How to move a very old house

In 2009, when a Hinton heir moved a family plantation built in 1848 after selling the land in Knightdale it was on for a large sum, they made a movie about the move and in the process discovered an early owner and his enslaved cook had created their own family, never acknowledged.

In 2004, when an older house – 1826 – was being moved to make way for a church, the original family had long since sold the house and land and there were only faint memories of its connections to early schools and the beginnings of Wake Forest College.

I have to confess that I trespassed. For two or three years in the 1990s, when I drove home from Raleigh on Falls of the Neuse, I would pull into the driveway, sit and look at the house because it was so beautiful even empty and deteriorating. And then I grew bolder and went to the back and found the door there unlocked.

I walked through the two central halls and up and down the stairs. I found the “secret” stairs tucked into a corner of what might have been a parlor. The house was a little dusty but it was clear someone was taking care of it. I found the history of the house and thought that alone made it worthy of being saved.

When another old-house-aficionado started a group to save the house from destruction because a church was buying the land, my husband and I joined. And Kathryn Drake then decided to buy it and move it.

****

(This was first published in February of 2004 and is reprinted without changes.)

It was two years ago, Pete Hendricks said as he chipped another brick out of the chimney, that the leaders at Bay Leaf Baptist Church called him.

They had just purchased land near Wake Forest for their second church building, but there was a drawback. An old house stood at the entrance to the 19 acres.

The church leaders wanted Hendricks to buy the house and tear it down.

Hendricks, who flew Marine Corps fighter jets in Vietnam and teaches a writing course at North Carolina State, is also a salvageur extraordinaire, according to Wake Forest architect Matthew Hale. Pete and his wife, Robin, specialize in carefully deconstructing old and historic buildings either for reuse of the materials or to reconstruct the building in another setting.

The Bay Leaf pastors and lay leaders had considered razing the house, and one was reliably quoted as saying the problem of the house could be solved with a match.

Hendricks said he explained several things to them. The gist of the explanation was that the biggest, most expensive part of their plan for the property would be doing something about the house.

He also told them it would upset many people if the house were destroyed because it is the William Thompson house, built in 1826 or 1836, and an important part of the architectural and cultural history of the area.         

“And here we are,” Hendricks said last week, two years later, just beginning the work to save the house and move it to a new site so the church can proceed with its plans.

Here means carefully tearing down the four massive two-story brick chimneys and saving the usable brick for salvage.

Here means prying up the rotten plywood, sometimes fiber by fiber, from the kitchen floor to determine the soundness – or not – of the original wide board floor beneath.

Here means tearing out the closets built into corners of rooms by later owners and removing the walls, bathroom fixtures, kitchen appliances and cupboards they installed. At least, Robin says, peering at a corner, they did not cut into the wide dust boards when they built this closet.

Preserving, leaving the original woodwork, walls and floors intact, is important because the house is eligible, even after it is moved, to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Securing that listing – and assuring it will travel with the house – is just one of the obstacles the new owner, Wake Forest attorney Kathryn Drake, faces.

To hurdle the obstacles, Drake has assembled a team of varied experts that includes her office manager, Susan Blevins.

Another team member is Hale, who has taken field measurements and digital photos and recorded the plan of the house as it is. Along with designing the new foundation, Hale is working with Drake on interior changes that will both restore the house to its original design and add features like closets and bathrooms that will be in keeping with that design but make the house livable for a family today.

There is Chuck Blevins of SmartBuilt Inc., the general contractor; Henry Bunn of K.B. Bunn & Sons in Zebulon who will move the house; Wake Forest realtor Ruth Ann Dyer of Fonville Morrisey, who will sell the house; and Gary Roth of Capital Area Preservation in Raleigh.

The team will also include, Hale said, “A mason from Warrenton with special expertise in restoration work along with selected tradesmen such as electricians and plumbers who were carefully chosen because they have the patience and experience to take extra care when installing new work with a minimum of damage.”

“One of the outbuildings on the property is a timber-framed barn which dates back to the same time period as the house,” Hale said.  “All of the joinery is mortise and tenon, with hand-whittled oak pegs holding it together.  This barn is going to be moved and restored as well.”

This week’s problem is deciding how to repair or replace the rotted sills below what was once and will be again the dining room. Pete and Robin had torn out a somewhat-recent bathroom and part of the floor once they glimpsed the rotten wood. You do not need an expert eye. The huge old sills supporting the walls are falling apart.

The house has to be structurally sound, certified by an engineer, before it can be moved, Hendricks said, “because it can’t rack.” Racking would be twisting of any kind during the move, motion that would crack or destroy the original plaster walls.

The first chimney Pete and Robin have tackled has presented some other problems. Looking at the chimney, Pete said, “It’s structural.” The chimney has been part of the whole, helping to support the wall. Once it is gone, Pete fears the whole corner could be destroyed in the move.

And the chimney held secrets. The builders put the trunk of a small tree between the chimney bricks and the lath holding the plaster, probably, Hendricks says, to help support the lath.

In this first fireplace to be disassembled, they found locally mined soapstone lining all sides of the firebox. They expect to find it in all eight fireplaces.

Soapstone and mica are formed by the same geologic process, Hendricks said, and were mined locally for years. (There is a reason for the name Mica Mine Lane along Thompson Mill Road.) Soapstone is not only fire-resistant, but it also retains heat and radiates that retained heat after the heat source is gone. Some wood stoves are now made from soapstone.

In the base of each chimney are large, roughly-formed rocks. They and the smaller rocks in the foundation were surface mined, Hendricks said, chiseled from rock in streambeds and still showing their weathering.

The rocks at the Thompson house are similar to ones in the foundation of an 18^th-century log cabin in Nash County that Pete and Robin deconstructed without pay on weekends. They kept the usable materials, including the rock which will now be used for the new foundation of the Thompson house.

 Why save a house that is 170 or 180 years old? For some, because it is beautiful. The severely simple elegance of the Greek Revival design is still apparent despite a wheelbarrow in the wide central hall and cooking grease coating a wall and window in the kitchen.

For others, because it is part of this area’s history. It was very likely the second home for Forest Hill Academy, which in the 1830s had become a college preparatory school conducted by George W. Thompson. In 1834, Thompson was one of the incorporators and first trustees of the new Wake Forest College. He remained active in the college affairs until his death 58 years later.

The house is named for his son, William Marcellus Thompson, who lived there with his family until he was killed at the battle of Gaines Mill, Va., in 1862. His wife, Mary, and their four children continued to live in the house, and it remained in the Thompson family until it was sold to the Hubert Holden family in 1945.

In 1981 Wake Forest real estate appraiser Paul Bunn bought the house with two other investors. They rented it to different tenants through the years, but Bunn was very conscious of its historic significance. “I tried to keep it intact. I kept it maintained,” he said.

Aside from the addition of bathrooms and closets, the eight rooms remain very much as they were in George Thompson’s day.

Susan Blevins said this week she had just watched the movie “Pride and Prejudice” again and was struck by the resemblance of the Thompson house wainscoting, mantels, doors and other architectural features to the 1820s Longbourne house in the movie.

(In the next few months, we will keep you updated about the preparations for the move, the move itself and the reconstruction of the house on part of the former Thompson plantation.)

###