Down N.C. Highway 33, just over the Pitt County line, sits a circa-1910 farmhouse surrounded by enormous magnolia trees and acres cornfields. It was once home to generations of farmers. Now, the home stands empty. But if someone, anyone, is willing to pay to move it off the property, it’s theirs — free of charge.

A porch, framed by Doric columns, wraps around three sides of the Victorian house, its front door opening onto a spacious central hall, ornate stairs climbing up to a second central hall upstairs. Tall doorways and transoms framed in fluted casings divide four large downstairs rooms, the front two of which boast bay windows. Tacked onto the original structure are a few additional rooms added on a latter date: bathroom, closets, mudroom, and a walk-through to a kitchen. Upstairs, another four large bedrooms and bath branch off the main hall, which is, in and of itself, another large room. Perched at the front of that hall is a doorway that leads out to a small balcony with sweeping views of the surrounding farmland. Grimes Farm Road is a long gravel drive away.

It’s a solid house, but empty for three years now, it’s showing its age. That’s why it’s so important to get it moved right away — so it does not join the ranks of historic, but decaying houses that can be seen on rural roads across eastern North Carolina, according to Preservation North Carolina’s Northeast Regional Director Claudia Deviney.

Deviney said the owner, Eddie Smith — who owns the neighboring Grimes Plantation and Grady White Boats in Greenville — bought the land in 2011 and contacted Preservation North Carolina, a watchdog organization that looks after endangered historic properties. The nonprofit has helped save more than 700 properties in its 75 years, finding buyers with the funds to rehabilitate the properties. Now the organization is working to find someone not to buy the homes, but to simply take it away. Smith is willing to give the home to anyone willing to move it, rather than see it deteriorate further, Deviney said.

Deviney said that she’s had plenty of interest in the house from people across the country since a one-page write-up was featured in the May edition of the magazine “This Old House.”

“There was a point when I would hang up the phone from one person only to have it ring again immediately,” Deviney laughed.

Deviney said many of her callers weren’t exactly realistic when it came to moving the house. Moving a century-old, large home is quite a project, and a potentially expensive one.

At 4,300 square feet, the property built by William Faucette on 1,000 acres of prime tobacco farmland, would be a behemoth to move — but not impossible. Coastal Carolina saw a much bigger move in 1999, when International Chimney Corp. of Buffalo, N.Y. and Expert House Movers of Maryland moved the 4,830-ton Cape Hatteras lighthouse 2,900 feet away from the Hatteras shoreline.

House movers charge according to a variety of factors: the size of the building, the distance it’s being moved, how long it takes, the degree of difficulty in moving it. A large house could cost upwards of $100,000 to move. Tack that number on to the cost of the land to put the house on, updates to the home’s HVAC, plumbing, electrical systems, it could still be considered a real deal.

That’s what Deviney is hoping for: someone to see it for the deal it is — preferably someone who has land near the home’s current location. While none of the calls from the “This Old House” callers have panned out so far, another medium has brought in more genuine interest.

“Someone posted it on Facebook and since then, I’ve had more serious calls from people who live in the area,” Deviney said.

For more information about “Oakland Farm” (though many more know it as the home of generations of the Faucette family), visit http://www.presnc.org/properties/laughinghouse-fawcett-house-moved/ or call Claudia Deviney at 252-482-7455.