The House I Grew Up In

There have been a lot of abandoned places over the years. For awhile, the subject of "urban exploration" was the main focus of my photographic and written work. Since I was 17, I’ve had the opportunity to document many captivating subjects in both the historic and visual sense. Sometimes I was with a guide or showing up with an invitation—other times it was more of an “adventure,” if you will. From “ghost ships” to subway tunnels to stadiums and amusement parks—the types of places have varied, but there are two distinct categories in which I’ve viewed these derelict locales: the ones I knew and the ones I didn’t.

The Fairfield, Ohio house I grew up in as seen in the Fall of 2011.

For the most part, the vast majority of subjects I’ve been to were places that I had never experienced when they were “alive.” I could only ruminate on what they must’ve felt like to be filled with life as I stood in their modern ruins. Oftentimes, digging up historical text was the only way to gain proper context. There have been a few places that I knew firsthand, though, places I had seen for myself before I went walking through hallways of peeling paint or over piles of crumbling brick. Perhaps it was fitting that the first abandoned place I ever explored was one I had known well: a water park in the city’s northern suburbs tucked back in an industrial corner near the beltway known as Surf Cincinnati. A few years after it closed, I hopped the fence when the only remaining guests were tadpoles and weeds.

It was an experience that launched a curiosity and sent me on a path of writing and reflecting. I went back often and wrestled with capturing the scene in my early days as a photographer while trying to remember what the place had been like when I was a kid. I looked for remnants and clues of when the park had been active—often thinking of the employees who had once spent countless hours there, myself exploring the locale during off days from an amusement park job of my own.

Out of all the places I’d eventually go on to photograph, “Surf” had one of the most personal connections, both its past life and mine were linked. There was one other place that I knew even more intimately, though. The kind of place that I imagine most urban explorers don’t really get to see: their own home.

The second floor of my childhood home abandoned in 2012.

I don’t know if you could call it trespassing. Once my family was gone, I’m not sure who technically had authority over the property. Not that I was worried that anyone would bat an eye, I was so confident that I parked in the driveway just like I used to when I’d come home from school—right underneath the basketball hoop. And if anyone got suspicious, well, I had a key to the front door.

The house in its final days, September 2011.

I made most of these photographs in 2011 and 2012. Given that urban exploration and the documentation of abandoned places used to be more of a focus of this website, you’d think I would’ve written about this long before. But I never did. Or never could. I had actually moved out in 2010, to an apartment near school—my childhood bedroom becoming a “spare room” of storage and sewing supplies.

Many of our neighbors were gone in the years before that. A long battle over flooding from the nearby creek in what was never technically designated a flood zone eventually lead to several neighbors being bought out. Their homes were demolished and those who remained, my parents included, had their property values completely decimated. In those last few years, our house sat mostly alone amongst a field where the only cut grass was the landscaping within our fence. Eventually, my parents and the remaining residents on our side of the subdivision secured their own deal. The homes were bought out, everyone moved, and the structures were set to be demolished.

I photographed the end—how nice the house looked for one last Easter Dinner...

The dining room set up for a final family dinner, April 2011.

...how things looked as we packed up...

...and how empty everything was on one of the final night.

A few items left in my childhood bedroom on the final night.

My parents and sisters moved off to a new residence, I had my apartment, and our family home of 20+ years in Fairfield, Ohio was empty.

I went back a several times to have a look, once accompanied by a friend and another time accompanied by my then-girlfriend. It was the times when I went back by myself, though, that I felt the most emotional—although never quite as emotional as the night we hauled the last of our possessions out. Looking back and writing this now, almost a decade later, I find myself substantially less affected. Something, something time heals all wounds—or—the grieving process has reached its conclusion? I don’t know. From a visual standpoint and in terms of documenting abandoned places, the house wasn’t that interesting. The connection was purely one of a personal nature rather than a photographic nature. I had been here. I had known this place. I had lived it.

Playhouse as seen through the dining room window, January 2012.

When everything was gone, the house felt smaller and even when the sun was shining, it felt dark inside there. Walking through each room, individual memories would come rushing back. Various ones still do now, some I hadn’t even thought of at the time or thought about in years.

• I remember Christmas’ in the living room.

• I remember eating “Market Day” individual pizzas in the kitchen.

• I remember sneaking bags of chips out of the pantry.

• I remember building an off-brand LEGO aircraft carrier on the dining room table.

• I remember the family shelves lined with VHS tapes and playing Super Nintendo while sitting on a bean bag.

• I remember assembling my model trains in the garage.

• I remember discovering Conan O’ Brien in my parents’ room, watching television as we waited out a storm.

• I remember the various states of my sister’s rooms, when they shared one and then had their own.

• I remember my room and the hand sewn letters from my grandmother, the ones that spelled out my name above the closet doors.

• I remember the colors of each room’s window shades, the various wallpapers, and how each room was adapted and re-arranged to coincide with our various states of life and age.

• I remember rollerblading in the driveway and that no matter how hard it rained, the porch always stayed a little dry.

• I remember following a snake in the backyard while I carried a peanut butter & jelly sandwich and I remember my dog stealing that sandwich from me.

• I remember cutting the grass, grilling out by the shed, and playing on the various swing set implements we had over the years.

• I remember laying next to my dad and looking up at clouds in the backyard, taking a break on the wooden boards that were to be the floor for a playhouse he was building for us kids.

