Chris Yetter & Steve Zamporelli

Interviewed by Peter Rumsey and Liisa Ogburn on February 8, 2013

Chris Yetter and his husband Steve Zamporelli moved into Oakwood in 1981.  

“In my garage, I have a file with every transaction I’ve done since I’ve been in real estate. There are some homes that I may have four home inspections of through the years. (People move. Houses don’t.)”  – Chris

“We need to make sure (new people moving in) know that they are stewards. They need to understand that if you let one of these houses go into disrepair, it’s not coming back. You can’t replace it. You can’t rebuild it. You can’t get the materials any more to do it.”  – Steve

Excerpt:

Chris: We lived in the house at 412 Oakwood Avenue only for about three and a half years.  Interesting thing is I was at home one day when someone knocked on the door and wanted to know, they knew I was a realtor, and wanted to know if there were any large homes for sale in Oakwood and I said well, how large and at what price? And they said, well, at least 3000 square feet and up to two hundred thousand dollars. At that time the most expensive home in Oakwood had sold at like, eighty-two thousand.  So, I told them, would they like to come up and take a look around the house, and by that afternoon we were walking down the stairs discussing the contract and went and signed the contract and sold the house, and the people who bought it currently live in the house, still. 

Liisa: Um, and uh, from there you moved into, into another house.  A lot of times with these houses they’re such enormous, um, investments in time and refinishing. Why have you continued moving?

Chris: Well, it’s sort of in our blood; we had started out moving from St. Petersburg, Florida we had redone a home in St. Petersburg and moved from St. Petersburg to Franklin, Tennessee on business; redid a home on Main Street in Franklin, Tennessee, complete renovation, that burned to the ground one week after we had done the renovation. There was a problem with a faulty, uh, heating system and the pilot light caught my cat on fire and the cat went through the house and started the fire and the house burned.  Because I did not have a home at that point, the company I was working for wanted to know if I would live anywhere in the states of North and South Carolina, that’s where they wanted their representative to be, and having friends in Raleigh, I moved to Raleigh, and started the renovations.  Actually, what we did is we went from the purple house to a home on Wake forest Road that I owned, on the corner of Wake forest Road and Harding that had had tenants in it; moved the tenants out.  Then, became involved with our friends, the Herrings, on the porch talking about a home around the corner that was on the market, at 411 Oakwood Avenue, with the idea of a bed and breakfast.   Well, we thought about it. None of us had any experience at a bed and breakfast but thought it would be very interesting to own one.  So, we talked to the owner of the home, at that point it was a home for work release prisoners and uh, was in a very dilapidated condition, but he was thrilled with the idea that someone wanted to renovate his home.  So, we started getting enthused about it but had one little hitch; we had not talked to the city of Raleigh and there was no such thing as an ordinance for a bed and breakfast. They didn’t even know what a bed and breakfast was at that time in Raleigh, and wanted to consider it a rooming house.  So, in considering it a rooming house they said no, becau- couldn’t operate it because there was another rooming house too close to them at that point.  So, their suggestion was why don’t we sit down with the city attorney and have an ordinance written for bed and breakfast.  Well, that took-