Raleigh’s newest teardown is at 428 Drummond Drive (map it). The house was built in 1976 and had just over 4,000 square feet plus an unfinished, almost full basement. There were 4BR/3.5Baths, walk up attic, walk-in closets for all bedrooms, upstairs utility room, and 9’ ceilings downstairs. The .93 acre lot backs up to The Greenway, just across Crabtree Creek from St. David’s School. The house is currently being torn down and will be replaced in the next year. Why do I know so much about this house? It is the house in which I grew up.

The surgical disassembly of the house has been interesting. Habitat For Humanity volunteers went in and salvaged nearly every possible component, including doors, windows, electrical wiring, plumbing, and more. After complete removal of all insulation and wallboard, non-essential walls were removed and the wood was salvaged. As the removal of the roof progresses, it seems the deconstruction company is salvaging the mighty joists for the house’s tall roof.

For the record, I have been and still am a supporter of Renew Raleigh’s principles of homeowner’s rights. After being on the market for well over a year, the house finally had a buyer, and he owns the rights to do whatever he wants to with the property. I fully support him in making that address a fine home for another family in the future.

It is quite surreal to see the house come down, though. My mother was the general contractor as the house was built all through the summer after I finished First Grade. As my daughter finishes her own First Grade year, she will see it come down.

Several factors went into the house’s demise. After we lost my father two years ago, it was emotionally the right time to leave. The house, built for a family of four, was not the right place for a widow living alone. It was just too much for one person (and frankly, whoever lives in the much-bigger replacement will have to spend a lot of time/money washing windows, maintaining that yard, cleaning bathrooms – I don’t envy them!). I think the timing of my father’s death was about as bad as it could have been given the slumping real estate market. As the house sat on the market, we all got the feeling this would happen.

I feel like I have a realistic handle on the situation. Let’s face it, on a street full of all-stars, this house was not the street’s finest. Despite needing some TLC, in the grand scheme of things, it was a fine house. Perhaps the biggest enemy of the structure, though, is the property on which it sits. A lot backing up to a nature preserve, in one of Raleigh’s safest ITB neighborhoods, with absolutely no chance of having the setting spoiled by new development is a rare find. These factors presented opportunities for the site that badly outweighed a house with yesterday’s styling and in need of some repairs. It is a similar quandary to the Paschal House in Country Club Hills. Its large lot will eventually be subdivided and the house will be sadly removed, too.

While it is never a joyous occasion to lose a landmark in one’s life, the most disturbing aspect of this “scrape” is that this house simply wasn’t good enough, in this day and age? Really? We have a president who recently proclaimed the economy as the country’s worst since the Great Depression. Mind you that was an era where some lost so much that they had a hard time finding food. Our dire situation juxtaposed against the discarding of a pretty nice, big house is difficult to reconcile with the real world.

To make matters worse, the house in which my family lived before we built this one was also torn down this year. It was a house that had problems, and its demise didn’t surprise me. Seeing my only two childhood houses I can remember coming down has been a totally bizarre experience to say the least. Hopefully it will remain a rarity in our society.

Certainly history will offer a full perspective on this and similar situations. Do we prefer that people craving big houses go to Raleigh’s outskirts and advance sprawl or replace our aging structures that do not meet the demands of the market?

The value of “stuff” in our lives is forever redefined. A seminal moment for me, however, was during Hurricane Fran. I stayed in the house with my parents the night of Raleigh’s biggest hurricane. After hours of hearing pounding rain and tall trees falling nearby, we heard a big pine hit the house. Boom, boom, boom it went as it grazed the chimney and the downward sloping far roof edge. As Fran’s eye passed, we ventured outside only to find my 1-year old BMW crushed by three trees.

As the car lay squished like a bug, I felt a strange calm. It was just a thing. Houses are no different. Memories are inside our heads, not in buildings. Our values as a society will ebb and flow, but our interactions, experiences, and accomplishments are what make our lives whole. R.I.P., 428. May your parts continue to fulfill others with great opportunity in this world.