The first clue that something is up at 642 Colonial Drive in High Point is the description in the neighborhood’s National Register nomination:
“The house has a brick veneer, brick chimney on the facade [where did the chimney go?] with a blind, stuccoed arch [no arch, either], and eight-over-eight, wood-sash windows with blind arches over the windows and door on the first story [still no blind arches]. The three-light-over-four-panel door is recessed slightly on the left end of the facade [no] and flanked by four-light sidelights [not]. A one-story, hip-roofed porch extends from the right elevation [no porch], supported by full-height brick piers [no piers]. A one-story wing on the left elevation [no wing] has paired, eight-light, metal casement windows [no casement windows].”
That actually was 642 Colonial, but in its caterpillar stage:
This is the house in 2010. It appears to have emerged in its current form between 2013 and 2019. The house sold for $58,000 in 2013, and a Google Street View photo dated June 2019 shows the house as it looks today.
The house is now 4,600 square feet. At $629,000, that comes out to a relatively modest $136 per square foot (other current Emerywood listings range from $141 to $219 per square foot). The interior is remarkable — glorious ceilings, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, there’s a lot going on. How much of it is original is an interesting question.
642 Colonial Drive, High Point
The C. Myron Cecil House
- $629,000 (originally $650,000)
- 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 4,624 square feet, 0.4 acre
- Price/square foot: $136
- Built in 1910
- Listed December 7, 2020
- Last sale: $58,000, April 2013
- Neighborhood: Emerywood, Uptown Suburbs Historic District (NRHP)
- Note: Before 2013, the last previous sale was about 44 years earlier, October 1969, for $34,000.
- District NRHP nomination: “The house is listed as vacant in 1929; the earliest known occupant is C. Myron Cecil (Cecil Grocery) in 1930.”
Piedmont Historic Homes 