Richard Petty Shows Us His Childhood House! (Prohibition Era Secret Hiding Spots!)

I was born in the west bedroom. Yeah. When people died, you know, this is the ring they put them in. If the revenueers came, somebody would run in here and release this. My dad says that at one time there were like 15 people living in this house. Y'all come on in. Right now, we are standing in front of the house that Richard Petty was born in and grew up in with Richard Petty. my mother's home place at the Tombs Tombs estate or whatever tombs form and I think the house was built in 1927 or 28. This is where I was born and grew up in. We just take you through the house and so we show you some of the rooms and stuff. But uh you know it's part of historical landmark in Randolph County. It's part of the museum, Pity Museum. And so all this area around is all basic museum deal. Then we got the garage in the back as you know. So we we'll show you. We'll just go in the front door and sort of tell you what's going on here. I know when we was growing up uh we'd eat supper and stuff and then uh when supper was over with grandy come up and sit right over there in the corner, chew his tobacco and spit over in the floor. And I know one time I was four or five years old. I wanted some tobacco. He gave me some. I turned green before it ever hit the bottom. I think that was the last of my tobacco deal. Y'all come on in. When uh we first moved back here, uh my grandmother and granddaddy died, Diddy bought a bought the house from all the brothers and sisters, and this was our front room. And it always has been the front room. This this room here was where mother and Diddy, they they slept in there, and that was that was their bedroom. This was mine and my brother's bedroom. We we slept in here. And uh I guess until we got married, we slept in the same bed with with each other. So that's the way everybody lived. Upstairs is three bedrooms. I was born in the west bedroom and my mother and myself and my dad lived there and then my brother was born up there also. And this when I was growing up, this was the dining room. This is where everybody eat. But uh when everybody moved out, we moved in. Then this became the family room, I guess. You know, we had a telephone. Finally got a TV in 1954,55. So, you know, and we still got the original telephone. I think what period of time is the house configured right now to be like in 1951 or 52? Then the house was redone. In other words, it was cleaned up because grandmother and granddad had moved out and uh then my dad bought the thing from from all the can people and so he came in and we they redone the floors, painted the walls, done everything. So everything you see is original stuff. And this was naturally the kitchen and it it's always been the kitchen. You know, I can remember when first time we got a refrigerator, you know, back in the early 50s, I guess. And that was greatest thing. We didn't have to have ice and ice box. We just had had was able to open the door and everything was cold. So, and then this one in here was a pantry. And then when uh DN bought the place, then through that door is a bathroom and uh and running water, warm water, hot water. Man, we was in hog heaven. We had never seen anything like that. So that that was about it. And originally when the they built the house, they they drilled a well here, but they never did get any water out of it. So they finally covered over it. And it's got a little bit of a basement down there where grandmother and mother stored stored their stuff in the winter time. They canned stuff and all that and kept it down there and it was always cool down there. Is that where the fridge was when you always basically this is the way the kitchen I think this table was probably moved over closer, but yeah, it was pretty much pretty much the way everything was. still got the original stuff on the wall, plaster and stuff. Had a few broke places and stuff, but other than that, the I think it took Randy like three or four years to build a house. He was in the lumber business and sawmill and they put the house together and then waited for it to dry out before they ever put the plaster all that stuff so that it wouldn't settle. So the houses never settled. H So you were growing up having Christmas morning and stuff all in there. Was that in the the other room with the trophy case where you'd open Christmas presents and Yeah, we always used the front room for Christmas and all of that stuff. And then when Linda and myself, we always had when we first moved in, they had a heater in that room and that heated the whole house. Of course, we kept the door shut. And when Linda and myself got married, we moved upstairs. We used that room right above for our living room. And then the front bedroom was where we slept. And so we didn't have no heat up there. So we cut a hole in the floor for the heat to go out of the up into the living room. The bedroom was still cold, but the living room was there. Yeah, we saw that. And we're like, "Oh, you can see right down there." Just cut a little hole. No fan or nothing. It just all the heat went up. So it worked out good. So we lived we lived here for a year and Kyle was born and then we bought a house trailer I guess what we call him then and put it out in the front yard and we lived there for I don't know a couple of years and then we built the the brick house that's over beside here and moved into that. How old were you when you remember your dad starting to work on race cars out back? Well, when when it first started, I was like 12 years old, 11 or 12 years old. First race we run, I was 11. And that was in June, and I turned 12 in July. So, basically, I started working on race cars when I was 12 years old. Wow. So, working on them ever since. Hear a car fire up and run outside to go see what was going on. Yeah. You know, we had everything here. The garage was right there. I know you seen the floor. That's original floor and all that stuff. And we had our own gas pump and you know we we had everything here. It was it was high buck for that time. I guess everybody had a race car. It was all in the backyard anyway. So we had a pretty nice backyard. Yeah, you did. It was pretty awesome setup. Seeing all the the evolution of the started with the one building and then it it's like really hard to follow cuz there's so many of them. When we first started, u my mother mother and daddy lived here and we moved to another place and uh so we had the original garage and then we started building garages every year, you know, 56 they built a garage, 57 they built a garage, 58 and my mother told my daddy, don't