In 2008, after working as a local news anchor in Louisville, Ky., for 25 years, Don Schroeder retired and moved down to Gulf Shores, Ala., with his wife, Mary Schroeder. The couple thought their beachfront property on the Gulf of Mexico would be their forever home. Then life happened.
In 2019, Mr. Schroeder, now 77, was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent surgery and radiation. A year later, he had a heart attack. Then Mrs. Schroeder’s 97-year-old father, who’d been living in New Bern, N.C., died. Aiming to keep his house in the family, the Schroeders sold their Gulf Shores house in 2021 and moved into the 3,000-square-foot Colonial home overlooking the Trent River. It was about five hours from their daughter’s home in Virginia, and a few hours from two of Mr. Schroeder’s three children from a previous marriage.
“We had a great time in Gulf Shores,” Mr. Schroeder said. “It was wonderful. But no male in my family has lived past 73. And I was 73 when I had the heart attack. I wanted to get Mary closer to the kids. It seemed like the right thing to do.”
All things considered, the couple settled comfortably into their new lifestyle. They began renovating the 40-year-old house, and planned to add a swimming pool in the backyard. “They started digging it up in February 2022,” Mr. Schroeder said. “Then Mary got sick.”
Mrs. Schroeder had been feeling severe fatigue, so she had blood work done, which led to tests that revealed an incurable stomach cancer. Ten days after the diagnosis, Mrs. Schroeder died. She was 68.
“Shattered. My life was shattered,” Mr. Schroeder said. “Forty years married and in the span of 10 days, gone.”
Determined to stay in the house, he continued on in North Carolina for a couple of years, until his children convinced him to leave in 2024. “I had this huge house that had an upstairs, downstairs,” he said. “One of my daughters said, ‘Dad, you can’t be going up and down those stairs. You are going to fall or break a leg or something. So I finally relented and sold the place.”
His new destination was Northern Virginia, close to his youngest daughter and her two children, who live about 20 miles from Washington, D.C. Mr. Schroeder wanted a single-level condo with some outdoor space and covered parking, with enough room to comfortably fit his Schnoodle named Jeter, his mountain bike and his 45,000 baseball cards.
“I watch a lot of baseball, and I think about baseball a lot,” said Mr. Schroeder. “I liked the idea of being close to Nationals Park.”
Over a two-week period in late 2024, Mr. Schroeder looked at about 20 condos in and around Arlington County, Va., with agents Katie Hunter and Kelly Hasbach of Compass Realty. After selling the North Carolina house, he had about $600,000 to spend.
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