The Schools' Good Neighbor [Fred Howe] - "Oh, It Was a Beautiful Place When We Came..."
The Ithaca Journal, Nov 27 1975, P. 3, with aerial photo of house and picture of Fred Howe mowing.

Extract:
" Fred Howe is an island, holding out against the concrete. And his house is a place where the floodwaters of modernity haven't yet washed over old ways.
  But he is crowded - you might say surrounded — by other's plans.
  His home has, for some time, been sandwiched between Route 13 and the Ithaca school district playing fields - more recently, between those and some new tennis courts.
  In order to avoid having his house condemned, Howe agreed, last summer, to sell it to the school district with a single provision: That he could live there for the rest of his life. Meanwhile the fields are being renovated.
 ...
  Today Howe is 88, turning 89 in April.
"This is my house, regardless of anything else," he said, looking out a lace-curtained window."