There are few places where a man can escape the weight of the presidency.
For Jimmy Carter, there was the modest ranch home that he built in 1961 on Woodland Drive in the small town of Plains, in southern Georgia. In a town where it seemed that every public building was a stop on a tour of his life, the house remained private.
It was here that Mr. Carter spent much of his post-presidency and the final years of his life, surrounded by a close-knit circle of support. Some came to know Mr. Carter because he was president, others simply because he was a neighbor or friend.
Collectively, they ended up as stewards both of a man in the twilight of life and of the political legacy of a world leader.
“You would do it for any friend, no matter what their position in life is or what their careers were,” said Andi Walker, a neighbor who once lived behind the Carter home and cooked Mr. Carter hundreds of meals over the last few years. “Knowing that he was the former leader of the free world — that wasn’t ever really in the back of my mind when I was doing the things I was doing. It was all about, these are my friends.”
The house was first built in 1961, as the family’s farming businesses flourished and Mr. Carter began his initial foray into politics. Even as Mr. Carter’s political career provided him with official residences elsewhere in Georgia and Washington, he often returned home to Plains.
“His sanctuary, he called it,” said LeAnne Smith, Mr. Carter’s niece. “He always came back to it, no matter what.”
The presidency changed what it meant to live in Plains. It meant background checks when Ms. Walker, the neighbor, purchased a plot of land that touched the perimeter of the Carter land. It meant that the Carter home became more of a compound, surrounded by a gate and a building that served as a Secret Service checkpoint.
And it meant that when Mr. Carter went about his day — walking hand in hand with Rosalynn, his wife, slipping into Home Depot for some wood or a saw, or running for four miles in his younger years — he was trailed by agents.
“Being a Secret Service agent, you’re not supposed to become attached to your protectees,” said Alex Parker, who served as head of Mr. Carter’s detail for more than a decade. But, he acknowledged, “President Carter just had this personality that draws you in.”
There were the trips across the world and country, from North Korea to the Gaza Strip, from Colorado to Washington. But there were also the outings closer to home to check on crops on the Carter farm, go fly-fishing or survey the farm ponds. (Emptying bags of fertilizer into a pond is not technically part of protective duties, Mr. Parker said, but the agents pitched in.)
“President Carter just wanted to be a real person, a common person,” Mr. Parker said. “He didn’t like all the fancy things that some people would like.”
When Randy Dillard, who spent years supervising Mr. Carter’s boyhood farm, took over overseeing maintenance at the ranch home, the Carters presented him with a list. Their focus was not on updating the eye-popping, bright colors that were in style when they built their home or the aging appliances, but clearing away cobwebs or stray branches.
Any changes were carefully discussed — or shut down.
“There was nothing to me more important than what they wanted,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend who, at Mr. Carter’s urging, became superintendent of the national historical park, preserving sites in Plains associated with the former president.
Ms. Stuckey would clear her schedule at a moment’s notice when the Carters called, and hosted the couple at her home each Saturday night for dinner. And while she consulted with other presidential libraries and parks, only her president, she would say proudly, was really living in hers.
In the final years, there were difficult conversations, familiar to anyone who has cared for an aging person, about installing ramps and switching out furniture for ease and comfort. Ms. Walker sent meals — spaghetti, a vegetable plate, or the breakfast-for-dinner combination of eggs and bacon that Mr. Carter loved — in the middle of the week.
There were also the discussions about how to care for the house and garden once both Carters died. They will be buried together in their garden at home, among the kumquat tree and blueberry bushes, the white azaleas and roses, and the pollinator plants. Mr. Dillard will continue to tend to the white flowers around the gravestones, the impatiens in spring and the pansies in winter.
Since Mr. Carter died, it has been bittersweet for those who cared for him in Plains in his final years. They have consoled each other that he was at peace and reunited with Rosalynn, meaning, as Ms. Stuckey, said, “he got his wish the other day.”
Mr. Dillard, as one of the longest-serving employees at the park, rang the bell at the boyhood farm 39 times, marking Mr. Carter’s time as the 39th president and his passage through Plains to Atlanta. Mr. Parker was among the agents who carried his coffin as a pallbearer from the hospital. Ms. Stuckey and Ms. Walker have been among the Plains residents who have been sharing their memories of Mr. Carter, a friend who happened to once be president.
They are starting to contemplate what it will be like to live in Plains without Mr. Carter, and to drive by an empty house. It will transition from residence to museum, under National Park Service supervision.
“The structure is there,” Ms. Walker said. “But I don’t think that homeyness feel that you got when you went in just to visit and be with them will ever be there.”