No. That’s not a thing.
At one time, that may have mattered, but we have evolved as a species to not be that ludicrous. Every jurisdiction is different, but in our experience, there is no benefit (or requirement) to tearing down a house and keeping 1 wall. People often believe that you get some sort of special benefit by doing so, but that’s not how things work. The precedent of this mode of thinking came from one simple fact:
In some situations, homes were built WHERE they are not supposed to be, so keeping 1 wall helps to prove that there was a home there at one time. This proof makes it easier to rebuild in that same location since the codes generally allow you to rebuild in the same location - even if that location would not be allowed by the current codes. This is called a nonconformity. There is a very simple workaround to this, and it is often required anyway: get a survey.
A survey is a drawing that shows the exact locations of property lines and the buildings on a property. This is a legal document that provides the proof needed to show where a building is (or was). If you get a survey, then tear down the house, that survey will be all the proof you need to indicate where a house once was located.
So why would you want to prove that a house WAS somewhere?
In many land use codes, there are references to “existing nonconforming uses.” This is a fancy word for “grandfathered.” It just means that something was legally built according to the rules at one time (or lack of rules). In many shoreline situations, there’s these cute little old houses snuggled up against the beach. These used to be little getaways for families to enjoy the shore. When they were built like 100 years ago, they were just sort of off the radar in places that nobody really cared about at that time. Consequently, there were no rules at that time, so you could just do whatever you want, basically.
As time went on, and land became more and more scarce, building departments started to write rules (codes) for how you are allowed to use the land. On many shorelines, the rules state that you must build 50’ away from shorelines. In some cases, it can be 500’! So what about all those old homes that were built closer to shorelines than these new rules? That’s where the “existing nonconforming use” came into play. The building departments needed to write rules that dictate what you need to do when you’re in a situation that violates the new rules. These extra set of rules vary from place to place, but they basically all say the same thing: you can keep your existing building where it is as long as you consider X, Y, and Z.
That’s good news. If it’s already built there, it can stay there. The X, Y, and Z are just the nuances of how you’re allowed to do it. It may require that you get a survey to prove exactly where the building is located. It may say the building is allowed to stay there but maybe not get any higher. It may say the building is allowed to stay there, and it may even be allowed to extend in length.
In Seattle, where we do much of our work, the existing nonconforming code allows you to keep a house where it is - even if it is over its 5’ side yard setback. And, they even allow you to build the house up to the maximum height limit and even expand the length of the house (as long as it never gets any closer to the property line than the existing part of the house - and as long as it never gets any closer to 3’ to the actual property line). This means you need to get a survey to prove where the house is, and to prove where the property line is.
PRO TIP: don’t tear any old stuff down until you get your survey first! If you do a survey AFTER you tear stuff down, then there’s no record of where it was. Also, beware that in many jurisdictions, you have 1 year to rebuild things after they are torn down, so be sure you or your architect thoroughly research the rules for your situation. Also, it doesn’t matter how rinky-dink the existing building is. If it is an existing disturbance to the landscape, it can be used to prove that you can continue to maintain that “disturbance.” This works on hillsides, shorelines, within setbacks, and many other situations that don’t exactly meet modern day standards.
So next time you hear someone chuckle and whisper about how they are going to keep one wall in place, so they can call it a remodel or whatever baloney they think they know, you can be in our secret club that quietly rolls our eyes and thinks about how silly that is :)
If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help