The Decay of a Retirement Home, originally uploaded by pictureinfocus.
BDOSOWMRH072507_0151
The Decay of a Retirement Home
Old White Men’s Retirement Home
Country Road, St. Michael
Barbados, West Indies
Series: Old White Men’s Retirement Home Revisited
(07-25-2007)
The Old White Men’s Retirement Home is in the same derelict state it has been for quite some years now. The condition is becoming worst. The roof is about 80 percent fallen in and it won’t be much longer before the rest finally collapses. 
The front gate is padlocked. But who is it keeping out? Vagrants are using the property and the estate is regularly plundered for its much valued fruits. I entered the property like I did when I was a child. The Fordes Road side has a break in the fence and much of the fence from the Country Road entry has falling apart.
There is a FOR SALE sign up and the asking price is a mere 2 million. Looking from the street you see the massive wall structure. But what may not be obvious is the near 2 acres or more of land. My underlying w
ish is to have this property and restore it. I knew this place as a white men’s retirement home. Before that I am not sure what it was. It may have been a farmhouse since most of this area was plantation land at some point.
The images in this set documents the state of the property now. The second floor has completely fallen in. There is no avenue to reach the outer wings (rooms) of the massive home. So enjoy the images that I was able to capture of the property and the surrounding grounds.
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4 Comments
Wow. Do you know why it closed down in the first place?
ReplyDeleteWas it still in use when you were a child?
It must have been quite a nice building and the grounds were probably quite lovely as well.
Ann, it was in use when I was a kid. It was a place for retired white men. Only in the later part of the 70s did you start to see some black folk there. In the early 80s it was closed.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great series. It seems such a waste for such a nice spot to just rot away like that. I would imagine that a local school or something like that would love to have such grounds!
ReplyDeleteI am sure this property can be put to some good use. But the asking price is 2 million plus.
ReplyDelete