Home, sweet home — at Orlando airport

ORLANDO, Fla. — It's not easy finding Vaden Wetherbee's house.

The problem is this: Wetherbee and her son, Billy, live at Orlando International Airport.

No, not in the terminal. To get to the 88-year-old woman's house, one must drive to the airport, circle the access roads, and dodge tourists, rental-car returners and travelers dashing to catch planes.

Follow a twisting, winding route till finally you see Wetherbee's mailbox, hidden in the shadow of a radar tower. And there, down a dirt road patrolled by two barking farm dogs, sits Wetherbee's home — nestled snugly in the middle of the airport.

Strangers often feel lost in a distant land. One nurse, visiting Wetherbee after her knee surgery, was shaking by the time she arrived at the Wetherbee home. "I'll never get back to town," she cried.

"Oh, yes, you will," chirped Wetherbee, in typical good cheer. "It's easier going back."

How Wetherbee came to live in the middle of an airport — less than a mile from Runway 3 — is a classic tale of Florida development, tinged with a dose of sentimentality.

The Wetherbee clan began raising cattle and planting orange trees on this land in 1907 — predating the sprawling international airport by about 70 years. Vaden Wetherbee was a young bride in 1941 when Pinecastle Air Force Base (later renamed McCoy Air Force Base) was established nearby. But in 1974, when the Air Force abandoned McCoy, Orlando officials began buying up thousands of acres of property — for Orlando International Airport.

The Wetherbees and their 290 acres sat in the middle of the expansion plans. Burt Wetherbee, Vaden's husband, wanted to stay on the land, in the only home he had known, so airport officials offered him a deal. We'll buy your land, but let you and your wife live there for the rest of your lives.

Burt died in 1992. Vaden and her son, Billy, 65, tend the groves and split the proceeds with the airport authority.

Naturally, there are pluses and minuses to living in the middle of the airport.

A big minus is that you have no neighbors, so there's no one to borrow a cup of sugar from. When the phone goes out, you can't walk next door and use someone else's. However, if the electricity goes out, the Wetherbees don't worry. They're on the same grid as the airport — and the power is restored immediately.