Saved from demolition: Modernist home by NCSU master is being moved. What to know.
In their 60s and empty-nesters living in Raleigh, Melinda and Andrew Knowles never expected to be in the business of saving a historic home from demolition.
They were just settling into retirement. (Andrew retired last March from GlaxoSmithKline, where he’d worked as a computer lawyer for 25 years.) They’d done a few remodels, but had no background in construction or historic preservation. Or moving a house.
That changed last September when news went viral that the modernist gem at 606 Transylvania Ave., built by NC State’s famed architect George Matsumoto, was set to be demolished. Concerned residents fired off some 100 Facebook posts. Many condemned the decision. One contributor called it “sickening.”
Built in 1954, with its slanted, off-kilter roof, the split-level house still stands out from the curb in Raleigh’s Country Club Hills. But these days, it’s worth far less than the .95-acre plot of land it sits on. A Raleigh couple paid $1.8 million for it last March; then got the green light to tear it down.
A friend forwarded the posts to the Knowles’ inbox.
Ten years after Raleigh lost its last major modernist house, “It was just, ‘Oh my gosh, not another one,’” recalled Melinda Knowles, an interior designer and fan of the era. She’d previously lived around the corner and regularly walked past the home. She admired its floor-to-ceiling windows and open floor plan.
“It’s almost gut-wrenching,” she continued. “We both grew up in the 1960s, when it was all happening. These houses are so different. It’s painful to lose [them].”
So, they hatched a plan to save Matsumoto’s creation.
The couple owned an empty adjacent lot to their home on Delmont Drive after moving into their current neighborhood in 2019. That’s roughly a seven-mile drive southwest from the Matsumoto home.
They didn’t know what it would take to move a home, but they wondered: “Wouldn’t it be fun to have it next door?”
How to move a split-level midcentury house
The first step was convincing the home’s new owners.
To their credit, Andrew Knowles said, the owners quickly got on board to make it happen, deeding the house to the couple with minimal fees.
The city of Raleigh chipped in $275,000 from the Preservation Loan Fund to cover relocating expenses. “In general, we support moving and preserving threatened historic structures whenever possible,” preservation planner Tania Georgiou Tully told The N&O.
WRAL first reported the planned move last November.
Then came the tricky part: What’s the best way to move a split-level midcentury house?
In this case, the short answer is: You take it apart, move it in large chunks, then put it back together.
Essentially, the house has been cut in half to accommodate the move, the couple said, who consulted multiple experts.
On Saturday, Jan. 20, the couple is relocating the bulk of the 2,097-square-foot house to a half-acre plot next door to the their current home at 1512 Delmont Drive.
Under police escort starting at 6 a.m., crews will transport its upper-left “bedroom wing” — roughly a 21-foot-wide and 42-foot-deep load — containing two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a loft space.
The other half of the house, containing the main living room and kitchen, has already been gutted. Things they could salvage, like the kitchen’s mahogany cabinets, have been removed, using a giant red tower crane.
“They cut a hole in the roof,” Melinda Knowles said. “There was no way to get it out of the house. They lifted it up into a flatbed truck.”
Once relocated, the house will sit on temporary pilings as crews build a new foundation. Using steel rails, they’ll then slide the house over its new base before lowering it into place. The process is expected to take around three months.
Afterward, the couple said they plan to rebuild the house exactly like it was. “Or as close as we can get it to,” using original plans from NC State’s archives and materials preserved from the demolition, Melinda Knowles said.
Then they’ll rent it out as an Airbnb. “Our hope is that we can generate some income and have a cool house next door.”
And the final price tag?
“It’s hard to say,” said Andrew Knowles. “Right now, we’ve got a worst-case budget of around $350,000. About half is already going towards the move.”
But they remain positive. “It not going to be a big money maker, but we think it will be worthwhile.”
Josh Shaffer contributed to this report.
This story was originally published January 11, 2024 at 9:30 AM with the headline "Saved from demolition: Modernist home by NCSU master is being moved. What to know.."
