An elegant North Carolina property has become something of an architectural mystery after undergoing an incredible restoration that shed new light on its centuries-old heritage.
Located on a lush parcel in Charlotte, the four-bedroom, 5.5-bathroom dwelling, which is known as the William Lee House, has recently come to market for $4.2 million, more than 200 years after it was first completed.
However, the exact date of its original build is now the source of some speculation after an extensive multiyear renovation brought to light new design details that led historians to believe it could be even older than its listed 1828 build date.
“The people that were redoing the house and the historians working on it initially had dated the structure 1828,” says listing agent Matthew Alexander with Premier Sotheby’s International Realty.
“But when they started digging in, they found lots of mortise and tenon joints and things that predate 1828, so they think somewhere in the late 1790s is the actual date of the original structure.”
That original structure is now part of a 7,400-square-foot home with four bedrooms, five full bathrooms, and lots of vintage charm combined with modern touches.
It is the result of an incredibly detailed overhaul, which took place about 20 years ago—and saw the owners at the time enlisting a team of experts to ensure that the work did not erase the home’s original allure.
“They were able to work with the builder and historians very closely and really build something that has a great flow between the old and the new and makes it all feel like it belongs together,” Alexander says. “This one is just kind of a masterpiece in property restoration. It all just looks like it was always meant to be.”
Alexander notes that the home is made all the more special by the fact that it is one of only a handful of historic dwellings still standing in Charlotte, which has demolished many of its older properties in favor of new developments.
“Charlotte, in general, is really known for just tearing down everything. There’s not a whole lot of history here,” he says. “All the buildings uptown have more or less been leveled, neighborhoods leveled, so there’s not a ton of anything old. … [This property] dates back to Revolutionary War times.”
The historic part is in the front of the house and was post-and-beam construction. Some of the old hand-hewn floors, fireplace mantels, and millwork remain.
“When you went in, you had two doors. The left door went into the family side of the house, and the right door went to the plantation office, and there was a tiny stairwell that went up,” he explains. There were three small bedrooms upstairs with a kitchen outside.
Those three bedrooms are now combined into one primary suite, and the pool house stands where the kitchen once was.
“The fireplace inside of the pool house now is where the original cooking stove was,” Alexander says. “Back then, they used to cook everything outside, because otherwise they would burn the house down.”
All of the mechanicals are new, as is one of Alexander’s favorite features of the home.
“It’s not the old staircase; it’s the new one that they built. It’s just this beautiful dark green, and it’s wide and kind of curves up and goes to an office with all these built-in bookshelves around it. Then it kind of continues back up and twists back. It’s just a really good-looking staircase.”
Alexander adds, “You just don’t see property like that in the middle of Charlotte anywhere. It’s just hard to come by. When you go in the front rooms off the main porch or you walk out on the front porch, you wouldn’t even know you were in metropolitan Charlotte. When you walk out, it’s just like you feel like you’ve gone back in time.”
The 2.34-acre property has had only six owners, with families passing it down for generations.
“My family, actually, distant relatives had it for almost 99 years back in the mid-1800s to the early 1900s,” Alexander says.
Because the home is listed as historical, the next owner will get a 50% credit on property taxes.
Get real estate news in your inbox
