Category Archives: 2016 Homes of the Month

2016 Homes of the Month

June 2016 Home of the Month

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UPHA June Home of the Month
317 Dixie Trail, Home of Chandler and Meredith Rose

Chandler and Meredith Rose purchased 317 Dixie Trail in August of 2013. At the time, they had an offer in for another property in Raleigh, but when they walked this home they knew right away it was the perfect home for them and they retracted the other offer and purchased this property. Standing in front of the guest house and looking back towards Dixie Trail, it was such a little oasis under the large oaks and next to the pond. Meredith, being an interior designer, saw the potential in bringing this property back to the grandeur the home once had when it was originally built for Col. Arthur L. Fletcher (brother of A.J. Fletcher) back in 1928. The original property included the lot directly North and the two lots South of the current property lines. The guest house was built to overlook the fish pond and grape vineyard that once existed on the Southern lots. The Roses reconstructed the pond and created a path and sitting area around it.

Col Arthur L. Fletcher (brother of A.J. Fletcher), 1933–1938 served as Commissioner of Labor of North Carolina. He also served as editor of the Raleigh Evening Times, editor of The Dispatch, served in WWI And WWII as well as the NC National Guard. The second owners of the home were the Croom family. In the 1990’s, the Crooms divided up the property into the lots as they are now.

The Roses first began remodeling of the guest house when they purchased the property. Once completed, they moved into the guest house and in spring of 2015, they hired Greg Paul Builders to remodel the main house according to Meredith’s plans. He was wonderful to work with, built according to Meredith’s plans and designs.

317Dixie-before-Guest house exterior317Dixie-Guest house exterior after

The remodel of the main house was a full gut down to the studs. The Roses put in new electrical, plumbing, HVAC, insulation, drywall, roof, windows, finished the attic space to add a bedroom, bath and playroom, added a back porch and reconstructed the back corner of the home where the foundation was failing under a porch that had been added at some point in the home’s history. The original blue prints for the home were found and the Roses reconstructed the widow’s walk over the sunroom (which is now a library) per the blue prints.

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Their current projects are on the exterior where they are focusing on hardscaping and landscaping. Since moving to Dixie Trail, their first daughter has turned 3 and they now have another little girl who was born in January of this year. The Rose family loves their community and living in University Park!

317Dixie-blueprint-1928

2016 Homes of the Month

May 2016 Home of the Month

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Home of Joe and Donna Bailey, 2506 Mayview Road

Joe and I moved to Raleigh 21 years ago after Joe retired from a 30 year career in the military.  Joe got a job in Raleigh and we immediately liked University Park because of the location and large trees. This area inside the beltline felt very similar to the area in northern New Jersey, where I’m originally from, so it felt like home right away. Since making Raleigh my home and University Park my neighborhood, I have enjoyed putting down roots here and getting more involved with neighborhood and city of Raleigh issues. I am currently the chair of the Wade CAC and a past president and board member of UPHA.


Our Mayview home was built in 1992 as an infill house and was 3 years old when we bought it. We liked the lot and style of the house because of the wonderful yard and setting.  We had been living in Germany before we settled her and it was great to finally call this home. We have some special pieces of furniture and art that look great here!


Joe and I are mostly retired and enjoy gardening.  Over the years we have done many projects here in the house and in the yard. A few years ago we finally got rid of the last bit of grass that we had and now have a very low maintenance garden that is mostly perennials but puts a focus on the very large oak tree in our front yard. We have also included some pieces of local art in the front yard. You can often find us on our front porch enjoying the yard and our neighbors. Come on by and have a look!

2016 Homes of the Month, Home of the Month

April 2016 Home of the Month

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2200 Hope St. at Enterprise
Home of Ari Sanoff

When we purchased the house 20 years ago, the previous owner related the story about the original owner. William J. Peele, one of the Founders of North Carolina State University presumably built it for his two daughters. It was a two family house with entrances on Hope & Enterprise Street. When it was built in 1919, it was one of two houses and Enterprise Street ended at the edge of the house. An addition was built in 1939 by Miss Randolph Hill. An aerial photo from 1920 shows the house amid farmlands but near the early university buildings.

After we purchased the house in the early 90’s, my sister and I moved into the downstairs apartment and we rented out the upstairs. The downstairs needed the most work so we ripped out the carpet and updated the kitchen to make it a more livable space. We continued to rent out the upstairs for several years while continuing to make improvements to the inside as well as doing some landscaping that was long past due.

We eventually got out of the rental business. At that time, I moved upstairs, while my sister continued to live downstairs. Before I moved upstairs, we had the floors sanded and updated the kitchen because nothing had really been done to the upstairs since we purchased the house in the early 90’s.

In 2005, my sister moved out and I converted the 2 separate apartments into a singe family home. These improvements involved removing several walls downstairs and completely remodeling the kitchen with all new cabinets and appliances. I continued to make renovations upstairs and converted my old bedroom into a walk in closet but the kitchen upstairs remained untouched.

Most recently, my fiancé moved in and I finally renovated the kitchen upstairs and converted it into a dressing room for her. We would still like to make some changes since now there are 2 people and 2 dogs living in the house. I am sure that will happen over time and we are thinking that after the wedding in September we will visit the idea of expanding the kitchen.

2016 Homes of the Month, Home of the Month

February 2016 Home of the Month

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Home of Chris and Gray Herndon

400 Pogue St.

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

2410 Stafford Ave
2410 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.

2016 Homes of the Month, Home of the Month

January 2016 Home of the Month

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Lynn and Milos Novak, 2615 Van Dyke Ave

I was looking to make the jump from a house to a condo in 2007, and I knew that University Park was the place I wanted to land.  I was living near Cameron Village and had come to know the neighborhood through my friend, Chris Farlow, who still lives on Van Dyke Ave.  When our house had become a little too small for my husband, daughter, our dog, and visiting family members, we agonized over the decision to move out of the neighborhood into a bigger house or stay put in University Park.  We did not want to give up the proximity to our close friends, a walkable neighborhood, a relatively easy commute to my office in Cary, and proximity to many of Milos’ customers – not to mention we were married in the Rose Garden (with our good friend Chris officiating the wedding)!

We decided to stay put and expand our house.  Milos took the project on from the design of the house to the actual build.  He is the owner of Lions Home Restoration & Repair, so a project of this sort was not outside his wheelhouse. The topography of our lot makes it a bit of a challenge to add additional square footage, so we had to expand upwards.  We also created a more open concept in the original footprint of the house, which meant a total reconfiguration of the house down to the studs.  So, we moved out temporarily while the house was under construction.  A driveway was also installed, and stone terraces were built in front of the house with help from my brother-in-law while he was visiting from the Czech Republic.
We’ve been living in our renovated house since this past July and are enjoying our new space.  Milos’ attention to detail is evident throughout the house – from the built in storage to the “unseen things” that make our house energy efficient.  One of my favorite spaces in the new house is actually outdoors – the front porch.  Milos saved some of the old hardwood floors from the original house and used it as the floor for the porch.  It reminds me of the old space that we loved while giving us something new to enjoy.  In retrospect, the project was bigger than we thought, but it was worth it.  We are so glad to be back in University Park!