Home of Chris and Gray Herndon

400 Pogue St.

When Gray and I got married in 2007 she’d lived on Stafford Ave.

in the house she built since 1997. We knew we wanted to build another home so we began our search for the perfect spot.  We both passed the vacant lot on Pogue St. across from the Rose Garden every day and thought it would be wonderful to stay in the neighborhood we love. So after some time coveting the lot, circumstances allowed us to purchase the former home of the Fisher’s Bakery and Sandwich Company from the Underhills.

Karlie Underhill is the granddaughter of Karlie Fisher who started the Fisher’s Bakery and Sandwich Company in 1928. The Fishers built the house at 2512 Everett Ave. in 1939. The house and the accompanying “sandwich factory” added in the backyard of the house (now the site of our home) were contributing buildings to the West Raleigh Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. The remaining buildings that made up the factory stood on the backyard lot until 1995 when they were removed.

The entire area around the Rose Garden is unique since it still holds the original form of the horse racing track of the old State Fairgrounds, which is how Pogue Street and the Rose Garden get their shape. Our lot sits in the turn just after the grandstands.

We started the process of designing a house that would both fit our lifestyle and the historic University Park Neighborhood we love. We settled on a French Country style with a brick veneer that resembled many of the other houses built in our neighborhood between the 30’s and 50’s. To give it an older appearance we used a hand tumbled oversize brick and casement windows. The home has three bedrooms and two and half baths. The rooms are spacious and flow together, which allow for entertaining.

The entrance foyer opens to a library and leads into an open space for the living areas. A formal dining room has 13 foot coffered ceilings and a tall arched window that looks out onto the Rose Garden. Across from the dining room is the open floorplan living room with French doors flanking a see-through fireplace, which opens to the back porch allowing for an indoor-outdoor entertaining space. The living room flows into the kitchen, which overlooks Isabella Cannon Park to the north. Alongside the kitchen and connected to the dining room by a butler’s pantry is a breakfast room with large bay windows and bench seat looking into the trees of Cannon Park. The master bedroom is off the living room and two additional bedrooms are upstairs.