The state is selling a big house in downtown Raleigh for $100,000 (lot not included)
Surrounded by parking lots and shaded every afternoon by the 6-story state office building across the street, the Farlow House is a relic from another time.
The Queen Anne-style home was built in 1900 when the 400-block of North Wilmington Street was part of one of Raleigh’s most fashionable neighborhoods. The house was one of several grand old homes the state bought on the north side of downtown in the 1970s with an eye toward expanding the State Government Complex.
Now the state has determined it no longer needs the Farlow House and has put it up for sale. With an asking price of $100,000, the 3,600-square-foot house with high ceilings on the first floor and a front porch big enough for sitting would have to be considered a bargain by Raleigh standards.
But there’s a catch: The house can’t stay where it is. The buyer will have to move it somewhere, and the State Property Office estimates that will cost somewhere between $160,000 and $200,000, not to mention the cost of the new lot.
The house is in good condition, said Nan Sanseverino, spokeswoman for the state Department of Administration. But it was last renovated in 1975 and has been used as a state office building over the past 40 years. Some rehab work is to be expected. The Wake County property listing for the house says it has no air conditioning and describes the plumbing as “adequate.”
The state has had some inquiries but no viable offers, Sanseverino said. But she said the state is under no pressure to sell the home quickly.
“It’s a beautiful old house,” she wrote in an email. “We would much prefer to see it go to someone who would enjoy it as the State has these many years.”
By the time the state began buying the big old houses along North Wilmington and Blount streets, the neighborhood had declined from its heyday more than a century ago. Some of the mansions had been divided into apartments or become rooming houses.
The state demolished some of the houses for parking lots and began using others for offices. The Farlow House, which the state bought from Robert Farlow in December 1979 for $62,500, was used primarily as temporary office space by various state agencies, Sanseverino said.
State sells its stake in the neighborhood
As the area languished, Raleigh officials and others urged the state to sell the property so it could be redeveloped, and in 2003 the General Assembly agreed. Four years later, the state sold two blocks in the neighborhood to developer LNR Property to build new apartments and townhouses and to restore some of the old homes that had survived.
The five-story Elan City Center Apartments just north of the Farlow House on Wilmington Street was one result of the project. Among the old homes that were preserved was the Merrimon-Wynne House, built in 1875 on Wilmington Street and moved to Blount as part of the redevelopment project. It’s now used as event space.
The recession of a decade ago forced LNR to back out of plans to buy and redevelop two other blocks from the state, including the one that includes the Farlow House.
In 2015, Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration decided to put a dozen old homes in the area on the market individually. They include the Heck-Andrews House, a landmark three-story mansion with a four-story central tower on North Blount Street that the N.C. Association of Realtors has renovated for its Raleigh office and event space.
The Farlow House wasn’t offered as part of that sale.
The state doesn’t know much about the Farlow House’s history. A brief entry on localwiki.org says the house was built for Raleigh attorney Bosworth C. Beckwith, but not much more.
The house is not a Raleigh historic property nor is it on the National Register of Historic Places. It lies just outside the city’s Blount Street Historic District, which includes the Executive Mansion, William Peace University and three blocks of Blount Street in between.
One reason the state isn’t in a hurry to sell the house is that it doesn’t have any plans for the .21-acre lot on which it sits. Like the rest of state property fronting this block of Wilmington Street, the space will likely be used for parking.
For more information about the Farlow House, go to ncadmin.nc.gov/businesses/real-estate/state-property-for-sale/.
This story was originally published December 24, 2020 at 11:00 AM with the headline "The state is selling a big house in downtown Raleigh for $100,000 (lot not included)."
