm that is about a half-mile wide and three miles long. It will also wipe out the (very) endangered Florida Panther in this area. The county is also taking two-lane through roads and converting them to four-lane divided roads. The bride and I purchased the 5.7-acre parcel next to us just to keep builders from developing it. The powers-that-be have never met a development they didn't like and they are destroying what made Florida so attractive in the first place. The roads are straight and fast. I rarely drive my T here anymore.