Heck-Andrews House

Located near the Executive Mansion, the Heck-Andrews House only adds to the body count of ghosts on historic North Blount Street in Raleigh, NC. Industrialist Jonathan Heck built the house as a gift for his wife, though his wife had bought the land on which it was built. 

Heck had made a great deal of money during the war as an arms dealer for the Confederate Army and, through real estate dealings, grew his fortune to even greater heights.

Quick Facts

• Heck, a Union prisoner was paroled for a time. He was returned to the South but promptly rejoined the Confederate cause.
• It set a precedent for the grandeur of houses that would define an exclusive high-class area for wealthy residents.
• It retains its original interior, one of the few remaining houses of its kind in the area.

The home remained with the Heck family until 1921, when it was bought by A.B. Andrews Jr, a Raleigh lawyer who grew up across the street. Sadly, the beautiful structure went into a period of neglect and decline until the state government forcefully acquired it.

And here we come to the sad story of Gladys Perry, the house’s last resident, also known as the “Ghost of Blount Street.”

The Sad Ballad of Glady Perry

Gladys Perry, the last resident, lived alone in the house at 309 North Blount Street. Although, in her youth, she was described as a vivacious, outgoing, and social young woman, she never married any of her suitors. As she grew older, Gladys retreated into her isolation, further and further from humanity and sanity. 

People in the neighborhood often saw her wandering the streets and scavenging through trash for usable items. As the years passed, she appeared increasingly crazier, often wearing ratty clothes, a frightful wig, and thick white face makeup in an attempt to make the locals think she might be a ghost.

In the late 1970s, the State of North Carolina bought up the properties in the area to renovate it and use the buildings for state offices. By the mid-1980s, The Heck-Andrews House was the sole privately owned building, as Grace refused to sell her share of the house. 

Thus began a long legal battle that would culminate in the state taking the house and placing Gladys in an apartment in Raleigh in 1987, where she died a few years later.

What workers found when they entered the house was a hoarder’s paradise. Items Gladys had scavenged or otherwise acquired had been stacked into a literal labyrinth of furniture, walls of newspapers, books, toys, kitchen wares, and items of all descriptions. 

A video shot just after the state took possession of the house is a surreal tour through an over-crowded and twisted wonderland. When the State of North Carolina took possession of the house, they threw everything in it away. But one important fixture of the home remained.