Inside A “Modern Cozy” Lancaster County Amish Home (22 Photos)

The home we’re going to look at today will probably have some people saying “that’s not an Amish home!” Well, it happens to be one. It’s just one of the more modern-looking homes (at least inside) you’ll see among the Amish.

That said, the interior style you’ll see here is becoming increasingly common among Amish in more progressive communities, like Lancaster County, where this home is located. The interior does not look particularly Amish, besides some tell-tale details which I’ll point out.

I think this style of home reflects a couple of things. One is the growing wealth among Amish. I also believe it mirrors their involvement in the home construction and furniture industries.

Home furnishing trends popular among the English gradually become accepted in (some) Amish churches. The most striking example of that is this million-dollar Amish home in Geauga County, Ohio. Compare that to this home on the other end of the spectrum of Amish abodes.

The exterior reveals that this is actually a shop home or utility building home, with living space above a garage space. A family could live in this space, and when they build a proper larger home, the living space would become an area to hold church, youth singings, and other gatherings. It could also simply become workshop space.

You can even see this entrance door placed where a larger entrance could be, so a truck might back right up to load furniture pieces.

I believe this is also the first home we’ve featured from the Lancaster County community. This one, in the Paradise area showed up on Zillow (hat-tip to Lauren) under special conditions – it’s actually being advertised as an auction taking place next month.

The home itself is not huge, and rather than do a big price reveal at the end of post as is common here, I’ll just tell you that bidding on this property starts at $200,000. Could it end up at 50% higher? More? With the generally competitive real estate market in the area, who knows.

The description at Zillow:

This property is going to auction 9/11/2023 at 6:30 PM and is being sold with reserve. LISTED PRICE IS ONLY A SUGGESTED OPENING BID, AND IS NOT INDICATIVE OF THE FINAL SALES PRICE WHICH WILL BE BY SELLER CONFIRMATION DAY OF AUCTION.

“Being sold with reserve” means that the seller is only obligated to sell if bidding reaches or surpasses his minimum price.

1.89 acre with a 2018, 3 bedroom 1-bath house/ horse barn with 2 stalls and extra storage room. Newer Living quarters built in 2018, modern, painted kitchen cabinets, spacious living room, laundry, laminate flooring, blacktop driveway, sprawling back yard, large pasture area, run-in-shed building for animals.

Bordering on the back side is a large tract of wooded property. Onsite Septic & Well. Located conveniently along a rural country road bordering a wooded area where you can sit next to a firepit and watch wildlife. Very neat setup barn/house for easy access to the top and bottom of the building.

So it’s not a huge piece of land by Amish standards, but a cozy starter-style home for a young Amish family. Of course, the auction is open to the public so a non-Amish buyer could acquire it. So let’s have a look inside.

Kitchen

Right off the bat I think you can see what I mean by modern in appearance. This kitchen does not really have too many immediate clues that it belongs to an Amish home (besides what appears to be the owner’s reflection in the mirror). The interior suggests a thoroughly modern design. There is one thing though, do you notice?

The light on a hook is a giveaway that this is not an “English” home.

It is disguised with a shade though, to make it look different than the utility battery lights typical to Amish homes in this community.

Nice view out these kitchen windows and a warm inspirational piece of decor on the counter.

Off to the side, the heating stove is another Amishy detail.

Here’s the view to the right looking past the stove, where we see another common furniture piece in Amish homes, the rolltop desk.

And a peek in the pantry. Got the Rice Krispies and Cheerios covered.

And I can’t conclusively tell from the angle, but this looks like the entryway sink, another Amish home standard.

Living area

In the small living room you’ll immediately notice another hanging battery light, this one lit. You’ve also got a cabinet lamp which is probably on a battery as well. Cozy area with overstuffed upholstered sofa, recliner, and recliner sofa, as is typical in this community.

I believe the clock above the recliner sofa is one that plays tunes. But differently from other musical clocks, with this one you can change out the types of songs it plays. These are around $200 and seem to be pretty popular in this community.

Note the cord at lower right. In the wider version of this photo it looks to be coming in from under the door. I’m not quite sure where it’s running, but in the next photo is one possibility…

You can see in the photo below that this family has what looks like a conventional washing machine. A dozen years ago I wrote about how these machines have been accepted in some Amish homes in this settlement. They would be powered likely by using what you see in this next photo.

Now I’m not going to be able to tell you what each gadget and implement you see here does, but this looks to be yet another version of the battery-inverter setup found in some of the more progressive Amish homes nowadays.

Power is generated (typically either through solar power – note the panels on the roof in the top photos – or diesel generator), stored in the batteries at bottom, and then converted using an inverter to normal household current, which can then be used to power things like the washing machine.

Naturally you can understand why some people might consider this “un-Amish”, but it’s the way things go nowadays in some places. You can see another example of such a setup in this post about a Missouri Amish home.

Bedrooms

Finally let’s check out the bedrooms. Here is the master bedroom. See what I mean about modern furniture trends. Crib tucked away in the back corner.

And a child’s room. This is probably the most “classically Lancaster Amish” looking room in the whole home. Hickory rocker, simple bed frame with deer-theme cover in dark colors, horse picture on the wall.

And a play area for the littlest ones.

A quick look outside as well. This is a nice touch for this property and pretty common for this community. Drive around Lancaster County on a pleasant summer Saturday evening and you’ll see plenty of Amish families out taking advantage of their backyard fire pits.

Nice spacious chunk of land.

A garden which I bet is bigger than it appears here.

