Jonathan M. Heck was a native of Morgantown, (West) Virginia. He joined the Confederate Army when the Civil War began and served as a Lieutenant Colonel with the 25th Virginia Infantry. He fought at the Battle of Rich Mountain in Randolph County in 1861. Heck was captured early in the year and was paroled, and therefore could not return to active duty. Heck turned to manufacturing armaments for the Confederacy. After the war, Heck, unlike many of his southern compatriots, was a wealthy man. Heck purchased a lot on fashionable North Blount Street in Raleigh, North Carolina and in 1869 construction began on the Heck-Andrews House.

The house was designed by architect and builder George S. H. Appleget. One of the first houses to be built in Raleigh after the Civil War, the house was patterned after the Second Empire style. The large, flamboyantly decorated house with its dramatic tower set the tone for the buildings that would follow during the period of popularity that the French-influenced Second Empire style would enjoy in the postbellum and Victorian eras.

The house remained in the Heck family until 1921, when it was purchased by prominent Raleigh attorney A. B. Andrews, Jr. When Andrews died in 1946, the house was sold to Julia Russell. The house was purchased by the North Carolina state government in 1987 and is now a designated Raleigh Historic Landmark.