News Release

Photos: For photo availability, see end of story.

Love House and Hutchins Forum
to house Southern studies at UNC

CHAPEL HILL - 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."

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Photo URL: For photos of the ceremony, visit http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/buildings/love_ded_1.jpg,
http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/buildings/love_ded_2.jpg.

For more information about the center, visit http://www.unc.edu/depts/csas; for more on the house, visit http://www.unc.edu/depts/csas/news/lovehome.html.

Center contact: Dr. Harry Watson, (919) 962-5436, hwatson@email.unc.edu
News Services contacts: Print, L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589; broadcast, Karen Moon, (919) 962-8595