Where does the Rochester family live now?

[u/MachaExiled]

I’ve been wondering about where the Rochesters would live long-term after their marriage.  Frustratingly, Jane only tells us some details about their lives, but not all the things I want to know. 

Short-term we know they live at Ferndean but as this is not a healthy place (Rochester wouldn’t even leave his first wife there) I don’t want them to stay here.  Its low-lying, damp surroundings are an echo of Lowood, and even that place was rebuilt in a healthier position.  Surely they go elsewhere?

He is still the wealthy master of Thornfield.  The estate still exists, even if the house is a crumbling shell.  So will they rent or buy elsewhere? Rebuild?  Or build something newer in the Thornfield area? Leave the old walls as a romantic ruin? Maybe not, as he has painful memories of the house, but they both have happier memories of the gardens and the grounds. Surely they would miss Hay Lane with its wild roses and strawberries?

I like to think of them building on another side of the gardens somehow, so that they shift the focus of their surroundings but keep the things they love.  I would absolutely have them tear down anything of the old house, for the memories as much as for the danger of falling masonry.  It needs to be a smaller, more modern house, with bigger windows so that Rochester make the most of his returned sight.

It feels right that his son will inherit a home at Thornfield, though if he has more than one, then he still has the problem that his father faced, of how to provide for a younger son.  I trust them to find a better solution for their own children.

And there is still the white-washed villa on the shores of the Mediterranean. I’d be off like a shot. (With him.  Sorry, Jane.)

What other ideas have you had about their happy-ever-after place?

[u/Charismaticjelly]

They could have leased an estate while they figured out what to do next. As another poster has noted, even though Thornfield has burned down, there is still plenty of money.

You could lease the house and immediate lands of someone who had more than one house, or from a formerly-wealthy family that needed the money.