Call Diane today for more information, 919-614-0838.

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Call Diane today for more information, 919-614-0838.

Download PDF here.

517 Hooper Lane

Chapel Hill, NC

Often the homes that come to mind when I look back on a career spent marketing historic properties with North Carolina Estates, Inc., are those with particularly memorable owners.  That doesn’t mean that the house is not historically and architecturally significant but that there is a little corner of my heart that remembers a special person.  Among those special people is Alice Welsh, with whom I worked to market the Woolen-Roberts-Welsh House on lovely Hooper Lane.  Alice, a petite woman with pretty “Alice Blue Gown” looks, served on the Chapel Hill Town Board of Aldermen between 1970-1975.  It was a time of expansion for Chapel Hill’s Downtown, and a North Carolina-based bank proposed to build a multi-storied building on East Franklin Street.  The scale of the proposed building was completely out of proportion to the existing streetscape and would have looked quite out of place.  However, aesthetic sensibilities were not so finely honed in those days and there were many leading citizens that were in favor of the building as planned.  But when feisty Alice Welsh called a press conference and stood in front of the proposed site and floated a helium balloon up to the proposed height, everyone present recognized that the building as planned would not be compatible with the scale of venerable East Franklin Street.  I didn’t know Alice then but many years later in 2004 she contacted me to work with her to sell her charming circa 1935 Colonial Revival home on a small lot on one of the most pleasant streets in the Chapel Hill Historic District.

Like all old houses the Woolen-Roberts-Welsh House had a few quirks (a neighbor’s connection to the town sewer ran under her driveway), but Alice had done a great job of sensitively expanding the original structure with a spacious master bedroom-bath addition.  She surrounded the home with stonewalls and flowering shrubs and the interior was done with the help of a very fine designer who was her friend.  The enclosed loggia that connected the original structure with the new master bedroom became a garden room with French doors opening to a nicely situated brick patio.  Many a dinner party was enjoyed in that space with French doors flung wide and tinkling laughter spilling out into the night.

The history of the Woolen-Roberts-Welsh House hearkened back to owner Dr. A. B. Roberson and his wife Cornelia and their five children.  The Roberson family occupied a large house on a large lot on East Franklin Street.  In 1932, after the death of her husband, Mrs. Roberson subdivided the back portion of the property into three lots facing Hooper Lane.  She sold two of the lots but retained one for her middle daughter Bessie, wife of Charles T. Woolen, the comptroller of the University of North Carolina.  Mrs. Roberson built a house on her daughter’s lot and for many years rented it to provide the family with additional income.  When Bessie Woolen’s daughter Betsy and her husband Archer Roberts retired to Chapel Hill in 1967, they moved into the house Betsy’s grandmother had built.  Betsy was widowed in 1971 but remained in the house until her death in 1983.  * This portion of the house’s history was compiled by Chapel Hill historian and retired professor of Geography, Doug Eyre.

Alice Welsh lost her husband retired psychology professor George Welsh in 1990 after moving into the Woolen-Roberts-Welsh House.  Friends of the Welshes established the Dr. George and Alice Welsh Term Professorship in 1992.  In 2006, Alice established the Millie Barranger Distinguished Professorship in Dramatic Art in recognition of her friend former dramatic art department chair and producing director of Playmakers Repertory Theatre. Alice continued to live and entertain in the Woolen-Roberts-Welsh House until she moved to The Cedars, a retirement community in the Meadowmont community of Chapel Hill.

©Diane Lea, North Carolina Historic Homes Broker and Consultant

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Combining the talents of nationally known architects and interior designers with those of local master builders, craftsmen and artisans has produced a unique work of Italian art, not in Italy but in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Perfectly executed and exquisitely proportioned, the Villa on Ledge Lane is architectural art: an American interpretation of the Tuscan villa. Like its Italian counterparts that flourished as country houses in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Villa on Ledge Lane is set upon a hilltop with a commanding view of the landscape below. Integration of landscape and architecture is a key component of the Italian villa, and this American villa, surrounded by gardens and outdoor rooms, is in tune with its historic precedents. It is, indeed, a singular destination.

The Tuscan Villa on Ledge Lane in Chapel Hill is offered by North Carolina Estates, Owen Gwyn Principle Broker 919-906-1551.

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Tuscan Villa, Chapel Hill Estate

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William Reed’s Ordinary, described by the prestigious Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) as an excellent example of early “Piedmont” architecture, has been associated with many of the most significant figures in Hillsborough’s long and illustrious history.

Court records indicate that the earliest portion of the house, the tall central block with massive end chimneys and a two-room basement with great heavy beams, was the dwelling-house of William Reed and his wife Elizabeth Douglas.  Reed, described as a “tavern-keeper,” had also served in 1752 as Hillsborough surveyor William Churton’s deputy and had purchased the land the house stands on from Churton in 1755. The HABS report suggests that located as it was at the junction of East King Street, the Great Halifax Road and the Old Indian Trading Path, Reed’s home was almost certainly a tavern or “ordinary.”  The home’s lower level with its picturesque beamed ceiling and beautiful arched fireplace add credibility to this tradition. C. J. Sauthier’s 1768 map of Hillborough shows a structure, possibly a Still-house, standing beside a stream on one of the home’s two lots.  Certainly useful for an ordinary!

The home was added to over its long life.  The first addition, a single-story with massive end chimney that is now the library, was added in the 1820s.  Steps lead down to this spacious room with its nicely detailed mantel, and the pleasant covered porch leads out to the garden.  A narrow tight-winder stair leads to the attic above where it was thought servants slept.  Owner Susan B. Hayes added the third or northeastern portion of the house, now the dining room and kitchen that was probably a separate two-part structure seamed to the existing core.  Well-known writer Peter Taylor and wife Eleanor Taylor removed a wall between the east parlor and the home’s central staircase.  Dr. Robert Murphy and Katherine Evans Murphy opened the arched fireplace in the lower level and uncovered the handsome overmantel in the east parlor.  Leah Stenzel Burt, whose family has owned and maintained the home since 1978, added historically interesting stenciling throughout the house and continued to expand the home’s extensive gardens.  A garden shed in the rear garden is designed to provide southern light for seeding plants.

Though William Reed’s Ordinary is notable for a significant amount of original material– heart pine floors, wainscot throughout most of the rooms, several original glass window panes, and beautiful molded sills and beaded siding on the exterior–it is probably the home’s fireplaces that are particularly important.  Known alternately as “Seven Hearths,” the home does indeed have seven fireplaces.  All have their original mantels except the one in the upper level east bedroom.  The transitional Georgian-Federal period reeded mantel in the east parlor is quite striking and holds pride of place in the home’s earliest room.

William Reed’s Ordinary is a fortunate house.  Its location within walking distance of a thriving historic downtown, the setting of the house that includes a large secluded garden set with magnificent magnolia and pecan trees and flower beds, and the home’s impeccable Colonial architecture make it a landmark in Historic Hillsborough.

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Diane has sold may historic home in North Carolina for over 20 years so call her today to find out more on her real estate brokerage services at 919-614-0838.