Jimmy Carter's house at 209 Woodland Drive in Plains, Georgia was a simple, two-bedroom ranch that he and his wife Rosalynn lived in ever since he left the White House in 1981.
Library of CongressJimmy Carter’s house at 209 Woodland Drive, in Plains, Georgia.
Jimmy Carter’s house didn’t look like much from the outside. Tucked down a wooded lane at 209 Woodland Drive in Plains, Georgia, it was valued at less than the cost of the Secret Service vehicles that sat outside it. But this humble home says a lot about the man who built it.
As president, Carter shied away from the more luxurious trappings of the office. He wore a $175 business suit to his inauguration, carried his own bags onto Air Force One, and refused to have “Hail to the Chief” played when he walked into a room.
When his presidency finished after one term, Carter returned to the home he had built in Georgia. There, the former president stuck to his frugal ways — and drew a line between himself and his successors.
This is the unique, inspiring story of 209 Woodland Drive, Jimmy Carter’s home before and after his presidency.
Jimmy Carter’s Journey From 209 Woodland Drive To The White House
Public Domain Jimmy Carter and his family outside his 209 Woodland Drive home in Plains, Georgia on Christmas Day 1978.
Seventeen years before he entered the White House, Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn bought a modest 2.4 acres of land on the outskirts of Plains, Georgia. After renting for years, they were finally ready to build a home of their own.
Both Carter and Rosalynn had been born in Plains (in 1924 and 1927, respectively) but had not planned on spending their lives there. When they married in 1946, Carter was attending the Naval Academy. Upon his graduation, they traveled the world.
Jimmy Carter Library and MuseumJimmy Carter at his graduation from the Naval Academy in 1946. Rosalynn stands to his right and his mother, Lillian, to his left.
But the death of Carter’s father brought them both home. Back in Plains, Carter struggled to save his family’s peanut farm as Rosalynn tried to readjust to civilian life. By 1960, however, they’d turned the farm around.
As the family business thrived, Jimmy and Rosalynn built a modest-four bedroom ranch house at 209 Woodland Drive. Soon, they bought the surrounding 170 acres as well.
Carter’s gaze, however, was still focused over the horizon. Increasingly interested in politics — and, his mother thought, bored with running the farm — Jimmy Carter launched his political career in 1962.
Despite setbacks along the way, he enjoyed a meteoric rise. Carter went from serving in the George State Senate to being elected governor in 1971. In 1976, he threw his hat in the ring to be president against President Gerald Ford — and won the White House.
Carter’s Time As President Before Returning Home To Plains, Georgia
Americans, who were still reeling from President Nixon’s Watergate scandal, viewed Carter as a Washington outsider — someone who was innocent of the dirty dealings of the nation’s capital.
Library of CongressJimmy and Rosalynn Carter at a White House Congressional Ball.
As president, Jimmy Carter balked at the pomp and circumstance surrounding the office. He wore a business suit to his inauguration (Rosalynn wore the same dress she’d worn during his inauguration as governor), canceled drivers for his staff, and sold the presidential yacht, the Sequoia.
“He didn’t feel suited to the grandeur,” Stuart E. Eizenstat, a Carter aide and biographer, told the Washington Post. “Plains is really part of his DNA. He carried it into the White House, and he carried it out of the White House.”
Despite his reputation as a political outlier, Jimmy Carter worked hard during his presidency to tackle the country’s, and the world’s, most pressing issues. In 1977, Carter created the Department of Energy to manage and prevent energy crises. In 1978, Carter brokered the Camp David Accords, a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.
However, Carter also faced many challenges during his presidency. As he struggled with crisis after crisis — including the Iran Hostage Crisis and 1970s gas shortages — voters began to lose faith in his abilities. In 1980, Jimmy Carter lost his reelection bid to Ronald Reagan.
Following his defeat, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter went back to Plains — back to their ranch house on Woodland Drive.
Jimmy Carter’s House In His Post-Presidency Life
Tango Images/Alamy Stock PhotoAnother view of 209 Woodland Drive.