And a look inside the horse barn. Note the buggy at left, behind the plastic divider.

I’ve already given you the opening bid price above. I’ll be curious to see what this property sells for.

So is it an Amish place? As I hope we’ve covered above, yes. It’s just not the first thing that will come to mind for that concept. But, it represents how an increasing number of Amish people live today. The definition of just what is an “Amish home” continues to expand.

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11 Comments

  1. Becky

    Very nice home

    I like how they have the kids lawn tools there as well as the red plastic wheel barrel

  2. House for Sale

    Erik,
    Did you happen to notice the window unit A/C in the picture w/ the rolltop desk? We call them “window shakers” here in South Florida, but I don’t recall ever seeing one in pictures of an Amish owned home.
    I’d love to see more homes. Thanks for a wonderful column.
    Adrienne McGinley

    1. Yea – I didn’t look close enough at that. It does look like an A/C unit. Maybe they brought it back with them from Florida? 😉

      Admittedly I haven’t had my radar up on A/C adoption, but if it’s becoming a thing in some homes, I guess I’m not surprised, especially when you consider all that battery power and the way things are going in some places. The rare home A/C I’ve seen in the past with Amish have been limited to medical needs cases. You’ll also see more tech generally in certain business buildings. Glad you’re liking these, planning to share more homes soon.

  3. M

    K- cups?

    Are those k-cups in the pantry?

  4. Boyce Rensberger

    Wow!

    That must be in a very progressive district. Nothing plain about this home. Yes, they’re off the grid, but they don’t sacrifice much, given the workarounds of propane, batteries, solar and diesel. Fancy bedroom furniture and even a small rug. Didn’t see a storage room with rows of canned beans and peaches.

  5. J.O.B.

    They continue to become like the rest of us.

    Yes, we can clearly see they have modern appliances, Air-Conditioner in the window,..etc. Increase use of modern technology. Not just for work, but for leisure/conveniance. Erik is correct. More Amish are living this way.

    I’m sure many people in these communities have politely ‘fought’ for these conveniences.

    What will happen in the future if this modernization of Amish continues? Lancaster is known as Amish Country. But what will that mean if they are living, looking, and acting like the rest of us? What’s the point of Amish tourism in this area if they are just like us? What’s the point of calling themselves Amish instead of Christians?

    Are they really seperate of this world if they continue to head down this path?

    This is a nice home and an easy home to move into for a non-Amish person.

  6. Lance

    An Amish home, or not?

    I guess it depends on the owners views on whether or not they are followers of the faith from their forefathers started by one Jacob Ammon as to whether they are Amish or not.

    When I was still learning about the Amish, I was able to drive to the Pathway bookstore in the northern Indiana Amish community (now moved to SW Michigan). There I found a book called Settlements That Failed by David Luthy, himself an Amish convert. Inside was a small addon pamphlet where the author explained his views on why these settlements failed. A lack of leadership was a very common view, another was unreasonable expectations, but a very apparent one was change-mindedness. ie becoming progressive until all semblance of Amishness was gone and they stopped calling themselves Amish, usually to become Mennonites. A second source about conservatism-progressiveness effects on the Amish was detailed in a book by Paton Yoder titled Tradition and Transition. Basically, it was a history of the Amish in 1800s. Of primary focus was the minister’s gatherings (Diener Versamlung) which began in the 1860s. Those Amish that liked these gatherings would eventually split from those that did not. Those that embraced the gatherings ‘progressed’ out of the Amish and would start calling those that did not, ‘Old Order’ Amish. That’s a view on the origin of the label ‘old order’. These 2 books were instrumental in my search for an Amish community and ordnung I could accept and even into why I left the Lutheran church of my youth and also teaching me about my own conservatism.

    The house you see above and other progressive Amish that Erik has provided pictures are not houses of Old Orders. They are more like those that progressed out in the late 1800s. Will they soon give up all Amish traits? Or will they continue to walk the line that some of their more progressive relatives did not?

    It took about 35 years (1865 to 1900) for the progressives to leave in the past. I have only been observing the Amish since 1997 and the pace of transition seems as fast or possibly even a bit faster.

    1. "Old Order"

      Confusion arises when the term “Old Order” is used in different ways. I believe it is still much more generally used as something like a synonym to horse-and-buggy Amish.

      The less common usage like here I do see applied to simply the plainest Amish, like Swartzentruber and other of the more change-resistant groups. Maybe that is what the term will be generally accepted to mean one day, but I think we’re a ways away from that yet. I do get the point you’re making though.

      Despite these obvious visual changes and acceptance of modernity, there are still a lot of elements keeping people like these “Amish” as the term has long been understood to represent certain traits (there’s another bag of worms to open).

      Plain clothing, PA Dutch, horse-and-buggy (although less dependent on that nowadays), 8th grade education, nonresistance, mutual aid and of course adherence to all the traditional beliefs, practices and traditions of the Amish church in terms of worship, and so on.

      I guess you’d have to weigh the tech advances and the homes that look fancy (inside, not so much outside in this case) against all of that, in making any sort of judgment.

      Though, when you look at something like this up against the plain home I linked to at the top of the post, I agree it is quite striking.

  7. Nancy Spahl

    Reflection in the mirror

    Erik, did you notice the people’s reflection in the kitchen mirror? There is a person taking pictures but it also looks like an Amish gentleman standing next to the person taking the pictures.
    I enjoy your postings. Thanks for sharing!
    Nancy

    1. J.O.B.
    2. I did, I made a little comment about it in the post…must be the owner:) Glad you liked the post!