Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / June 21, 1979, edition 1 / Page 8
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arroom history Founding of University traced through tale of old tavern 1 1 i 3 i r ! J II J. 1 r I 1 1 t 1 By MICHAEL KEYS Chapel Hill's distinction as the beer drinkins capital of the world, at an estimated 80 gallons per capital annually, didn't come about overnight. The tradition goes back to when Chapel Hill was no more than a crossroad and the University but a glimmer in William R. Davie's eye. In fact, it must have been a matter of prudence that Chapel Hill didn't become known as the sleepy little community of Tavern Hill. The story, at least this version of it, is worth retelling. On a warm spring afternoon in 1792, Davie and a committee from the original board of trustees, set out to find a suitable spot for the new state University cf North Carolina. Having no luck, the group came to J j rest at a spot where the main-traveled I J road from Petersburg, Va. to Pittsboro 1 j crossed the road extending west to the j Blue Ridge Mountains. The area was I known as the Hill of New Hope Chapel for the ruins of an Anglican Church that had been built in the p re-revolutionary days. A more functional landmark of the day, however, was a roadside tavern run by Betsy Nunn. The story goes that Davie had to stop I j to water down his brandy. Davie and the board stretched out under a handy poplar tree for a noontime repast. According to one history of the episode, thev "regaled themselves with mint juleps and other exhilarating drink. Before the gentlemen bowed out to the spirit of the afternoon, Davie had j convinced his party that there was no finer place on earth and that they had 1 come upon the object of their quest. j Thus, in one unanimous uuh-huh, ths 1 University of North Carolina was seated j not too terribly far from Betsy Nunn's tavern. J The Nunn Tavern may be the oldest 1 landmark in the area, dating back to ths j revolution according to some sources, j and it still stands today. The old tavern, 419 Hillsborough Rd. was a roadsids attraction offering not only drink and 1 1 food, but an upstairs loft. It was j certainly the cultural center of Chapel Hill when Davie stumbled through. 6 4 - - Once Davie had obtained land donated from the Scotch-Irish community in the area, and had laid ths cornerstone of Old East, the University was ready for students. In February of 1795, a student population of one had invaded Chapel Hill. In order to attract a more substantial student body, something had 'to be done. Rev. Samuel McCorkle speculated, "Ere long we hope to see ths i j University adorned with an elegant village, accommodated with all the ; necessaries and conveniences of civilized society." ; The Reverend had to speak no 1 further. Betsy Nunn and her husband Dill built a birctr tavern. Ths j beginnings of Franklin, Raleigh, Columbia and Rosemary Streets existed ly 1797. The Nunns added on to the c!d i Jmcs Patterson residence near the coamer cf Franklin and entertainment in an advertisement of the day: The subscriber wishes to inform his friends and the public in general, that he is now living at the University of North Carolina and keeps a house of entertainment. He assures those who may think proper to call on him, that every attention ( which may be in the power to give, shall be used to make their time easy and agreeable while with him. What better promise could Kirkpatrick's or The Village Green make to their customers? . The Nunn's tavern and hotel lasted some 50 years, and with the Eagle Hotel comprised the major hot spots of Chapel Hill's social circuit. But Chapel Hill, the University and taverns fell upon hard times during the Civil War years and for sometime thereafter. In fact, it would take liquor by the drink to restore Franklin Street to an image of its former self. In the late 1800s, the law prohibiting alcohol within a certain distance of the campus first emerged. Professor James Allcott, formerly with the history department, discovered there was once an -enterprise near the turn of the century known as the "traveling tavern". Men with wagons full of homemade beer would pull up to some point outside of town which was made known to the students. Even under the threat of : disciplinary action, the students would migrate out of town to gather at the wagons. With no emporiums in town, and the student population on the rise, there was a healthy market for moonshine. Peter Wilson, born and raised in Chapel Hill and a 1929 UNC graduate, remembers a part of Carrboro that he had been forbidden to wander into as a boy. Where the Villages apartments now stand near the bypass, there was a row of shacks that housed cobblers and other artisans. Behind the shacks, the ground fell off steeply and provided a sinister spot where students and other derelicts would go to buy whisky from bootleggers. The place was known as "a blind tiger." Wilson's Grandfather Pickard owned a livery at the corner of Pickard and Franklin that was sustained by renting buggies and horses to students to ride out of town to the countryside taverns. An old house where the Blue Cross Blue Shield building stands was the closest spot for a beeri When Wilson was an undergraduate, Brady's on the old Durham road