NC to sell two historic homes in downtown Raleigh

The state announced Friday that it will sell two historic homes near the Executive Mansion in downtown Raleigh, including the 145-year-old Heck-Andrews House on North Blount Street.

The administration of Gov. Pat McCrory had hoped to hang on to Heck-Andrews and the Bailey-Tucker House on Lane Street and restore them so they could be used for special functions for state government. McCrory had sought money for the necessary renovations in a proposal to issue bonds to generate money for building and road projects across the state, but the legislature stripped the houses out of the final version.

“We all agree these magnificent houses need to be restored,” McCrory said in a statement Friday. “But these projects are better suited for the private sector.”

Preservationists and Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, whose office is across the street from the Heck-Andrews House, have been urging the state to sell the house and others in the Blount Street corridor to preservation-minded buyers. In June, the Heck-Andrews House was among 17 properties that the General Assembly’s Program Evaluation Division identified as underused and good candidates to sell.

The new buyers of both houses must agree to abide by preservation covenants that will protect exterior and interior features of the homes. Those restrictions, combined with the money a motivated buyer will be able to invest in the houses, will be key to seeing them restored, said Myrick Howard, president of the statewide advocacy group Preservation North Carolina.

“I’d love to see pretty much every house over there get sold and into private hands,” Howard said Friday, referring to the Blount Street area where the state still owns several houses. “We’ve watched them be ignored and deteriorating for a decade. So I’m very pleased to hear this news.”

Industrialist Jonathan McGee Heck’s home on North Blount Street was completed in 1870 and was among the first mansions that would make the street Raleigh’s most fashionable in the years between the Civil War and World War I. The Heck family owned the house until 1921, when prominent attorney A.B. Andrews Jr. bought it. By the time Andrews died in 1946, the street’s fortunes were waning, and the new owner turned the mansion into a rooming house.

In the late 1960s, the state saw Blount Street as a place for parking lots for the State Government Complex. As other homes began to disappear along Blount, preservationists fought back, and, among other steps, persuaded the federal government to list the Heck-Andrews House on the National Register of Historic Places.

The state acquired half interest in Heck-Andrews in 1984, then bought the remaining share by eminent domain in 1987. The state has spent more than $1.2 million on exterior renovations, but the house remains a ruin inside.

Around the corner on Lane Street, the Bailey-Tucker House is a two-story colonial revival brick home built in 1916 for William Bailey and was at one time used as a guest house by the state.

“These magnificent homes are treasures and have been vacant for many years,” Natural and Cultural Resources Secretary Susan Kluttz said in a statement. “They cannot continue to be vacant without significant deterioration. I am proud that our governor understands the urgency of their restoration and agrees that the best course of action for the houses are to return them to the private sector.”

This story was originally published October 2, 2015 at 3:55 PM with the headline "NC to sell two historic homes in downtown Raleigh."