Ruth Graham, seen here with her late father Evangelist Billy Graham, was born and lived in the cottage that is up for sale. Image Credit: RUTH GRAHAM
The original home of the late evangelist Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth, has been listed for sale in Montreat, a town in North Carolina, USA. Proceeds will be used to pay for treatment of a rare disease his granddaughter lives with.
It’s the first and only property owned by the Graham family that entered the real estate market, according to Florida-based agency Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, which is marketing the house in partnership with Kevin B. Jones, LLC at $600,000.
Billy Graham, who preached to nearly 215 million people in 185 countries during his life time, was one of the most influential Christian leaders of the 20th century. He died at age 99 in February 2018 in Montreat.
Graham and his late wife, Ruth Bell Graham, purchased the house at 198 Mississippi Road in the late 1940s. It’s a four-bedroom, two-bathroom cottage with two levels of living space. While still under the ownership of Graham’s daughter Ruth, the residence has served as a vacation rental, allowing guests to experience the Grahams’ young family life through a collection of original furnishings, books, photos and mementos.
“It was selected because it was right across the street from my grandparents,” Ruth Bell Graham, the third of Billy Graham’s five children said in a release seen by WCNC Charolette. “I was born during the time my family lived in the house. The Los Angeles Crusades and (my father’s) tour of England happened during those years. It is where it all began.”
Through Premier Sotheby’s public relations director, Elise Ramer, Ruth Bell Graham answered various follow-up questions noting it is a “very hard” decision to sell the house.
Ruth Graham explained the family left the house in 1957, moving to a larger home on a mountain in Montreat to gain privacy. She said the sale is necessitated in part because of medical costs associated with her daughter’s illness, Lymphangioleiomyomatosis, a rare, progressive multisystem disorder.
Ruth Graham, who owns the home, reportedly notified her siblings of the sale, according to the Christian Post, and asked them first if they wanted to buy the house. She did not speak with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. But a spokesman for the organization told The Citizen-Times that the Graham siblings “love each other deeply and support each other.”