was where all the students went for beer. In the early 1930s near-beer was introduced to campus and restaurants. Wilson remembers getting his first sip of the real thing on campus at a place called the Bloody Bucket, later to be known as the Porthole Restaurant. According to historians in town, beer wasreadily available in restaurants by the 30s, but bars as such were non existent. Brown bagging became an acceptable practice after Prohibition. Davie's description of the spot he founded as the University of North Carolina as "an extraordinary place, with an abundance of springs," promised that Chapel Hill would become one of the finest watering holes in Carolina, and "with all moral certainty, to be a place of growing and permanent importance. i i f X - v. & ' : ' ' i .,'' ''K 9 S v . ' t . w . . y.s;yy- . " ". I ' ' a',-', v , .:: -...Kit I J'tTV.. i ! - ;. ' 1 t - - ! ' y " 1 " ir'"' :l n -j i 1 I i m i i I - H t i H- i h ! 1 f i - , - ... I ... a popular watering hole years ago Cclnmlh, and boosted cf a hcu:e of i li !! 1 Hi i f s M I ? I ! ! pace bunaers Construction crew shares benefits of labor Dj BETH PARSONS HI 4- if. xw 4 1 4-f I ft" Is "II 3 .4 Mr '4 "Jl" mm ;f' e 4 1 Giles Blunden and Jackie Skulp, members of the Space Builders cooperative, work on house near Haw River. Susan Fowler pushes her dinner plate and orders pound cake for dessert. That's one nice thing about being a I carpenter," the slim 25-year-old said. "You get to eat a whole lot more." A psychology graduate of the University jof Rochester in New York, Fowler is a t carpenter and general manager for Space Builders, a construction-management cooperative in Carrboro. She and four ethers started the business in July. All had previous experience in construction work. i Fowler learned carpentry as a member of Twin Oaks commune. Susan Fowler looks like any college student. She wears shorts and a halter, and gold barrettes in her curly brown hair. Only the cuts and scratches on her arms are out of character. Tve never been seriously injured," she said, "but I've probably gotten more cuts and scratches in the last four years than I would have normally." Space Builders is jointly owned by its eight workers. Unlike other construction companies, the cooperative manages the construction of buildings and oversees the work done by other contractors. "We don't actually act as contractor," Fowler said. "We like to call ourselves 'construction managers.' We don't do plumbing, electrical work or heating installation, but we choose contractors for these, and they get paid directly by the customer. Management and woodwork is basically what we do.' Most Space Builders projects, however, start in the planning stages since two members, Giles Blunden and Lucy Davis, are architects by profession. The two also Renovated home retains charm ; owner brings innovative design i i 11 By CHRIS BURRITT For six years the Prestons lived with the clutter and racket of carpenters in their house on North Street. When they were looking for a house in Chapel Hill in 1969, Edwin and Nancy Preston decided to spend the time and money to renovate a house built in 1914 by J.G. de Roulac Hamilton, founder of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC. "When we bought it, our four young children were very dismayed," Nancy Preston said. "And my parents thought we had lost our heads because the house was in such bad shape and the "yard came right up to the front door.M Since then, Preston has used her knowledge from several architecture courses tp remodel the interior of the house and make it comfortable for a family living in the '70s. "I loved the gracious things of the earlier time," she said, "such as the lofty high ceilings and the wide front porch." But many tiny, chopped-up rooms connected by hallways that didn't seem to go anyplace were unsuitable for the Preston's plans. And the second floor was still an attic, she said. The i renovation took three major stages and the family moved around and adjusted to the ongoing displacement. Major changes included knocking I ' . . v.. aown nine wans on the nrst noor, installing all new electrical wiring and plumbing, and converting the attic space to three bedrooms, complete with skylights. A deck was built onto the rear of the house. "The house is much more modern than when we bought it," Preston said. "I didn't try to make the house look ultra-modern, nor did we try to restore it to look like the 1920's. I mostly tried to blend the two harmoniously. J "It has been satisfying to take this old J place, something that wasn't so great in the beginning, and make it into f something special and different," she j said. "And our children have grown to love it with each new addition." j AH in all, the renovation has cost half j again as much as the Prestons paid for j the house. The structural aspects of ths house have proved sound. And th original heating steam radiator system has fcssn maintained. - w. manage the business and do carpentry work. Fowler and Davis are another example of how Space Builders differs from other construction businesses. Half of the eight people who own and work for Space Builders are women. Sex does not delegate the job, though. "Each worker does a little of everything," Fowler said. "We're real oriented toward teaching