Waldo House at its original location on Waldo St. (photo courtesy Town of Cary)Waldo House being moved through downtown Cary, December 2007 (photo by Brent Miller, courtesy of Friends of the Page-Walker)Waldo House ca. 2010, with exterior restored, at its current temporary location on E. Park St. (photo by Brent Miller, courtesy of Friends of the Page-Walker)

This house was built for Dr. Waldo, who arrived in Cary in 1873 as the third practicing doctor in town. Dr. Waldo charged patients $1 for local visits and $1 per mile for country calls. Dr. Waldo built Cary’s first drugstore and planted vacant lots around town with cotton. His house was the meeting place for the Methodist Church before the church was constructed. After Waldo’s death in 1891, the house passed through several hands and received several small additions over the years.

The Waldo house is one of Cary’s most important structures, being one of only two examples of board-and-batten Gothic Revival buildings in Wake County (the Ivey-Ellington-Waddell house, also in Cary, is the other).

The house was successfully moved in December 2007 to a temporary site, Town-owned property on E. Park St., where its exterior has been restored. Later, when the new Town Center park is complete, the Waldo House will be moved to the park, have its interior restored and will serve some public function, perhaps as a visitors center. Many organizations were involved in saving the Waldo House, chief among them the Town of Cary, First United Methodist Church, Capital Area Preservation and the Friends of the Page-Walker.