Souter quits his farmhouse, and perhaps the rural lifestyle

The New York Times reports today that Justice David Souter, who recently retired from the U.S. Supreme Court, has purchased a large, single-story home in a salubrious neighborhood of Hopkinton, New Hampshire, population 5,399. Hopkinton is contiguous to New Hampshire's capital city, Concord. Souter's new home is only 8-miles from his former home in Weare. While Weare has a larger population (7,776) than Hopkinton, Souter's long-time home there has been of a much more rural character: a two-story family farmhouse that journalist Katie Zezima characterizes as "a rustic abode with peeling brown paint, rotting beams and plenty of the solitude he desired." The old house does not even have a phone line.

Why the move? Zezima explains:

Justice Souter told a Weare neighbor, Jimmy Gilman, that the two-story farmhouse was not structurally sound enough to support the thousands of books he owns, according to The Concord Monitor, and that he wished to live on one level.

Read Zezima's full story here.