City’s oldest standing house struck by vandals in east Charlotte. Repairs underway
Vandals damaged Mecklenburg County’s oldest surviving house over the weekend, according to the Charlotte Museum of History staff and a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department report.
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An unknown suspect broke into the Hezekiah Alexander Rock House, built in 1774 and located at 3500 Shamrock Drive in east Charlotte, leaving the historic property in disarray, with drawers open and part of the internal plexiglass of a window on the house’s back half broken.
Jason Luker, the museum’s chief interpretation officer, found the scene during a routine check in of the property Monday morning. Nothing from the house appeared to be stolen.
“We have minimal damage, just the window where they were trying to come into the building,” Luker said. “Things had been opened, things had been moved throughout the building, and so that was the main issue.”
The museum’s president and CEO Terri White said it was evident that someone also forced their way into the site’s kitchen and barn and tossed around items there. There are no security cameras in the Rock House because it would take away from the 1774 feel, White added.
She was confused as to why people would break into a house more than 250 years old. There’s no copper wiring, plumbing or scrap metal inside for people to pilfer. White said she found smashed cigarette butts in the main house “Incredibly shocking.”
“If this burns down, there is no other colonial structure in Charlotte,” she added.
Luker filed a report with CMPD Monday morning. The investigation remains active. The report estimates about $100 in damage for the plexiglass.
Earlier this month, gutters were stolen from the building’s exterior, Luker said. That, too, has been brought to the attention of CMPD. The museum also alerted its neighboring nursing home community, Aldersgate, about the security breach. Aldersgate agreed to temporarily send its private security to the museum to check for strange activity during early mornings, White added.
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“All of us love what we’re doing,” White said. “We love the momentum the museum has had. We’re seeing more people now than we’ve seen in a decade, but things like this vandalism on the site really just takes a little bit of wind out of your sails.”
Repairs to the site are underway and almost resolved, White said.
The Rock House was already in the process of restoration with museum security upgrades on the way thanks to a grant from the National Park Service. The museum does not receive arts funding from the city of Charlotte, which makes situations like this more difficult, she said.
“When we don’t get that operational support that everyone else gets, things like this were more vulnerable to it,” White said.
The Rock House is still open to visitors and included in the museum’s tour route.
The 252-year-old building is the last remaining home of Hezekiah Alexander, a framer of North Carolina’s first Constitution and Bill of Rights, according to the museum’s website. Alexander lived in the home with his wife, Mary, and their 10 children until his death in 1801.
Rock House is not only a reminder of Alexander’s achievements, a planter, blacksmith and leader of the American Revolution in Mecklenburg County, but also the enslavement of at least 17 people that occurred there.
In addition to the main house, kitchen and barn, the site is thought to include slave quarters, likely covered by development, and a springhouse, which is the 18th-century equivalent to a refrigerator.
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This story was originally published July 14, 2026 at 3:48 PM.
