A visit to the house that Case built: What it’s like to live in slice of NC State history

Michael Mettrey purchased the house near Cameron Village in 1981. He liked the idea of being the third proprietor of a house once owned by Everett Case, the great N.C. State basketball coach.

Nearly four decades later, Mettrey and his wife, Iris Beckham Mettrey, love the place they call home. Shunning offers from various parties who see the land as prime for commercial business, the couple wants to preserve what they believe is a historic piece of Raleigh property.

“As a kid, everybody knew it was Everett Case’s house,” says the 75-year-old Mettrey, who was born and raised in Raleigh. “But I never thought I’d own it. . . . I’ll tell you this much, when I leave this thing, I’ll be horizontal.”

Beckham Mettrey weighs in.

“I love it. I can’t imagine not living here,” says Beckham Mettrey, 71. “We’ve been offered a lot of money. Why would we leave?”

The couple spoke recently while sitting on a back porch overlooking a swimming pool that has not held water in years, and a colorful tiered garden of plants and flowers. Case once tended to that garden, as he did the front yard that still holds a beautifully arrayed landscape of azaleas and camellias that were original to the house.

Unfortunately, the peace and serenity of Case’s days in the house throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s went the way of the metal “CASE” sign that was stolen years ago from atop the mailbox out front. A high-rise condominium complex hovers over the back fence and blocks sunlight in late afternoon. Traffic noise can be heard from a block away, where Cameron Village is once again a vibrant, bustling shopping center.

“We got caught in a squeeze here,” Mettrey says.

Case faced no such squeeze when his house was designed in late 1951. Case had arrived in Raleigh five years earlier at age 46, and somewhere along the line became an acquaintance of Leif Valand, a Swedish architect from New York who was commissioned to design Cameron Village and later did the same for Enloe High School, the Central Raleigh YMCA and St. Michael’s Episcopal Church. Valand designed Case’s house, which was built a couple of years later by developer Willie York.

The house was futuristic, and catered to the bachelor life of the coach, who largely is credited with bringing big-time basketball to North Carolina from his native Indiana. The house’s interior, which was originally decorated down to the drapes by Case, featured an open layout with visitors able to move freely from the spacious living room to the dining room and kitchen. What once was a screened-in back porch off the living room is now glass enclosed.

A small front bedroom included a private entrance from the carport, but the door was bricked over not long after Mettrey purchased the house. That bedroom was rented each year to an N.C. State student who Case hand-picked.

An efficiency unit was stationed in the basement, and for many years was occupied by Laura Stevens, who served as Case’s housekeeper. Known to all as “Mamar,” Stevens loved cooking, entertaining and tending to the house.

There was plenty of entertaining. Just off the living room was Case’s den, which included wood paneling and a built-in bar. The coach enjoyed sitting in a lounge chair there to watch “movies” of his team’s games. It also is where opposing coaches, and even referees and the media, gathered after games to share stories and consume alcohol.

Case and Frank McGuire, the UNC coach at the time, carried on a public feud that was assuaged during their occasional Sunday afternoon get-togethers around Case’s bar. Some of the nation’s biggest coaching names, including UCLA’s John Wooden, visited the house.

“You can tell it was built as a party house,” Mettrey says.

“He was a bachelor from another era,” says Bucky Waters, who played for Case from 1956-58. “He was just a swinging guy. He enjoyed his cocktails and his social life. He was that kind of man.”

Like all players for Case, Waters was prohibited from visiting the house. Years later, though, when he was the first-year head coach at West Virginia in 1965, Waters paid a visit to his old coach who was aiing and fighting for his life. Case then surprised Waters, and the Wolfpack crowd at Reynolds Coliseum, later that evening by attending N.C. State’s game against West Virginia. Many believed Case’s appearance sparked N.C. State to a surprise victory.

Following the game, Waters made a return trip to Case’s house.

“His right cheek is on the pillow. He rolls his head back a little,” Waters remembers of the visit. “For those guys who played for him or knew him, he never called you by name. Everybody was ‘Boy.’

“He paused, and he looked at me and he smiled and he said, ‘Boy, I don’t think I helped you tonight.’ “

Four months later, on April 30, 1966, Case died of cancer.

In his estate, Case left $69,525, which is $538,000 in today’s dollars, to be divided among his N.C. State players. He willed another $198,000 – $1.5 million in today’s dollars – to his sister, Blanche Jones, who also received the Daniels Street house.

Jones sold the house to W. Daniel Rader, a Raleigh doctor, on Jan. 1, 1967. Rader then sold it to Mettrey on Dec. 1, 1981 for $54,000. Along with the house, Mettrey inherited a fire-engine red, leather upholstered chair that was left in the attic. The bill of lading beneath the seat indicates the chair was purchased by Case on June 23, 1952 from Kroehler Manufacturing of Charlotte.

The current owners, who were married in 1988, added a bedroom and sunroom on the west side of the house in 2000, increasing the square footage from 2,200 to 2,800. The latest tax assessment on Jan. 1, 2016 listed the value of the land and house at $602,000.

Mettrey, who earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering from N.C. State in 1968 and taught at the school through 1984, owns and operates Met-Tech in Raleigh, where his wife also works. They have children who live in Florida, New York and Wake Forest.

Mettrey said he would like to get the house listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but is not sure of its qualifications. He and his wife both believe it has historic significance to the Raleigh community. So, while the offers are flattering, they say they will not sell.

But when presented with the wild chance that N.C. State would someday purchase the house and convert it into an Everett Case museum, the couple perked up. For that purpose, they said, “we would be interested in selling.”

This story was originally published October 23, 2017 at 11:37 AM with the headline "A visit to the house that Case built: What it’s like to live in slice of NC State history."