by Charly Mann
The Hopper-Kyser House at 504 East Franklin Street is the oldest house in Chapel Hill. The house has grown from a 1400 square feet structure with no indoor plumbing or kitchen in 1814 to a magnificent home of over 4500 square feet with five bedrooms and bathrooms and a French kitchen. The original cost for the house is thought to be under $300. It recently sold for almost 1.5 million dollars. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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I have gone house hunting many times in Chapel Hill over the last 55 years with my parents, on my own, as part of a married couple, and numerous times as a friend. Recently I spent a day looking at houses in Chapel Hill in the range of $550,000 to $875,000. None of the houses were especially large, prestigious, nor had incredible "curb appeal" and most of them were in neighborhoods where I had lived as a child or adult. What most astounded me was that the average yearly property tax bill the dozen nice upper middle class home I saw was now just under $13,000 a year. This contrasts with my childhood in the 50s and 60s when people making that much per year were living in far nicer homes than these.
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article by Bea Witten (with photos provided by Charly Mann)
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by Charly Mann
There was no better to place to learn the John Dunne lesson that “no man is an island” than Chapel Hill in the 1950s. No one in town felt isolated because there was so much family and community interaction, and everyone growing up at that time had the opportunity to learn and be influenced by a wide array of unique and highly intelligent individuals. In the 1950s, Chapel Hill had a myriad of great role models for young people. The majority of adults were in their mid to late thirties and had endured the hardships of the Great Depression, and most of the men had experienced the hell of World War II. Almost all of the men, whether they were professors or merchants, had come from small southern farming communities and were the first members of their families to have had a college education. I was fortunate to know many of these people, and they were collectively a great influence on me. From them I learned courage and discipline, and that anything was possible if one was determined and worked hard. One common denominator of these people was that each had experienced huge hardships in their lives, but rather than becoming cynical or hopeless, they grew stronger and more optimistic. Each of them also taught me to think creatively to solve my problems.
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by Charly Mann
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by Charly Mann
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by Bea Witten
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by Bea Witten
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by Charly Mann
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What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.