Meet the Marine Veteran Flipping Historic Homes in North Carolina—and Making Sure They Qualify for VA Loans

As a North Carolina-based renovator who specializes in flipping old homes, Adam Miller knew he had a unique opportunity when the owner of the Chester House reached out to see if he could help save her historic farmhouse.

The 1886-built Davidson, NC, property was in rough shape, but Miller knew he wanted to take on the project.

“The whole house felt like a North Carolina piece of folk art,” he tells Realtor.com®. “It just felt sad to tear it down, because it was one of the oldest surviving farmhouses in Davidson.”

Citing the original beadboard walls and boxy door frames, Miller could immediately picture the property’s origin story.

“You hear about somebody building a house with their bare hands, and this is the type of house I think about, you know?” he says. “The old-school North Carolina farmer gets done for the day and he’s like, adding onto his house, or he’s just doing cool stuff because that’s what he needs to survive and live on the land. That’s the vibe I get from this house.”

Known as “Old House Adam,” Miller has been transforming historic North Carolina homes for 15 years. While he says his team can “save anything,” he’s careful with choosing projects that are also good business, avoiding properties that would be “financially irresponsible” to tackle.

“If we’re not able to make the numbers work, sometimes we have to pass on really cool, beautiful projects,” he explains.

The Chester House was a particularly exciting case for Miller and his team—which includes his wife, Jessica Miller, a talented interior designer and portrait artist.

“We actually beat out a developer that was hunting the property,” he shares, noting that this plot of land was exceptionally desirable, given its access to a 48-acre nature preserve. “It was really pretty awesome.”

They were also able to secure the two properties on either side of the Chester House, where they’ll erect “heirloom farmhouses,” leveraging vintage floor plans and salvaged materials to create something new with an old-school feel.

Although the home ended up needing much more work than initially anticipated, Miller was able to restore its original character while adding a few modern luxuries.

Two gorgeous and generously sized bathrooms were added—even if they both required extensive changes to the footprint of the home.

The kitchen underwent a more extensive renovation than he typically carries out in these kinds of projects, receiving fully-customized cabinetry. And the home’s most defining features—like the original wood floors—were given their moment to shine.

“You don’t want a house where you’ve pulled all the character out of it, but you also don’t want a house that feels like it’s still 1886,” he says.

For Miller, that means finding a balance between keeping original features and making additions that “embrace the imperfections of the house.”

In an “awkward” corner, they added “interesting bookshelves” to give the space new purpose. Built-ins and storage space were added to make the home more functional. And aesthetics were chosen to provide a mix of on-trend features and classic design, which Miller points out, are sometimes one in the same.

Miller also believes that it’s important to choose the right materials when breathing new life into an historic property.

“You’ve got to pull in a little bit of personality,” he says. “People don’t acknowledge this. It’s the material choices. If you stick to old-school materials and there’s no real plastics involved or synthetics, then you can get a lot more look for the money.”

Speaking of quality, Miller, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, is also careful to make sure his projects tick all of the boxes needed to qualify for a potential buyer to use a VA loan. He says that understanding the “code and qualifications” of a VA loan is important for renovators and builders, “Because then everybody gets to qualify and participate in home ownership.”

“I talk to a lot of veterans, and they’re like, ‘You can’t get a loan on an old house,’ and that’s 100% not true,” says Miller. “You can’t get a loan on a bad old house. But a good old house? There’s a lot of them. There’s a lot of these old houses that have survived, and they hit all the notes.”

Miller couldn’t have used a VA loan to acquire the Chester House for renovation, joking that it was in such disrepair that “VA wouldn’t have even sent somebody out to look at it originally.” But he says the loan option is a great tool, and even used one for his own home, which was built in 1906.

Now that the Chester House has been given a second chance, “even though it’s as old as it is, it would be a perfect home for a VA loan,” Miller explains.

“We replaced all the siding, there’s no chipping paint. All the windows open and operate correctly. The grading was all professionally done, so there’s no intrusion of water in the basement,” he says. “It’s got a new roof on it, the foundation doesn’t have any cracks greater than an eighth of an inch… so if you can ensure a house has all the qualifications, then you can renovate an old house and veterans can still get loans on them.”

Beyond going the extra mile to ensure a dwelling can be a great home for anyone, Miller loves to see what a renovation can do for a community.

“So many people drive by it. They’ve watched it just fall apart,” he says. “And everyone’s like, ‘Man, I wish somebody would save that thing,’ and that’s cool, too. To be the guy that people associate with watching a house fall down and all of a sudden you get to watch it be built back up.”