and learning from each other," she said. "We trade off roles but maintain constant supervision of each other." Fowler said she is as strong per pound as the men she works with. "1 can do most things. Now, I probably couldn't toss plywood onto the roof, but lean carry it." Blunden, who worked with another cooperative in Chapel Hill before he helped organize Space Builders, said he enjoys working with women. "It's great, as long as they don't get pushy," he said jokingly. "The work is pretty strenuous, but it doesn't seem to bother anybody. But those who stay with Space Builders receive good benefits and plenty of work. "Space Builders has better benefits. than other workers' co-ops," Fowler said. "We all own it, so we all share in the decisions and profits. Workers get one hour paid vacation for each 20 hours worked. They work as much or as little as they want and, if they want extra time off, talk it over with their fellow workers. Other benefits include health insurance, workman's compensation and tool money, Everyone draws a weekly salary based on the number of hours worked. The profit made by Space Builders is either reinvested or split between the owners as a cash bonus. Business has been good for the vA m..itm'U. aft S wfaamfa.i.,tii.ii-cJ ... of renovated Hamilton horne Chapel Hill architect promotes restoration By KIMBERLY McGUIRE He works in the old Methodist Church building on East Rosemary Street, but his business isn't religion. James M. Webb, who first came to Chapel Hill 32 years ago as a UNC professor of city and regional planning, has renovated the 1853 structure to house his architecture office. "When I first came to Chapel Hill, people thought I was the worst kind of intruder because I'm a contemporary architect by profession," Webb said. Now that his 29-year teaching stint has ended, Webb is practicing architecture again and also serving on the Historical District Commission, which was established in Jan. 1977 by the Board of Alderman. His office in the historic district serves as "an example of living history," Webb said. "I'm a modern architect, but I have a sincere interest in preservation and trying to maintain the character of this town," Webb said. "Chapel Hill has grown up around the Univer cooperative. "We've been booked up solid," Fowler said. "Everybody in construction seems busy. I've heard more complaints about not being able to get a carpenter than from carpenters not being able to find work." Plenty of work allows the cooperative to be choosy in accepting jobs. "If we ran out of work, 1 guess we'd build about anything," Blunden said, "but we like to concentrate on environmentally efficient structures." Several houses managed by Space Builders have had passive, or non mechanical, solar designs. "We're definitely very interested in that whole area," Fowler said. Since last July, Fowler said Space Builders has completed "four big jobs and two little ones." One of the big jobs was Papagayo restaurant in NCNB Plaza. "Our other projects slowed down considerably while we were doing Papagayo,",Fowler said.Davis designed the restaurant, and Space Builders managed the construction. "We're very proud of it." Fowler is also proud of Space Builders. "The quality of our work is very high, because that's what we care about. We're all in it because we want to be. "Some days, I don't like it. But I plan to stick with it at least for now. I feel pretty committed to Space Builders and carpentry." Fowler admits readily that the pay could be better. "The best-paid carpenters in the area get $7.50 an hour, and that doesn't even compare with what carpenters make up North. Most people we work for are basically older . and richer. Most of us couldn't afford the things we build." Still, the freedom of Space Builders cooperative appeals to the workers. "Just being able to do what we want to do as individuals is important," Fowler said. "If people are seeing the rewards of their work and invest in it, they're going to like it better." I I i i i T 5 i I t I t 4 r 4 ii v 'a.. 5 xfS- JO? 2V t i -Jl . . . original Chapel Hill Methodist.Church appearance requirements over and above regular j building standards. . Webb talked about renovation and restoration j efforts here. "The most difficult thing is to make contemporary additions on an old house without i ruining the original charm," said Webb. He cites the ! sity and that gives it a certain flavor that's very Preston home on North Street as a good and diiierent trom the run-oi-tne-miu iNonn Carolina . consiucrtuc cxampic vi rcuuvauuu. cuu uuku town," Webb said. restoration as "putting it back exactly as it was when . -We have tried to identify Chapel Hill's it was first built". "About the only serious important buildings and protect them by zoning in restoration in this town has been my work on the order to save tne special quainy. nuiacc miaiua uuuss, ??&uu auu. Chapel Hill has set a precedent by establishing a restored the building mat is now tne nome oi tne historic district and adopting zoning and other Chapel Hill Preservation Society. I Thursday, June 21, 1979 The Summer Tar Heel 9
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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June 21, 1979, edition 1
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