Charlotte's
1st Startup
House.
A century-old historic home between South End and Dilworth, retrofitted for founders who'd rather collide with each other than coexist with cubicle dwellers.
A century-old historic home between South End and Dilworth, retrofitted for founders who'd rather collide with each other than coexist with cubicle dwellers.
Wraparound porch. Hardwood floors. Tall windows and good light. Spaces to jam, couches deep enough to think in, and places built for the kind of small talk that becomes a company.
1717 Cleveland Ave officially opened May 15, 2026 to an overflow crowd of founders, investors, and the Charlotte community. Memberships and Wednesday Jam Sessions are open now.
In the 1950s, patent lawyers at Bell Labs noticed something strange. The engineers filing the most patents weren't on the same team. They didn't share a specialty. The one thing they shared was lunch with a quiet electrical engineer named Harry Nyquist who had a gift for asking the right questions.
Nyquist didn't give people ideas. He drew them out. He got people working on completely different problems talking to each other. And that cross-pollination produced more breakthroughs than any formal program Bell Labs ever ran.
Eighty years of research since has confirmed what those lawyers stumbled onto. Physical proximity between diverse people working on different problems is the most reliable engine of innovation we know how to build.
"We're not building an incubator. We're not running a program. We're building the room, and inviting the right people to fill it." Drew Burdick · Founder
A coworking space rents you a desk. An office gives you four walls. The house puts you across the table from a founder working on a problem next to yours, over a long lunch, a porch conversation, a dinner that reroutes your year.
Character, not corporate. A century-old historic home with soul, on a quiet block five minutes from the light rail.
A handful of resident startups, hand-picked for fit. You'll know everyone's name, what they're building, and what they're stuck on.
Whiteboard walls, deep couches, a porch for thinking out loud. Built for the work that matters.
Demo nights, founder dinners, fireside chats in the living room. The community lives here too.
Somewhere between home and HQ. The kind of place where ideas actually happen.
Built for the new era. Ship faster with the right tools, the right neighbors, and the right mindset.
Whether you want a permanent room, a desk to call your own, weekly access, or the occasional Wednesday afternoon, there's a way in for you.
24/7 access, a front-row seat to the community, and the option to grow without changing addresses.
Your seat, your screen, your stuff. 24/7 access, plus everything Members get.
Work from any common room, plus weekly Jam Sessions. Be in the community without a reserved desk.
Drop-in passes for a single day in the house. Subscribe below and we'll let you know the day they go live.
Building with a co-founder? We have a special pairs rate that splits a Residents room two ways, designed for the duo grinding it out together.
See the co-founder package →
1717 Cleveland Ave. officially opened May 15 to an overflow crowd of founders, investors, and community. "We're like, OK, people want to show up," Burdick said.
A century-old house in South End is being transformed into a hub for early-stage founders, built around the idea that the best startup ideas don't come from presentations.
Inspired by similar models in New York, a "startup house" will open in South End. The founder of AI firm StealthX is behind the project at 1717 Cleveland Ave.
Shout-out to Drew Burdick for launching CLT Startup House. Resident companies alongside memberships offered in a century-old home in Charlotte.
Apply to be a resident, take a Wednesday Jam Session, or just come tour the place. The porch is always open.