put it in the front yard, you know, as long as it's in the backyard. And then uh you know after a period of year we run out of room over there and we started building down there where these u buildings are there used to be a big garden. That's where back back in the day everybody had a big garden cuz and then they had a chicken house out back. I mean you know down right in the corner of the woods there had a hog pin for the hogs. So you know people were self-sufficient at that time. They went to the store to buy something. I don't know what they all but any they add all the ingredients the green stuff anyway to be able to live here. Do you remember the first time you ever drove a car of even a regular car? No, not the first time I drove a car. I remember the first thing I ever drove. I was like about 5 years old and it was getting up hay in the front yard. All that was pastured out in a field and they had this I don't know 38 pickup or flatbed truck and it had a granny gear in it and had a throttle and my uncles would turn the thing around and I'd stand on the seat and hold it straight till it got to the other end of the road. They jump in and turn around and that that's the first time I remember drive. I didn't drive. I was just holding on. But that's the first time I remember driving anything. And all that time the road was dirt and stuff. And uh I guess first time I drove a car with mother need some at the store. My uncle run the store right across the the road up there in and level cross. And she put me in the car and I'd drive up there and I never went across the road. I'd turn around and drive back on the dirt road. Everybody done it. It was no big deal. Wow. That's really cool. It's crazy to be standing here kind of picturing where those things happened and that it's still all here. There's a lot of history here. That's for sure. That's what we want to capture that and preserve it so people can watch this for the next rest of forever. Yeah. Let's see this this will become part of the museum and over a period of time we'll be able to to come to the museum and then if somebody wants to visit the house then they can come out and be part of part of coming to the museum they'll see where was born where we was raised and then see the rest of our life down there in the garage growing up years this is history you know you every time you walk in a room you remember something that happened a Christmas deal or something you done wrong got a weapon for what whatever it was. So, uh, you know, yeah, they I got probably, you know, 20 years of experience in this house and 20 years of memories. There used to be a whale right there, but it's cemented all in. Yeah, you can see, but they never did get no water out of it. It'll show you every time we laid any cement on this property, we'd get it all lined up, everything would be good. Come up the next morning, Daddy slipped out, put his name in there and put the date that the cement was laid, whether it was a patch or the floor, and then you'll see down in the new building, we got a ALP petty. We still do the same thing. We lay cement here. We put put his name down and put the date. Wow. That's really neat. That that's history here. Definitely. So, we're going to get some more in-depth detail of this house and upstairs and everything. Hey, my name is Rebecca Petty Buffett and I'm Richard Petty's youngest daughter. And I'm Sharon Petty Farlo. And I'm Richard Petty's oldest daughter. So, you have some growing up memories in here also? Yes. Yes. I lived next door for about 15 years. So this is the formal living room and we were not allowed in here except for Christmas Day growing up. This was the formal. So we only celebrated holidays in this room. And this house was built in 1924 by our our great grandfather. Our great-grandfather. Yes. And still today it has the original floors, the original walls, a lot of the original um light fixtures. So when you were growing up, what did what did it look like in here? What was on It basically looked like this. We had some more trophies. We now have put a lot of his trophies in the museum and there was like a center c like a center cushion and then they had a piano and they had a piano and then we the only time we really came in this room was in uh at Christmas. We had a tree right by the door and um that he would cut down and on the property and this is where we would have Christmas. It wasn't Christmas. You just didn't come in this room. Really? It was off limits. It Yes, it was off limits. This was our grandparents room. This was the master bedroom. When we were growing up, when when our grandparents lived here, this was their room. Um but now the museum uses it to display a lot of our mother's some her doll collection. Yes. She had a lot of older dolls and and dolls that are part of collections and so we have just tried to display a lot of um her um dolls in this room. Was it blue back then too? It was. It was. We've not painted it and it still has the original light and it has the original light switches. And then this bedroom. Yeah, those switches are really neat. I think they Yep. So, and then this this was the original bedroom. This was like the grandfather that built it. This was their room. That's why my grandmother always used that room. Oh. Because um she felt like this was her parents' room. Huh. So even Lee was second generation of this house. Yes. Yes. Well, it was it was our grandmother like our daddy's grand mother's father that built the house. Okay. So it was the tombs actually that built the house. Okay. Yes. So and my our grandmother was the oldest. So she's the one who ended up with the house. But you can ask all of Daddy's cousins, aunts, everybody lived in this house. Yes. If you were a tombs, everybody had lived in this house. Everybody lived here. But she was one of the oldest. And when they were married and they were they were well, the parents had died. They bought he worked really hard to make the money to buy this house cuz this is where he wanted their home to be. Um, but this room has right now what we have in here is we just have some pottery, just a little bit of pottery. Um, these are all a lot of these are locally made here in Randolph County and they're limited edition. Now, this um nativity set that was made um by our grandmother. She did a lot of ceramics and things, so we've got it displayed here so people can see it. But I was going to show you this was like a this was a bedroom and this was like a little um medicine like a medicine cabinet and just built right in um the wall. You see it's got the old hatch stuff like that. That would be neat. And then