Life after the White House wasn’t easy. Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter’s house had fallen into a state of disrepair. They’d placed their peanut farm in a blind trust and were almost $1 million in debt.
“We thought we were going to lose everything,” Rosalynn remembered.
Meanwhile, Carter fretted about what he was going to do next. “I had no idea what I would do with the rest of my life,” he later recalled. “I was 56 years old, one of the younger survivors of the White House.”
Carter’s predecessor, Gerald Ford, had become a rich man after his presidency. But Carter didn’t want to go that route. He didn’t want to capitalize on his time in the White House.
“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Carter told the Washington Post in 2018. “I don’t blame other people for doing it. It just never had been my ambition to be rich.”
Instead, he thought about how he could improve the world. With Rosalynn at his side, Carter launched the Carter Center in Atlanta to “wage peace, fight disease and build hope.” He and Rosalynn also began to work with Habitat for Humanity. In the end, the Carters built, renovated, and repaired over 4,000 homes in 14 countries.
For the rest of his life, Carter would publish books to help supplement his income from the peanut farm and his $210,700 annual pension each president receives. In total, Carter published 66 books across several genres.
All the while, the Carters lived in the same ranch house that they lived in before the White House. Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter’s house always remained modest — albeit surrounded by a government-owned fence — and was valued at just $167,000 in 2018.
That’s below the median home price in George, and less than the cost of the Secret Service vehicles which hang out nearby.
Jimmy Carter’s house was also much less valuable than other presidents’ homes. Barack Obama, for example, owns an $8 million Washington, D.C. mansion and Bill Clinton has multiple million-dollar homes.
But Carter’s house — and the course of his post-presidency life — was not the only way he differed from his successors.
How Jimmy Carter Was Different From Other Former Presidents
Library of CongressThe back porch of the Carter home.
Unlike Carter, most former presidents went on to make millions by giving speeches or sitting on corporate boards.
Bill Clinton, for example, swiftly erased his $16 million post-White House debt thanks to book deals and speaking fees. George W. Bush made between $100,000 to $175,000 per speaking appearance following his two terms in office. And Barack and Michelle Obama were purportedly paid $60 million for their memoirs.
Carter, on the other hand, lived modestly. Every Friday, Cater and his wife would have dinner at a nearby friend’s house before walking home. He and Rosalynn bought bargain-brand wine, made their own yogurt, bought clothing at Dollar General, and flew commercial. He rarely charged speaking fees, and when he did, the money was typically donated to his charity.
TwitterJimmy Carter on a commercial flight in 2017.
As a result, Carter cost taxpayers less than any other former president. In 2018, he cost taxpayers $456,000. His fellow ex-presidents, including (then) Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, each cost taxpayers more than $1 million.
In that way, Carter was an outlier among former presidents. While in office, he largely rejected the luxury associated with the American presidency. And out of office, he stayed true to his long-held principles about wealth, modesty, and duty that primarily stemmed from his upbringing in the Great Depression.
“He doesn’t like big shots, and he doesn’t think he’s a big shot,” Gerald Rafshoon, Carter’s White House communications director, told the Washington Post.
“I am a great admirer of Harry Truman. He’s my favorite president, and I really try to emulate him,” Carter stated. “He set an example I thought was admirable.”
Like Carter, Truman retired in his hometown of Independence, Missouri — albeit in a much nicer home.
Toward the end of his life, before dying at age 100 at his Woodland Drive home on December 29, 2024, living in an era where money and politics are intertwined, Carter wasn’t sure if other presidents would follow the path he forged. Will future ex-presidents return to modest homes and live modest lives? Will they ignore easy riches and instead focus on living simply and well?
“I hope so,” Jimmy Carter said, from within his Plains, Georgia home. “But I don’t know.”
After reading about Jimmy Carter’s house and post-presidency life, learn about Jimmy Carter’s UFO sighting. Or, see how Jimmy Carter’s houses for the needy have helped the world.
