The 1,700-square-foot (160 m2) three-bedroom house featured a 4,000-square-foot (370 m2) roof which was a hyperbolic paraboloid, built of wood 2.5" thick.
Vandals, storms, lack of heat, and neglect made the house rapidly deteriorate.
Preservation North Carolina bought an option on the house and tried unsuccessfully to sell it for $360,000 to anyone who would rebuild the same design.
Shortly after its destruction, Catalano unsuccessfully lobbied the NC Museum of Art to have just the roof rebuilt on their grounds in Raleigh.
In early 2005, he proposed North Carolina State University with a gift of $1.5M to rebuild the roof as part of a Central Campus Pavilion plan[1] but strong faculty opposition caused him to withdraw, despite the fact NCSU hired an architectural firm to evaluate seven other alternative sites.