Home Horace Williams House Calendar of Events House Tour Archives Photo Album PSCH History PSCH Accomplishments Event Rentals Exhibitors Membership Info Web Links Local Points of Interest The Homes 1. Horace Williams House - 610 East Franklin Street Holiday Decorations by Carol Council Smith The Horace Williams House began as a small farm house (the current dining room, office, and kitchen), probably built in the 1840s by local craftsmen skilled in vernacular construction. Between November 1854 and January 1855, Benjamin Hedrick had the “octagon room” added as part of his efforts, as professor of agricultural chemistry, to experiment with economical and efficient methods of building. Writing about the addition in the February 1856 number of The Carolina Cultivator, Professor Hedrick explained “gravel wall” construction and recommended this method as one “well adapted to the building of the finest villa, or the plainest laborer’s cottage.” Today the Octagon Room is the gallery of the Horace Williams House Art Committee, which sponsors monthly exhibitions of work by North Carolina artists. In the 1880s and ‘90s, the house took on its current appearance, when Professor George Winston added the parlor, the foyer and the front porch. Professor Horace Williams made no significant changes to the home he occupied from 1891 to 1940, but at his death he willed the property to the University. In 1975, the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill oversaw the renovation of the house, which it continues to maintain it as its headquarters. 2. The Chapel Hill Museum & The Chapel Hill Historical Society - 523 East Franklin Street Museum President: Larry Loeser - CH Historical Society President: Susan Lyons Donald Stewart, who had trained with Chapel Hill architect Jim Webb, in 1968 designed a building to house the Chapel Hill Public Library. The structure fits naturally into its sloping site and incorporates elements familiar and contextual to Chapel Hill and the building’s immediate environment. The design features a fieldstone lower level, a wood shingled main level with angled walls, and a metal mansard roof with a wide overhang. Although some people initially objected to a modern building in the heart of the historic district, it is now a landmark in Chapel Hill’s architectural evolution. In 1994 the library moved to new quarters on Estes Drive, and in 1996 the building became home to the newly incorporated Chapel Hill Museum. The current special exhibition tells the story of “Luther Hodges: The International Legacy of a North Carolina Statesman.” The Chapel Hill Historical Society was founded in 1966 with a mission to “investigate, preserve, and make available, knowledge of the history of Chapel Hill.” The Society’s office on Boundary Street houses research materials and provides assistance with genealogical and historical research. The Historical Society, through its public programs and its sponsorship of “Town Heritage Sites” plaques, works to “make the past present.” 3. Page-Capel House - 105 South Boundary Street Head Hostess: Barbara Pipkin Professor Robert Baker Lawson built this cottage, designed by architect Archie K. Davis, as a wedding gift for his daughter Estelle, when she married Julius Page in 1936. Estelle is remembered in Chapel Hill as a great amateur golfer. She took up the sport in 1931 at the age of 21. By 1937 she had won the women’s amateur national championship. She continued to enter tournaments well into the 1960s and earned so many trophies that she enclosed a side porch at the Boundary Street cottage to hold them all. Estelle lived in the house until 1983. Mary Clara Capel purchased the house in 2002 and undertook extensive renovations designed to keep the original feel and scale of the cottage. Using original blueprints, she worked with architect Jack Haggerty and landscaper Mack Newsome to update systems, renovate the kitchen and bathrooms, and spruce up the “outdoor rooms” that give the property the feeling of an oasis in the heart of Chapel Hill. She has furnished the home with examples of her own paintings and with a variety of collections, including North Carolina pottery and folk art. Mary Clara says that this wedding gift to an extraordinary couple has always struck her as a “happy house,” and, with its new coat of yellow paint and spruced-up fixtures, it certainly looks like one. In May 2005 the Preservation Society granted an Award of Merit for this exemplary renovation. 