 Love House
and Hutchins Forum to house Southern studies at UNC
A historic home on Franklin Street with longstanding ties to the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill will have an even closer relationship to campus
once a renovation is completed.
The James Lee Love House at 410 E. Franklin St. was built around
1887 by Carolina mathematics professor James Lee Love and his wife,
June Spencer Love, for themselves and her mother, Cornelia Phillips
Spencer. Spencer is known for ringing the South Building bell upon
news in 1875 that the university would reopen after Reconstruction.
 After renovations and a 900-square-foot addition named for the
late James A. Hutchins Jr., a 1937 UNC graduate, the resulting
building will be called the Love House and Hutchins Forum and become
home for Carolina's Center for the Study of the American South.
Hutchins, a football star at Carolina, studied Southern regional
development at the university and carried his lessons worldwide
after World War II, working with the federal departments of State
and Agriculture to fight hunger and underdevelopment.
Members of the Love, Spencer and Hutchins families, as well as
UNC President Erskine Bowles and UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James
Moeser, attended a ceremony on-site today (June 15) to honor the
building's past and future.
Scheduled to open in April 2007, the new facility will enhance
Carolina's longtime role as the world's leading institution for
research, teaching and public dialogue on the history, culture
and contemporary experience of the South. The center, founded in
1992, works to further this signature mission at UNC.
The renovated building will allow the center, now housed in six
small offices on different floors of Hamilton and Carroll halls,
to bring all is activities under one roof and expand its services
to UNC and the public.
"The center's work has been limited by the lack of appropriate
space," Moeser said at the ceremony. "The Love House
and Hutchins Forum not only give us room to expand our work, they
provide a physical and beautiful icon of Southern culture and Carolina's
contribution to it.
"Carolina is deeply grateful to the vision and generosity
of the benefactors who helped to create these invaluable resources,
especially to the Love and Hutchins families."
After Spencer moved out of 410 E. Franklin, the house and land
went in and out of UNC's possession several times before becoming
the university's for good in the 1940s, said UNC history professor
Dr. Harry Watson, director of the Center for the Study of the American
South. Since then, the university has leased the house, mainly
as a residence.
The most recent tenant was historian Dr. Spencie Love, Spencer's
great-granddaughter. After Love moved out, she was instrumental
in obtaining a Love family foundation gift to the university to
start the renovation. The seven-room, one-story house has deep
porches, wide lawns and large shade trees.
Glenn Hutchins, co-founder and managing director of Silver Lake
Partners of New York City, donated funds for the project to honor
his father. James Hutchins studied with the late Carolina sociologist
Howard Odum, who is credited with building the university's commitment
to tackling social and economic challenges in the South when he
came to Carolina in 1920.
Gifts to the renovation and the center count toward the university's
Carolina First Campaign goal of $2 billion. Carolina First is a
comprehensive, multi-year, private fund-raising campaign to support
Carolina's vision of becoming the nation's leading public university.
"We are delighted that our new location will so easily serve
the larger university community," Watson said. "We welcome
our role in bringing the university's rich treasure trove of Southern
history and culture to the public."
|
