I also read Cold Mountain when I was an English major in college (for a Southern Literature class), but your story beats it by a longshot. Thank you so much for taking the time to share all your words and pictures with us.
I know what you mean, too, about wanting to "preserve" a place like that. Places can be sacred, in a way, to families... my Icelandic family has a farm in remote, northwestern Iceland where my grandparents pastored a church and raised 10 children for 40 years. It belonged to the state (being a church), but once the parish went out of business, so to speak, my grandmother was able to get her hands on it and make it "ours." I don't have any memories of my own there, but every time I go, I feel very close to my father (whom I never met) and imagine him growing up there on the farm, next to the sea. It's beautiful.
The 2 acres of land that I grew up on (and lived for 20+ years) was taken away from me, when my mom sold it to developers 2 years ago. They bulldozed the house that my stepfather built by hand... it wrecked me for a long time. It was a sacred place for me. I can't go back to that place, not the way it is now... it would be torture to see it that way.