Anne has challenged us to tell and show our thoughts on abandonment. I’ve seen many abandoned barns, homes and businesses when traveling along the back roads of the America. Each time I see one of these buildings I wonder what happened to the people that lived there or worked there. I wonder why no one wanted it anymore. Where did they go?
Honeymoon Cottage, Cedar Key, Florida
I have images of many abandoned buildings but I decided to focus on one of them that stands out in my mind. The Honeymoon Cottage in Cedar Key on the Gulf Coast of Florida was a stilt house that was built in 1959. It originally was connected to land by a narrow walkway over the water. I don’t have to wonder about why it was abandoned. Powerful hurricanes destroyed it.
We fell in love with Cedar Key when we first visited in 1997 and have returned several times since then. The abandoned wooden structure standing in the water always intrigued me. The header image shows the way the cottage looked when I first photographed it on a visit in 2003. I couldn’t help but think about how much fun it must have been to stay there and how sad it was that no one could use it anymore.
The rest of the images show how the the cottage continued to deteriorate over the years.
We haven’t returned to Cedar Key since our last visit in 2021. Since then Hurricane Idalia caused significant damage to the area in August, 2023. Hurricanes Debby and Helene caused more damage in 2024. Some of the businesses are still closed and the community is working hard to rebuild.
Many thanks to Anne for this challenge Lens-Artists #344 – Abandoned
Wandering Dawgs 