Preservation Chapel Hill E-Newsletter

August
2014

Upcoming Events

 

August 2 
Walk This Way!

 Old Chapel Hill Cemetery Meet at Cemetery Gazebo
 3 - 4:30 pm

$5 per person

 

August 10 

Walk This Way!

East Franklin Street 

Meet at  

Horace Williams House 

2 - 3:30 pm

$5 per person 

     

August 12 - 29

The Carolina Mountains:

Photography of

Margaret Morley

Horace Williams House

10 am - 4 pm

Free 

 

August 16 

Walk This Way!

Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
 Meet at Cemetery Gazebo
 3 - 4:30 pm

$5 per person

 

August 18
Board of Directors Meeting
Horace Williams House
4:30 pm

For more information about events, visit our event calendar here.


News from our Neighbors

Preservation North Carolina

75th Anniversary Celebration
Orange County Ramble 

Preservation North Carolina is celebrating its Diamond Anniversary with a series of statewide Roadshow events. Join us for a Preservation Celebration in Orange County on Sunday, September 7. This very special event will showcase important properties PNC has helped save in Hillsborough and Chapel Hill.
The event will begin in Hillsborough with brunch at Ayr Mount (1815).
We also have a terrific group of houses that will open for tours in the afternoon:

  

The Nash-Hooper House (1768) in Hillsborough

  

The Hooper-Kyser House (1820) in Chapel Hill  

  

The newly restored Edward Kidder Graham House (1906) in Chapel Hill

  

We are excited for this opportunity to show off this group of fine and important historic homes.

  

Brunch at Ayr Mount will run from 11:00-2:00; the properties will be open for tours from 1:00-5:00 with guests providing their own transportation. The cost will be $40 per person.

Online event ticket sales will be available soon. If you have questions, or are interested in sponsoring this great event, please contact Shannon Phillips at [email protected] or 919-832-3652 x 229.

  

To learn more, visit the Preservation North Carolina website here. 

  

  

  

The Orange County Historical Museum

Tales and Stories: 
Tales of the Occoneechee 
Speedway

 

Join the Orange County Historical Museum at the Big Barn (388 Ja-Max Dr.) at the Shops at Daniel Boone in Hillsborough to hear memories of the Occoneechhee Speedway, one of America's first NASCAR tracks and the last surviving dirt race track from the inaugural circuit.

 

Speakers include:  

 

Gene Hobby

race car driver

 

Frank Craig

founder of the Historic Speedway Group

 

Bill Blair

son of NASCAR  

driver Bill Blair

 

In addition to the presentation, there will be an opportunity for questions and an insider's look at several vintage racecars.

To learn more, visit the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough
event calendar here.  

   

 

 

 
Preservation North Carolina 

See the spectacular Crabtree Jones House  

in Raleigh!

 

Join us on the afternoon of Sunday, August 3 for your first chance to see the Crabtree Jones House after it was moved earlier this year (February)! We'll be there from 1-4pm ! A suggested donation of $10 gets you a tour of the house and the first 200 guests will receive a free ice cream from Lumpy's Ice Cream of Wake Forest!


Also on display will be several locks and hardware original to the house!

Please note that the grounds as well as the house are not handicap-accessible and there are no restrooms. Participants should wear comfortable shoes and be prepared to walk on uneven terrain. The house is located at 3108 Hillmer Drive in Raleigh. Please do not park on Hillmer Drive or the streets in the neighborhood.  Free parking has been provided at 343 E. Six Forks Rd.  Simply walk along the sidewalk and up Hillmer Drive (0.4 miles).


For more information, visit the Preservation North Carolina website here. 
 
 
Horace Williams House 
Tax Credits Could Be Lost - Act Now!

The North Carolina Legislature has not included the revised rehabilitation tax credit program in the upcoming budget, much to the surprise and dismay of preservationists and historic property owners across the state. Still, there is time to advocate on behalf of this critical program if we act immediately.

Please take a moment to contact House Speaker Thom Tillis by email here or by phone at 919-733-3451, Senate President Pro Temp Phil Berger by email here or by phone at 919-733-5708, and your local representatives (find out who they are here) and encourage them to extend the existing tax credit program through the end of the current fiscal year, until June 30, 2015, to give the Legislature adequate time to fully explore the program during next year's long session. Call today - tomorrow will be too late!
The Carolina Mountains

This August only, The Carolina Mountains: Photography of Margaret Morley, will be on display at the Horace Williams House. The exhibition offers an intimate look at everyday life in western North Carolina around the turn of the 20th century.

