All About Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter’s Modest Georgia Home, Where They’ve Lived for 60 Years and Will Be Buried

Former President Jimmy Carter and his late wife Rosalynn Carter never moved from the modest Georgia home they built in 1961 — even after their four years in the White House.

The ranch house, located in their hometown of Plains, in Sumter County, will serve as the burial site for Rosalynn, who died Sunday at the age of 96.

The former president, 99, is currently in hospice care at home after terminating medical intervention amid his own health challenges earlier this year.

In 2018, the Washington Post reported that the two-bedroom residence, then assessed at $167,000, was “less than the value of the armored Secret Service vehicles parked outside.” Zillow currently estimates the house to be worth about $240,000.

“He doesn’t like big shots, and he doesn’t think he’s a big shot,” Gerald Rafshoon, who was Jimmy’s White House communications director, told the Post. 

The property features a pond Jimmy helped dig and a magnolia tree transplanted from a sprout from a tree that Andrew Jackson planted on the lawn of the White House nearly 200 years ago. The couple’s gravestones will be by a willow tree at the edge of the pond.

The Carters deeded the property to the National Park Service, which will turn the grounds into a museum after their deaths.

Jimmy, who served as the 39th U.S. president from 1977 to 1981, and Rosalynn, a lifelong mental health and human rights advocate, maintained an unpretentious lifestyle that included flying commercial and taking regular walks down Church Street, the town’s main drag. Jimmy taught Sunday school at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church for decades.

In 2011, the couple’s grandson Jason Carter told Rolling Stone, “To me, the thing I admire most about my grandfather and grandmother is that they’ve done everything they can to stay normal people.”

“They built their house in the 1960s, and they almost haven’t changed a thing,” Jason added. “They were super excited — legitimately excited! — when the Dollar General store opened in Plains. They buy their clothes there.”

“My grandparents, their microwave is from 1985," Jason, a former state senator, added. "It goes tick tick tick tick! It takes 12 minutes ticking down to pop popcorn, because why would you buy a new microwave? The point is that nothing is easy, and why should it be?”

Jimmy grew up on his family's peanut farm in the community of Archery, a few miles from Plains. They didn’t have running water until he was 11 and only got electricity three years later.

"The greatest day in my life was not being inaugurated president, [and] it wasn't even marrying Rosalynn — it was when they turned the electricity on," Jimmy said, according to the New York Times.

In August, another grandson of the couple, Josh Carter, told PEOPLE that the Plains home was "quiet and calm" these days, adding that since Jimmy began hospice, there was "always somebody at the house" to keep his grandparents company.

The former president and first lady shared sons John William "Jack," James Earl "Chip," Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" and daughter Amy Carter. Between their four adult children, there are 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The former first lady will soon be buried at the Plains residence.

Ceremonies will begin Monday with a wreath-laying at Georgia Southwestern State University's Rosalynn Carter Health and Human Sciences Complex. She’ll then be taken to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, where members of the public are invited to pay respects while she lies in repose from 6 to 10 p.m.

On Tuesday, Nov. 28, the Carter motorcade will move to Emory University's Glenn Memorial Church for a private tribute service, and on Wednesday, Nov. 28, a formal funeral service for family and friends will take place at Maranatha Baptist Church.

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In a statement released following her death, the former president said, “Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished. She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”