GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Laurie Goacher kicked around loose sand last Sunday afternoon where she believed Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Hell House once stood 50 years ago. Suddenly, she hit resistance.

The more she cleared the soil away from a corner at 3353 Southern Oaks Dr., the more apparent it was that she had unearthed an original footing of the iconic shack where the band once wrote their hits.

“This is history,” she said.

And now it’s hers.

Along with her husband, Rich, the Clay County couple closed on the lot a week earlier, nearly a year after the most recent owner, Adam Hartle, died of a heart attack.

It’s a delicate balance, for sure. It’s private property, and they will soon build a house there. But it’s also sacred ground to many Southern Rock fans. They hope to find the balance between their new home and the land’s legacy.

“We’re going to build on it. We know that,” Rich Goacher said. “We know it’s hallowed ground. We’ve been looking at properties and looking at properties and looking at properties. Honestly, that lot came up on Facebook about two months ago, and not for one second did I think that we’d ever have a chance to buy it.”

Their offer was quickly accepted.

The Goachers will hire a construction company this week and move forward with an architectural plan. The famed dock on Peter’s Creek will be removed, Rich Goacher said. But like the land’s legacy, it won’t be tossed aside.

“We’re going to figure out what to do with it,” he said. “We want to preserve it. We want to share it. I want to put a shipping container in my backyard. I want to take the dock because we have a boat. I will not ever ... I will not ever throw that wood away. And I want to wrap the shipping container.”

The Goachers said they’ve always been Lynyrd Skynyrd fans. They stood in two lines – enduring three separate showers – for more than three hours last week to buy a bottle of Hell House Whiskey and have it signed by lead singer Johnny Van Zant and guitarist Rickey Medlocke. As Van Zant returned the bottle, Rich Goacher bent over and said he just bought the lot.

Because of a limited supply of the whiskey, Whitey’s Fish Camp had to limit sales to one bottle a person.

“I couldn’t leave there without a signed bottle,” Rich Goacher said. “I had four people with me, and we got in line again. We got eight bottles. They signed all of them. Of course, they were more than nice. They’re part of something special. Their music is not just a local flavor. It is forever-lasting music. I don’t know of anyone that doesn’t recognize a Skynyrd song. I’ve never heard anyone say they don’t like their music.”

Development of the lot was inevitable. The gated community was carved into 158 lots after D.R. Horton purchased 114 acres in 2017. With 157 houses already sprouted up, the Hell House property is the only lot still vacant.

For now.

“At the end of the day, there’s houses on either side,” Rich Goacher said. “So, personally, I think the romanticism of the lot is somewhat gone. It’s not open. It’s a gated community. There’s nothing commercial you could put there.”

In the 70s, the shanty lacked air conditioning. It was cramped and topped with a tin roof. The band's music was often interrupted by the piercing sounds of wildlife and the oppressive humidity that followed a typical Florida shower. Those crude conditions helped define the band’s genre.

That won’t be lost when the Goachers move in.

“What we do in the backyard will be in the best way possible to preserve the history of Hell House and respect it,” Rich Goacher said. “The spirit of this place will live on.”