2014 Washington Avenue

This is one of several houses moved up from Van Buren Avenue in 1968 when land there was taken to construct Brookshire Boulevard (also known as Northwest Freeway / NC 16).  Info in the building permit file (on microfilm at the Carolina Room of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library) indicates that the house at 1601 Van Buren Avenue, built in 1960, was moved here to 2014 Washington Avenue.

Jerry Flack seems to have owned the house on Van Buren in the early 1960s, then continued to live in it after relocating it. He was a life-long educator trained at Johnson C. Smith University, class of 1947. When he died at age 84 on October 15, 2005, the Charlotte Observer obituary reported: “Mr. Flack had retired as a teacher from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and CPCC. He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Ruebenna G. Flack of Charlotte; son, Terry H. Flack of Indian Trail; and daughters, Ms. Enya S. Flack of Los Angeles, CA, and Mrs. Barbara Flack-Darko of Chevy Chase, MD.”

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A previous dwelling stood on this site on Washington Avenue, home of a domestic named Susie Allen from the 1930s into at least the 1950s. In 1963, African American real estate investor Oren Alexander (whose brothers Romeo and Talmadge lived nearby on Patton Avenue) owned the old cottage and applied for a permit to demolish it.