I have a medicine right in the wall. One time the revenueers came to cuz they came all the time to check the house and go through the house and they came in here in the bedroom and they found a little bottle of shine and my grandmother yanked it or my great-grandmother yanked it out of her head and said that's my medicine and stuck it back in there. Yeah. Yeah. So, but the fireplace, you know, used to that was the only heat. So, they had to have the fireplaces to um keep warm in the winter. So, what was on all these shelves here? So, those were actually in our parents' home and it had um Department 56 Village on it. And in the meantime, we brought it over here. We were going to display it and 2020 happened. So, we got the shelves brought in and put here, but we haven't It's always a project. We We haven't got the It's a work in progress. That's definitely yet. So, anyway, we'll get to it eventually. We got a lot of those, too. It's understandable. And I mean, you know, that year came and a lot of things got halted and changed and and we did a lot of cleaning during 2020. So when it was originally built, this was built as the dining room. Yes. Because they were a big family. There was like eight. Our grandmother being the oldest, but there was eight children in the tombs family. So this was the original dining room. So that was like a built-in china. They had it. But by the time we were growing up coming along, our grandparents had made this like their den. So when you came to visit your like my grandfather's lazy boy sat right there and my grandmother's hitting chair sat right there and he had two TVs going all the time and they put up they put up they had a big rug in here and they put up seating and and she had a she had a like a baker's rack that sat right here that always had candy on it. Do you remember that shar? Mhm. And then that door is original to the house. So pretty with the glass knobs and the glass in the door. So he would watch two different TV shows at the same time. Mhm. What were they usually? Well, like he would watch a race and a baseball game at the same time. Oh. Like on on a Sunday, he would have the race on one channel and the Braves on another channel. And then this tent, this tent during the winter because heat rises, they would leave it open so that the heat would go up and heat the upstairs room. Because when I there's no fireplace up there, so you didn't have heat. But in the summer, they would close it to keep the cool. And when our parents first got married, they lived here. And so cuz my our grandparents told my daddy and my mama that they could live here. So when they moved in, they didn't always want to be around our grandparents. So they went upstairs and they made one of the rooms upstairs like there sitting watching TV, hanging out room, and then this was their bedroom. So our daddy actually cut that hole in the floor so they wouldn't be cold at night. Yeah. Cuz there's no heat upstairs. No heat. So like I said, all this is still original. paint the windows, the walls, the um they Yeah, that must have been the I want me over there. They had a telephone and their TVs and all that stuff over there. You know, of course, that was years later, you know. It's strange to see outlets in the wall that don't have the ground prong hole in them where it's just two holes instead of three. Yeah. And then this is their kitchen. And this is the one room they had to update because like I said, there was a whale out here on the porch right in the middle. They've since taken it out and covered it up, but that that's where they brought in their water, you know, for the bath and for um cooking. And um so, of course, the the kitchen is totally redone. Now, this is where the cabinets were and the stove and everything were, but u they built these had these cabinets. There used to be like a wood stove that came out of the wall over there or something, but there's all kinds of like little um hidden compartments in this house. Like this is one of them. They kept it now for So somebody came in, you know, they wouldn't know it was there, which is Yeah, we like that stuff. Yeah, this was their little pantry. We now use it for storage. But um this was their pantry. And you know, of course, you know, people, they had a downstairs seller. And then they had this pantry, you know, where they kept their canned goods and things like that. That was all original to the house. And then that was an outside door, which now goes to open up cuz we got a bunch of storage in it. Yeah. Yeah. So then this takes you back in here. And then this is the closet that has the pulley system right here. So once again, if the revenueers came, somebody would run in here and release this and it releases a cross tie upstairs across the wall so that when the revenue pushed on it, it didn't give. So what was the pretty ingenious was that bar up there down? Most of the time you'd only open it to It's up now. So it was up most time, but if the revenueers came, if they knew that the revenueers were coming, somebody would run over and pull that string to release it upstairs so that I would fall up against the wall. But that's the room that my staircase right here. We used to get on pillows to the top. And then our grandmother was a seamstress. So that's some of her sewing machines. My grandmother, was this the upstairs watching TV room? This was their upstairs watching TV, living room, and then they used this one as their bedroom. But this is a quick side story. Our grandmother made her wedding dress. So I'm gonna say in the 80s that was grandmother's children. No, it was here. Was it here? It was here when I was But I was going to say when at at my dad says that at one time there were like 15 people living in this house. See, you had the older children getting married, bringing their spouse in, and then you still had the younger siblings that were not married. And he said that at night they would just sleep everywhere. Okay. And that that him and Uncle Morris and another one of their cousins had a mat that they like rolled out every night and then they just slept on it. Wow. That's crazy. And our dad slept in a double bed with his brother until the day he got married. Huh. I mean they they you know back what they did. Yeah. It was normal. Everybody did it. I mean you know you slept in a room with people everywhere. Oh, my flashlight's burning out. I might need a chrome. Yeah, this is she stored. So, that's the custom ventilation hole in there. Yep, I see it. And then this is the closet. Chris, you want to see it? So, this is the closet. So, that's the cross tie. This is the string that I showed…