In the 1890s, New Englander Margaret Morley visited western North Carolina's mountains and fell in love with the land and its people. The visit so inspired her that she moved to Tryon, south of Asheville, by the end of the decade. The well-known biologist, writer, illustrator, and educator spent the next 12 years exploring the region and recording scenes of everyday life in captivating photographs and delightful prose.

With pen and camera, Morley traveled throughout the lofty land, observing its natural wonders and befriending the mountain people. In 1913 Houghton Mifflin published her impressions in The Carolina Mountains, which was an immediate success and is still considered one of the best books about the region.

This exhibition is provided on loan from the North Carolina Museum of History with generous support from Tom and Kathie Heffner.  

New Preservation Plaque Program Webpage!

The Preservation Chapel Hill Preservation Plaque Program recognizes and designates historically and architecturally significant structures in our community. Wondering where all these great properties are located? Check out our new website here to use an interactive map, view photos, download the application form, and learn more about these important places in Chapel Hill history.

Special thanks to interns Chris Breedlove and Kiever Hunter who conducted research, took photos, and built the new Preservation Plaque Program webpage!
Baroque & Beyond  Tickets On Sale Now!

The 2014-2015 season of Baroque & Beyond has been announced, and both season series and single concert tickets are on sale now! This year's series will include C.P.E. Bach & Bros. on October 12, 2014, Pan & Syrinx on January 25, 2015, Bach & Erlebach on March 8, 2015.

Season tickets are $50 for all three concerts and single concert tickets are $20 each. To learn more about the Baroque & Beyond series or to purchase tickets online, click here.
Want to get more involved in PCH?

Membership Committee
The Membership Committee is recruiting people who are interested in helping plan members-only tours, talks, parties, and other member engagement events, as well as take part in our membership campaign with the goal of reaching 250 members in 2015. Meetings take place as needed, usually just a few times a year. Click here to volunteer!

Holiday House Tour Planning Group
Enjoy our Holiday House Tour? Help us plan this year's event! We're in the beginning stages of planning the 2014 tour, so help us recruit a neighborhood, market the tour, gather volunteers, and collect sponsorships. Click here to volunteer!

And a special thanks to Noodles & Co. on Franklin Street for sponsoring our first planning meeting luncheon!
NCMH Legal Defense Fund Fundraiser

North Carolina Modernist Houses invites you to attend a Champagne Reception in Support of the NCMH Legal Defense Fund for the Cherry-Gordon House in Raleigh's Oakwood Historic District on Sunday, August 17th, at "It Had Wings," the home of Steven Burke and Randy Campbell at 214 West Tryon Road in Hillsborough.  

  

In the historic district of Hillsborough, Steven Burke and Randy Campbell's home - a grouping of five modern Greek Revival buildings they have designed on the site since 1994 - is a private museum, of sorts, not routinely open to the public.  It contains the nation's largest collection of American folk art buildings, over 1,000 renderings of houses and stores, Ferris wheels and carousels, gas stations and factories, Grant's Tomb and Independence Hall, theaters and schools, an ice rink and a bowling alley, bridges and castles and churches. Made mostly from the 1860s until about 1950 by largely anonymous persons, the buildings of real or imagined communities tell much about our culture, history, and architecture.  This event is a rare opportunity to see the nationally unique collection and to experience, in small scale with large delight, our architectural history.

  

The NCMH Legal Defense Fund (LDF) provides technical assistance, funding for legal representation, and other support services to endangered Modernist houses in North Carolina as determined by NCMH.  From preserving historically significant Modernist houses to standing for due process for new Modernist houses under threat, the LDF actively advocates for North Carolina's great legacy of Modernist residential architecture.  With the court case of the Cherry-Gordon House and the City of Raleigh against the Board of Adjustment and the Weisners coming up in late August, funds are needed urgently.  With your help, we can pursue justice in this important case of protecting historic review procedure and property rights.

At 4:30 pm, Steven Burke and George Smart will auction a framed needle print of the Cherry-Gordon house by artist Caitlin Cary, plus a copy of Steven's book, American Folk Art Buildings: The Collection of Steven Burke and Randy Campbell.

    

 

3:00-4:00 pm will be an intimate (10-person) champagne tour of the collection led by Steven & Randy.$250 minimum donation per person.  Includes champagne and browsing on your own. 

 

4:00-5:30 pm will be a self-guided champagne tour; you browse large and small buildings on your own alongside your hosts and fellow architecture and folk art mavens. $100 minimum donation per person.

 

Additional information, as well as discount advance tickets (tax deductible), are available at the NCMH website here.
To read more about the Cherry-Gordon House, click here