• I remember the back patio during summer dinners and as a staging ground for paintball matches with friends.

• I remember the creek—what seemed like an endless place to explore, fish, and build “army forts.” The same creek that would cause all the problems and chase everyone away.

• And I remember my room: I remember all the things I felt in that room as I grew up—from the time I collected LEGO sets to when I started collecting my first professional camera gear.

Dad and I in a childhood halloween photograph as seen with the patio in September 2011.

It’s true that you only remember the memory of the last time you recalled something and recollections can also be tainted by both nostalgia and time. I like to believe that I remember the house in detail—now, though, tracing back the hallways in my head, I see both the abandoned and active states simultaneously. So many things come to mind that I’ve filled notebook page after notebook page, repeatedly scribbling hand-drawn layouts and maps—the scale and details differing with each sketch.

US Postal Service vacancy notice in the mailbox, December 2011.

I broke down on the last night I was there. I broke down when exploring the abandoned place alone. I broke down once while driving by after seeing the land void of our house. Eventually, I’d come back and walk the former property several times. I could remember exactly where things used to be and occasionally, I’d find a remnant of something such as the fence—the one that had three gates that you needed to be sure were closed lest the dogs would get out. First Buck. Then Buck and Spot. Then just Spot. And then Benny.

Remains of the back yard fence, April 2012.

I came back here with my sister to shoot her and her now-husband's engagement photographs—the locale being not just fitting and personally significant to her, but also now a natural backdrop devoid of human construction. This was the same sister who once gave each family member the gift of a keychain engraved with the coordinates of the former house (thanks, Maria).

Left behind light fixture, January 2012.

Remains of three generations of wallpaper, February 2012.

There’s been several places I’ve called “home” since. They each carry their own memories, significance, and sense of longing after I’ve gone. Now, quite a few years removed from the time I made these photographs of my childhood home, let alone lived there, I find myself casually playing back memories in my head rather than longing for them.

ABOVE: The abandoned family room in January 2012.

BELOW: Environmental portraits made of my parents (and the dog) in the same room, September 2011.

The only place I featured these photographs before was in a book I made for a final assignment in a college class, a self published work I later gave to my parents. At the end of that book, there’s a photograph of me sitting in a lawn chair in this same approximate spot where I’m finishing this writing now—once again in a lawn chair, once again sitting where the house used to be.

The sole copy of a self published book about the house, printed in 2012.

•••

It’s brutally hot and humid, but there’s also an occasionally pleasant breeze. Across the street, the neighborhood looks idyllic in terms of an early-70s suburban aesthetic. The homes have been maintained well, some even updated, and all the trees have really matured. Where I’m sitting, though (my best guess as to where I sat around eight years ago): it’s like being in a wild field.

Writing at the former site of the house, July 2020.

Ants and spiders are crawling all over my camera bag, the ground is torn up from moles, and the grass is cut, but not manicured. It’s feels like a park when viewed from afar, but in detail: it’s just short of being a true municipal recreation ground. I wonder if I know anyone who still lives in the nearby houses and the area smells like it did when I used to cut my former neighbor’s grass. Unlike past visits where I’d find a few remains and details—there’s no hint of the old fence or swing sets. The tree line and vegetation have grown up well past where our backyard once ended. The creek is still back there, but I’m not going to risk getting poison ivy in an effort to push through the brush. With all the once abandoned homes now gone, including ours, a passerby may not even have the slightest idea that a street of dwellings once existed here. You could probably infer it or just assume the rest of the subdivision was never finished, but things no longer look as odd as they once did—like when our home was one of the few sitting alone amongst an empty field. It’s not hard to conjure up memories of the house or the time spent within it. There’s plenty of life moments I can recall, but being here in the moment doesn’t really stir up anything specific or push anything from the back of my brain to the front. It’s not that I don’t think of those days or the house fondly, it’s more so that I’ve been here before.

I’ve done this.

I walked through the remains of the house and what little was left after it came down. Now, it’s truly just a field and I realize that no matter how long it took me to get around to sharing these photographs, I had already said goodbye and closed this chapter awhile ago.

Maybe I've always known that.

One key memory that has always stuck out about the house is one that took place in my room and one I can recall in crystal clear detail. I remember at some point in my life, when I wasn’t sure if I was too old for toys or not, I decided to take a day to go all in on nostalgia. I closed my door on a Friday afternoon after school, fired up the train set that went around my bed and broke out every wrestling action figure, G.I. Joe, and childhood toy I could find. I assembled a narrative heavily influenced by Toy Story, coming up with personalities and backstories for each object whether it resembled a human or not. I wanted to value each trinket as if it was real, as if it had life, as if I knew it could somehow be disappointed in me should I ever forget it or let it go. At the end of the day, with all this stuff strewn about on the floor—I found a peace of mind and solace amongst those objects and physical surroundings. All of it was my world. A world I understood. A space I truly considered “home.”

There’s a lot I felt on that particular afternoon that I can still sense in who I am now. To be able to play it all back so vividly, whether tinted by nostalgia colored glasses (or not)—I’m grateful.

The house mostly demolished on February 13, 2012.

A November 2011 email from my Dad:

"Last night when I took the last load out of the house to the storage locker, I turned on the radio………………..Billy Joel’s “MOVIN OUT” was playing. I kid you not !!!!"

[Kings Waffle] Chapter 15: Kelli Week

[35mm Ohio] Roll No. 06-08-20-01