Horton Street Gains Another Centennial House

Perry Family Saves House, Continues Family Legacy

By MaryBeth Carpenter

In Spring 2023, Waylon Deans moved a centennial aged home of his relatives into a lot on East Horton Street. The house, which was on a parcel of land purchased by a developer, had been there over 100 years and was in good shape.

“It was a small home, and in decent shape – too nice to be torn down and I wanted to save it,” said Deans, who moved it onto an empty lot adjacent to the home he owns at 209 East Horton Street.  The house with four rooms and one chimney and smokestack, sheltered his family for many years.

Over the past year, he has been busy raising the roof, re-establishing a front porch, and renovating the interior of the old house. A new kitchen and porch will be constructed in the back end of the home.

Waylon’s grand mother, Minnie Perry, lived in that home near Hopkins Crossroads. “My family had three houses in that area, and I’ve decided to save and move this one,” to honor his family’s memories in that home.

KB Bunn, a local house mover, lifted the house off of its foundation and moved the house four miles from its original site to East Horton in June 2023.

Hopkins, an unincorporated community in eastern Wake County, is about three miles north of Zebulon. The center of the small community sits at the crossroads of Hopkins Chapel Road and Fowler Road, near NC Highway 96.

Minnie Perry, whose formal name was Annie Nora Rayon, 1889 – 1954, married Marcus Wayland Perry II in 1906 and had nine children. The family secured a tract of land in Hopkins upon which they built this house and several others. The land remains in Perry family hands to this day.

And now an empty lot has been filled with a home that is full of memories, instead of fodder for the landfill. “It was going to be torn down, and I thought it should be saved and restored. It’s really a nice little house,” Deans reflected.

MaryBeth Carpenter is Executive Director of Preservation Zebulon