Go to the end of Route 29, hang a left on Route 99 and take the first right and there before you -- now dotted with 400 homes -- is the site of the former 500-acre dairy farm where “The Man Who Built Mt. Hebron” grew up.

After passing the distinctive entrance sign with its cursive wording and ‘60s flair, a visitor soon comes upon Mt. Hebron Presbyterian Church and the nearly 200-year-old Hebron House. Built in 1808, the 17-room stone structure was home to H.J. Baker Jr., his nine brothers and sisters and their parents for nearly 40 years until the family sold it and eight acres to the congregation in 1958.

As the last eight-acre parcel of the family’s original property nears development by another homebuilder, Baker, 87, now tends a vegetable garden there and works the land with a few small pieces of farm machinery.

He also stays active at Vantage House, the retirement community where he has lived for three years with wife Loudell, whose health necessitated their move. The couple, who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in 2006, have two children, Patricia and H.J. Baker III, two granddaughters and two great-grandsons. Baker still drives, yet he likes the convenience of the many amenities at Vantage House for his wife, including the market, beauty salon, bank and fitness center, to name a few.

After agreeing to sell the last eight acres of his family’s property and finding himself newly retired at 80, he decided to maintain a garden there until the sale is finalized. All those years of hard work on the farm and in homebuilding have given him and his wife a comfortable retirement, he admits, but his golden years were never what motivated him.

“There is nothing like the feel of dirt and the satisfaction farming brings,”