August 2, 2006

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            As Kathryn Drake, local lawyer and chairman of the Capital Area Preservation board, told the planning board Tuesday night, “The fact that it is in that book (Kelly Lally’s ‘The Historic Architecture of Wake County’) means its worthy of preservation.”

            Lally’s book, published in 1994, included both the Allen and Mary Freeman house and the older John and Nancy Perry house, one of the few examples of Georgian architecture that had been left in the county.

            Built just about 200 years ago, the Perry house was bulldozed recently, reportedly after the owner received a call from Capital Area Preservation about preserving the house.

            What was lost was a two-story home with its original wrap-around porch, 6-foot mantelpieces, double wainscoting and sections of the original weatherboard siding with rosehead nails. Behind it was a contemporary kitchen.

            John Perry, who moved from Franklin County and bought about 1,500 acres in what is now the Riley Hill section south of Rolesville, probably built the house around 1805. In the 1850 Census, he was listed as owning 12 slaves. By that time, he had moved his family to another house, but the original house remained in the family’s ownership until 1881.

            The new owner sold the house and 88 acres to Jasper Perry in 1912, who had a strong connection to the property because his father, Fagan, had been a slave there.  The old Georgian house passed out of the hands of the Jasper Perry family later in the 1900s. Jasper’s brother, Guyon, bought the adjoining Perry farm in 1914, and his descendents still owns it.

            The Freeman house does not have such a wealth of architectural interest or family history, but it is a good example of the kind of farmhouse that was built in the early 1800s. Such houses were once “common as dirt,” Drake said, but are disappearing almost as fast as subdivisions gobble up Wake County land.

            It has, Lally’s book says, Greek Revival details, six-over-six sash windows and ashlar (dressed stone) chimneys. The building behind the house also has ashlar chimneys, and there is a tobacco barn farther back.

            Greg Costa, a relative who lives next door, said Clellie, his stepmother, told him that smaller building had been a kitchen. “She would be very, very upset to see it (the house) destroyed. There is a lot of history in that house, and it would be a shame to see it destroyed.”

            In 1850, the Freemans owned 900 acres and 24 slaves, and the farm produced eight bales of cotton and 1,500 barrels of corn among other crops

            The Freeman family cemetery is across Rogers Road in the future Heritage South subdivision, but one of the conditions of the rezoning for the land was that the cemetery would be left untouched. Freeman relatives maintain the cemetery.

            Todd Allen, who owns the house and two acres around it because his wife is distantly related to the Freemans, said he had been told it would cost $300,000 to renovate the house “because of the damage done to the home in the fifties.” (It was still being used as a home in the 1970s.) It had been flooded, the main support beam had been ruined and there were termites up into the second story, Allen said. It is now hidden behind shrubbery and surrounded by a chain-link fence.

            Allen was ready to sell the material in the house to someone who wanted to reuse it in new buildings or renovations.

            Drake said there were many ways CAP to help preserve the house and buildings. “We’ve taken donations of houses. Just give us some time. There are many ways to skin a cat. There is always some fool out there who will buy most any house.”

            At that, her husband, Commissioner Frank Drake, hid his head. The couple purchased, moved and restored the William Thompson house that had stood on Falls of the Neuse Road, and they earlier renovated their home on North Main. When planning board member Kim Parker suggested a delay in the overall property rezoning because “it might be beneficial for the Drakes and whoever else might want to get involved” in saving the Freemen house, Frank Drake said, “This is one person in this world who cannot buy this house.”