The spacious Victorian triple-A frame cottage at 515 Polk Street was built for grocer Charles Wesley Young and his wife Margaret by prominent contractor Thomas H. Briggs at a cost of $1,200 in 1886. The house embodies Queen Anne and vernacular Victorian styles that reflect the Late Victorian flamboyance of the period typical throughout the historic Oakwood neighborhood. The Queen Anne house features cross-gabled facades, French doors, and a bracketed porch. There are two gabled ells on the rear, probably both original, and the area between the ells was enclosed prior to 1914. The kitchen was originally a separate building behind the eastern part of the house. It was connected to the main house by an open porch, which was enclosed in the mid twentieth century. The house remained in the Young family until 1989, when Emily Young Anderson passed away at the age of 103.
Located within the boundaries of the Oakwood Historic District, the Charles Wesley Young house was owned by one other family for more than thirty years before the current owners, Pouria Saidi and Stacie Kurtz, purchased the house in November 2021. The new owners felt strongly about restoring and preserving the exterior of the home while making modifications that would allow the house to meet their needs moving forward. Significant work was needed due to structural issues and a deteriorated roof. The work began in June 2022 and was finished in February 2023. Exterior work included the following: rebuilding the front right chimney that had collapsed in a storm, repointing brick throughout, adding a rear screened-in porch, re-milling exterior trim to match the original, repairing original rope-and-pulley windows to be functional once again, and painting the exterior in a new paint scheme. Interior work included: relocating the kitchen from the rear of the house to one of the rear rooms in the original section with a modern design and additional, historically-appropriate windows to bring in more light, adding built-in wood bookcases in the dining room, repairing and reinstalling original doors and hardware, reactivating the three fireplaces and installing gas fireplaces so they are usable again, refinishing heart pine floors, and creating a large master suite at the rear of the house.
The restoration of the little Victorian cottage, together with landscaping and garden areas added in the rear, has created another crown jewel in the prominent Historic Oakwood neighborhood while serving as an example of historic preservation in practice.
The Board of Directors of Capital Area Preservation, Inc. is pleased to present a 2023 Anthemion Award to Pouria Saidi & Stacie Kurtz; Von Doster Restoration & Construction, LLC; Perch Place LLC; Leigh D. Blow; Christopher Kala for the Residential Rehabilitation of the Charles Wesley Young House, 515 Polk Street, Raleigh.