4. Rees-Henderson-Rimer House - 519 Hooper Lane Head Hosts: Sandra and Stephen Rich and Lynda Rubenstein Mary Graves Rees, the only sister of Chapel Hill Weekly founder Louis Graves, in 1931 built this house on property purchased from Nellie Roberson. According to Cornelia Spencer Love, Mary was “an artist, a portrait painter, whose paintings sometimes hit their subject off exactly, but occasionally did not.” She notes that the portrait of Horace Williams that hangs in the parlor of Preservation Society headquarters was an “excellent caricature, but not intended as such.” Love characterized the house on Hooper Lane as an “arty” one that had “undergone changes from every subsequent owner”; indeed it has had six additions since it was built. Most notably, Lucille Henderson, University librarian and Archibald Henderson’s second wife, worked with architect Jim Webb to expand and modernize the house. Linda and Alan Rimer purchased the home in 1993, renovated it and moved in in early 1994. They have carried on the tradition of making changes to the structure and have expanded the kitchen, added a screened porch, reconfigured rooms, and improved cabinets throughout the house. They have designed and built most of the additions themselves and have filled the house with a wonderful collection of art which includes works by Native American artist R. C. Gorman and North Carolina pottery by artists including Ben Owen III. 5. Henderson-Cotten-Robertson House - 520 Hooper Lane Head Hostess: Mary Alice Dorton Accomplished sisters of UNC professor Archibald Henderson, Mary Henderson and Elizabeth Henderson Cotten, built this house in the 1930s. Mrs. Cotten at the time was widowed. Her son Lyman became an English professor at the University and continued to live in the house until his death in 1991. In 1995, Wyndham Robertson, the current owner, purchased the house from Lyman’s widow, Patsy Cotten. The original structure included the upstairs, the living room, dining room, kitchen, and study. In 1956 the library and terrace were added, and in 1993 the dining room, kitchen, and master bath were enlarged and renovated. The house is filled with antiques from Ms. Robertson’s grandmother’s home in Martinsville, VA. Other pieces are thrift shop finds, including the sofa in the living room purchased for $50 in 1960 from a Salvation Army in New York, and the old kitchen cabinet in the dining room, bought in poor condition by Ms. Robertson’s mother, restored and shipped to New York, where it was coveted by city folk during Ms. Robertson’s years there. Works by prominent contemporary American artists include a lithograph in the living room by Jasper Johns and in the dining room a Robert Rauschenberg silk-screen. Works by North Carolina artists and artisans appear throughout the home, including work by Ben Owen III, Mark Hewitt, Stanley Anderson, Henry Link, and Paul Hrusovsky. 6. Coates-Bell House - 508 Hooper Lane Head Hostess: Madeline Cains Albert and Gladys Coates founded the Institute of Government in 1931 to improve the lives of North Carolinians by providing educational, advisory, and research support for state and local governments. In the early 1940s they purchased the lot on Hooper Lane that had once belonged to Coates’ mentor Edward Kidder Graham, and in 1952 they worked with Jim and John Webb to design their home. The Coateses wanted a “more or less Georgian house.” The Webbs tried to convince Albert that “The exterior is the function of the interior” and argued that once one has designed the interior, “there is nothing you can do about the outside.” When they presented their first sketches of a decidedly contemporary house, apparently planned from the inside out, Albert exploded and said that he could not “walk home every day for the rest of my life and see that thing at the end of the road.” The Webbs, guided one suspects by the ever-gracious Gladys, ultimately created the house that the Coateses wanted. The current owner, Kathryn Bell, has worked with interior designer Ann Legette and contractor Stan Stutts to restore and respect the proportions and intimacy of the house. Kathryn’s renovation mantra would have pleased both the Webbs and Albert Coates: “Good design is . . . about the way people live, the space that soothes away the day’s concerns and evokes peace.” 7. Graves-Irvine-Cross Home - 111 Battle Lane Head Hostess: Mary Morrow Some sources say that Mildred (Mim) Moses built the house at 111 Battle Lane in 1921, before her marriage to UNC alumnus and journalism professor Louis Graves. Others say that the couple built the house together in 1922. No one disputes the fact that Louis and Mim in 1923 founded, and for 31 years produced as a team effort, the Chapel Hill Weekly. The paper chronicled, in the words of Frank Porter Graham, “the color, atmosphere, and human interest of the weekly drama of our folk and village, the finest traditions and fairest hopes of the University, and the decent life in town, state and nation.” Many people were drawn to the “magic” of this loving couple, and visitors to the house included General Dwight D. Eisenhower and poets Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost. Allen Irvine inherited the home when her aunt Mim passed away in 1976. Martha and Wilson Cross purchased the home in 1997 and remodeled and reconfigured the kitchen, revived the gardens (after clearing away a forest of bamboo) and made felicitous changes to the Hooper Lane entrance to the house. They have filled the home with antiques and art work created for their home in Essex, Connecticut, and have kept the Graves’ memory alive while putting their own stamp on the property. Wilson designs and builds amazing models of boats he has sailed, which are on display in this elegant and historic home. 8. Senlac—The Battle House - Baptist Campus Ministry - 203 Battle Lane Head Hosts: Kathie and Tom Heffner In 1843, William Horne Battle (1802-1879), the university’s first law professor, purchased a home on this site which was believed to date “back to the earliest days of the University.” He added eight rooms and lived at the property until 1868, when the university closed during Reconstruction. Battle’s son Kemp Plummer Battle (1831-1919) became president of the university in 1876 and purchased the home, where he lived until his death. President Battle repaired the house, added a one-story wing on each side, and a long front porch. He gave the house the name “Senlac,” because he “liked to think that the family got its name originally from living near the battlefield of Senlac or Hastings” where Harold the Saxon surrendered to William the Conqueror in 1066. In 1922 John Manning Booker, a professor of English at the University, and husband of President Battle’s granddaughter, bought the house, which still included six acres of property and eleven outbuildings. At the time of his purchase, the house exhibited an Italianate style with an elaborate cornice, bracketed posts, turned balustrade, and a large bay window on each side, far more ornamental than the austere appearance it bears today. In 1964 the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina bought the property and adapted the house for its current use as the Carolina Baptist Student Union and Baptist Campus Ministry. 9. McClamroch-Hogue-DeFriese House - 514 Senlac Road Head Hostess: Sue Coutret Roland Prince McClamroch, hired in 1922 as a professor in the department of English, built this commodious house in 1927 on one of the lots Dr. John Manning Booker had carved out of the six-acre Senlac site. Booker worked with University architect Arthur C. Nash (who designed the Carolina Inn, Wilson Library, and Memorial Hall) and the Durham architectural firm of Atwood and Weeks to review all proposed construction to ensure “correct and harmonious buildings” in the neighborhood. Nash himself built a house directly south of the McClamroch property. Roland McClamroch also developed other property in town, including the Village Apartments on Franklin Street. His son “Sandy” made many contributions to the community, including his service as the town’s mayor and his founding of WCHL radio and Carol Woods, our model retirement community. David and Carol Hogue moved into the home in 1988. They remodeled the kitchen to accommodate Carol’s love for cooking and entertaining and made other changes to update the house, while keeping its 1920s character and details in tact. Carol has also created thirteen separate gardens on the property. Carol’s husband Gordon DeFriese maintains a wonderful woodworking shop in one of the property’s garages. 10. Patterson-O’Keefe-Hamner House - 511 Senlac Road Head Hostess: Barbara Spenner Many people associate this home with Fred and Julia “Bootsie” Patterson, who lived here for over 50 years. Fred had long-standing ties with Chapel Hill. He was the grandson of Henry Houston “Hoot” Patterson, a Confederate army officer, respected Franklin Street merchant, and alderman. His mother Blanche was the daughter of livery stable owner Walter W. Pickard and herself opened a popular boarding house after having been widowed in 1914. Beginning in 1946, Patterson, along with his partners Dr. J. Kempton Jones and Dr. William S. Joyner, served Chapel Hill’s medical needs for many years. In 2004, Clay and Margaret Hamner (whose additions to the Kennette House were the talk of the Preservation Society’s 1999 tour) purchased the home from Dr. Patterson’s daughter Shirley O’Keefe and her husband Ed. They worked with architect G. Edwin Belk and contractor Ben Mixon to add almost 1300 square feet to the house, in the form of a master bedroom suite, a laundry room and family room, and a spectacular covered back deck. They also added painted cedar shake siding and a cedar shingle roof. The home is filled with family portraits and antiques, along with the Hamners’ eclectic collection of art that includes works by North Carolina, Maine, and European artists. Holiday House Tour Home Horace Williams House Calendar of Events House Tour Archives Photo Album PSCH History PSCH Accomplishments Event Rentals Exhibitors Membership Info Web Links Local Points of Interest PRESERVATION SOCIETY OF CHAPEL HILL • 610 E. ROSEMARY ST. CHAPEL HILL, NC 27514 • 919-942-7818 • chpreservation@mindspring.com