{"id":18172,"date":"2013-02-15T11:27:13","date_gmt":"2013-02-15T16:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=18172"},"modified":"2013-02-20T11:13:02","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T16:13:02","slug":"after-two-centuries-its-time-to-move-the-crabtree-jones-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2013\/02\/15\/after-two-centuries-its-time-to-move-the-crabtree-jones-house\/","title":{"rendered":"After Two Centuries, It\u2019s Time to Move the Crabtree Jones House"},"content":{"rendered":"

CORRECTION APPENDED: The original article misspelled Chuck Nintzel’s name. We mistakenly left off the second n.<\/em><\/p>\n

Update: The City Council approved a loan<\/a> Feb. 19 to pay for the relocation of the house.<\/p>\n

If all goes as planned, Blake Moving Company of Greensboro will lift up a 220-year-old, 200-ton Raleigh house this year and move it 460 feet south to a new lot at the end of Hilmer Drive.<\/p>\n

The house, built by Wake County settler Nathaniel \u201cCrabtree\u201d Jones, occupies part of the 15 acres that will become the Jones Grant Apartments. Last March, the Raleigh Historic Development Commission voted to have developer Russ Davis wait a year before demolishing the Crabtree Jones House, in hopes he could find an alternative. Davis, who said at the time that he didn\u2019t want to destroy the house, spent the following months working with the nonprofit group Preservation North Carolina to find a relocation site.<\/p>\n

The Crabtree Jones House driveway comes out on Wake Forest Road, but the house is set so far back, surrounded by trees, that it\u2019s easy to miss.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Even<\/a>

Fraser Sherman<\/p>

Even partway up the 3015 Wake Forest Road driveway, it\u2019s hard to make out the Crabtree Jones House at the top. Photo by Fraser Sherman.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cSo few people even know this house, with all its interiors and finishes intact, even exists,\u201d said Chuck Nintzel, a Raleigh resident, in an email to the Record. \u201cA building that has been on its original foundations for over 200 years, longer than all but maybe five structures in Raleigh is about to be moved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis said Myrick Howard of Preservation North Carolina suggested the move to Hilmer Drive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it were on the site I picked, it would almost certainly lend itself to use as a commercial structure, an office perhaps,\u201d Davis said. \u201cThis will not just preserve the house, but its designation as a historic house.\u201d<\/p>\n

The House<\/strong>
\nThe Raleigh Historical Development Commission says the 1795 house is one of the few Federal-style plantation houses remaining Wake County. It still has many of its original building materials and, despite later additions, the original hall parlor floor plan is intact.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has wonderful spaces,\u201d said Raleigh architect and live-in Crabtree Jones House caretaker Jim Smith. \u201cIt\u2019s been added on to several times, so it\u2019s a little eccentric because of that. There are lots of step-ups and step-downs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

Fraser Sherman<\/p>

The Crabtree Jones House entered the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Photo by Fraser Sherman.<\/p><\/div>\n

Smith said he was in his last semester of architecture school when the Raleigh Junior League called on his professor, asking for student volunteers to help restore the house.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

The Big Move<\/strong><\/center>Blake Moving Company plans to move the entire Crabtree Jones House in one piece. This includes the two-story main house, the two one-story side wings, two later rear additions, a front and side porch and the chimneys.<\/p>\n

Blake Moving\u2019s Mike Blake said the first step will be to cut holes in the foundation walls and insert a lattice of steel into them, replacing the brick foundation with metal. The crews will then insert jacks, timbers and wedges under the steel frame, including extra timber and wedges under the fireplaces to ensure the brick doesn\u2019t crumble.<\/p>\n

Once the support grid is in place, Blake Moving will jack up the steel frame, using shims \u2014 wedges \u2014 to keep the jacks even.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can have 20 tons on one jack, zero on the other and they go up the same amount,\u201d Blake said.<\/p>\n

After the crew jacks up the roughly 200-ton building 40 inches above the ground, they\u2019ll insert hydraulic dollies under the house. Then, Blake said, the dollies will be fitted with eight sets of wheels, driven by a hydraulic pump and steered by remote control. The dollies will roll the building over to Hibbell Drive where a brick mason will drill holes in the new foundation. The movers will lower the house onto the foundation, withdraw the steel through the holes and restore the brick.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce it\u2019s on the foundation, it\u2019s there,\u201d Blake said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe biggest requirement we had was to keep it from falling down,\u201d Smith said. \u201cTo keep the roof in good repair, to keep glass in the windows and keep the systems working.\u201d<\/p>\n

The League also asked for a caretaker to discourage vandals. Smith volunteered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably the oldest house in Raleigh that\u2019s still being used as a residence,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThere are other houses as old or older but they\u2019ve either become museums or offices or some other nonresidential use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019 family sold the land to developer Charles W. Gaddy in the 1970s. It was rezoned for multi-family development in 1995, a change that also established a 75-foot wooded buffer zone around it.<\/p>\n

Hilmer Drive<\/strong>
\nHilmer Drive in Crabtree Heights dead ends at the woods surrounding the house. Howard said the move required a rezoning request \u2014 already granted \u2014 because some of the buffer will be cut down for the house to get through, after which the buffer will be replanted.<\/p>\n

The upside of going through the woods, Howard said, is that the house stays off the streets: \u201cThere\u2019s no power-line issues, no traffic-signal issues, no street closings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The destination lot, 3108 Hilmer, already hosts a 50-year-old house. Howard said Preservation North Carolina is still working out the details of removing it.<\/p>\n

\"Hilmer<\/a>

Faser Sherman <\/p>

Myrick Howard said Preservation North Carolina hopes to find a use for some or all of the 3108 Hilmer Drive house. The house dates to 1960. Photo by Fraser Sherman.<\/p><\/div>\n

The budget for buying the Hilmer lot and moving Crabtree Jones House is about $632,000. Davis said he\u2019s contributing more than a quarter-million dollars. The City Council\u2019s Budget and Economic Development Committee voted Feb. 12 for a $100,000 loan for the project, though the Council still has to approve it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the loan doesn\u2019t go through, it\u2019s going to be really hard to make this happen,\u201d Howard said. \u201cWe would have to find another source.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the move, Howard said, Crabtree Jones House will need a full renovation that \u201cwill start from scratch in terms of electrical, plumbing, kitchen, bathrooms, heating and cooling.\u201d He said Preservation North Carolina hopes to sell it for around $350,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A developer plans to move a Colonial-era house from its Wake Forest Road address to Hilmer Drive later this year. The move will preserve the house while freeing up the land for development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24028,"featured_media":18174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,23],"tags":[1175],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24028"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}