A Torn-Down Palace

Nothing’s left of the house where I grew up.

It was demolished a couple of years ago for reasons, I’ve never clearly understood. All I know is the guy who built this monstrosity of a faux Chateau next door bought my family’s old house and then bulldozed it into the dirt.

Driving down Valley Brook Road still looks much the same until you reach the cul-de-sac. The little knoll where the house sat looks so forlorn now and small, so small. The house seemed so big to me when I was kid. But as I aged it grew progressively smaller and just seemed to recede quietly into the hillside.

After the house was torn down, my sister salvaged a few decorative bricks from one of the patios. I have that brick sitting near the entrance to my garage now—a reminder of a home that once was.

The house was no architectural marvel just a typical split-level ranch—very plain and kind of ugly by today’s standards. Construction on the house started in 1959, and we moved in June of 1960. I was three years old, and it was the only home I knew until I moved away from Charlotte for good in 1988. Even though I did spend time in Chapel Hill and worked in Atlanta for a couple of years out of college, 7545 Valley Brook Rd. was my homestead—a place I could always return and be at home.

My father died in the house the first of May 1995. In many ways after that point, the house ceased being home for me. My mother sold the house in 2004 and moved to a retirement center in Northeast Charlotte—a good 25-minute drive and worlds away from where I grew up.

While it was an very ordinary looking house, the yard was spectacular. From the back of the house, it looked like parkland—green and well-manicured. And I did most of the yard work to make it that way.

The entire yard was huge nearly two-and-a-half acres, and it took five hours to cut the grass using a riding mower with a 48-inch mowing deck. I probably spent two years of my life cumlatively cutting that grass … and at least a year repairing broken-down lawn mowers.

All of the yard, even the house, was flood-prone. I had no input into where my parents built our family home, but my older brother did. He wanted a creek in the yard. Well we ended up with two creeks.

McAlpine Creek, one of the largest in Mecklenburg County, was about 75 yards out our back door. A small tributary to McAlpine, bordered the south end of the yard. Both creeks would flood after heavy rains.

After really big storms, we would be marooned. Flood waters would fill the cul-de-sac and edge up our driveway—making it impossible to drive out. Three times water actually entered the house. The final and biggest flood of all was in late August the year my father died. A microburst from a tropical storm cell sent water rushing down the street like a brown tsunami. The lower level of the house ended up knee-deep with  the yucky brown waters of McAlpine Creek.

Since the land is in a flood zone, nothing will ever be built where the house once stood. This pleases me. Mecklenburg County actually condemned the land and took it from the guy who bought the house and razed it. I believe the recession may have been unkind to him, because I saw the Chateau monstrosity was for sale last time I drove down Valley Brook Road.

The yard still looks like a park and has become part of the McAlpine Greenway. It’s very fitting for such a lovely and memorable place.