Lichgate on High Road has been in existence since 1956, when Doctor Laura Jepsen started building it.

She of course obviously built, you know, bought her land and she came back for the tree.

That's why she bought this piece of land.

But actually, Lichgate, as you see, it had been with her a lot longer.

She talks about how it had gone back and forth between her mind her whole life.

And then after she bought her property in 1956, she started to build what she considered her dream castle.

Clifton Lewis, which was quite a woman.

I mean, she was just remarkable and such a mentor for me.

But I got a call from her one day saying, hey, Nita, you know, what are you doing?

And you know what that's like when you get those phone calls.

So anyway, I went, and I picked her up and we went on an adventure to Havana, and that was to buy these books that Doctor Jepsen had written.

And it was Lichgate on High Road was the name of the books, and there were boxes of them that had been auctioned off, at the time of Doctor Jepson's death, the Nature Conservancy auctioned her belongings off.

So, Clifton found out the books were there.

And on the way up there, she told me the story of Lichgate on High Road.

So, we got the books, and we came back.

And then she brought me to Lichgate and at the time, the windows were broken out.

You couldn't drive down the driveway.

I mean, it was completely overgrown.

You could hardly see the tree.

That set the motion of what do we do?

And we used to meet at the Black Cat.

I don't know, it was.

It was a bookstore, but it was called the Black Cat.

And it was downtown on Monroe Street, and it was an old-fashioned bookstore.

And we would, meet between the stacks and try to figure out what we were going to do, because none of us really had the experience or knew what to do.

So, we would just throw out ideas.

And finally, we realize the only way we were going to save it would be to buy it from the Nature Conservancy, because no one was going to come along and buy it for us, and the city wasn't interested in it.

They had, you know, been, approached and they weren't interested in it.

So, if we hadn't gotten a bank loan, there There're so many things that you could do to promote Lichgate but Lichgate has a way of promoting itself.

It's a hard place to speak for.

It really is.

I mean, you know, I used to say early on, you know, we don't have a spotted owl we can drag out to save the Redwoods.

You know, it's like any if you go somewhere, you go, we want to save this.

Or like what?

You know, and you're like, oh, it's a tree in a cottage.

They're like, yeah, okay.

You know, pat you on the back and on your way.

But I think just, I feel like I just watch over it.

I mean, at my age, I can't really do what I could do before.

I mean, I'm at that age now, and I always say, well, you know, I need to start backing off.

But it's hard.

It's hard because I'll never completely let go.

I know I will, and that's time.

Let me tell you, for someone like me, that's a big lesson.

How to, like, step back and let the next generations come and have faith that they're going to do they're going to do it.

They understand that.

And I and it's been a gift that my daughters have done, you know, stepped up and they haven't just stepped up because of me.

I can see it.

And I can see when they talk about it that they they've been bitten basically by, you know, Lichgate wrapped themselves around them.