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Civil rights era · 1945–1975
- 1940s
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Architect James Webb moves to Chapel Hill to help start UNC's planning program
James Webb, an architect and planner trained at Berkeley and MIT who had worked for William Wurster, came to Chapel Hill in 1947 to help John Parker set up the university's program in city and regional planning. He taught there until 1975 and kept a private practice that brought San Francisco Bay area modernism to the town.
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Architect James Webb designs a modernist house on Round Hill Road for Norman Eliason
One of Webb's first Chapel Hill commissions was a modest low-gabled house for English professor Norman Eliason and his wife, with a broad carport at the front and a covered walk leading to the door.
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Jim Webb designs a house on Dogwood Drive for Thomas and Margaret Stanback
NCModernist lists the Thomas M. and Margaret Lide Stanback House at 531 Dogwood Drive, dated 1948, as Jim Webb's design, made in collaboration with Larry Enersen, which puts it among his first Chapel Hill commissions.
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Jim and John Webb design the Spearman house, the first of their Whitehead Circle houses
The Webb firm designed a house at 418 Whitehead Circle for Walter Spearman of the UNC School of Journalism and his wife Mary, placed around a large rock that juts from the site. It was the first of five houses the brothers designed on the street.
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Jim and John Webb open their office in the old Methodist church on Rosemary Street
The brothers opened a planning and architecture practice in the left side of the 1853 Methodist church at Rosemary and Henderson streets, which had been used as a garage. In the early 1970s they bought the building and turned all of it into offices.
- 1950s
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James Webb designs a house on Dogwood Drive for Kenneth and Frances Brinkhous
Architect James Webb designed a one-story Contemporary house with wood-shingled walls, deep eaves and a walkout basement on a steep lot at 524 Dogwood Drive for pathologist Kenneth Brinkhous and his wife Frances.
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Jim and John Webb design a house on Stagecoach Road for Earl Wynn
The brothers designed a long house set at an angle to the road at 900 Stagecoach Road for Earl Wynn, head of UNC's radio, motion picture and television department, with low overhanging gables, a central clerestory, vertical pine siding and bands of windows.
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The Webb brothers design a Whitehead Circle house for Bill and Ida Friday
In the early 1950s James and John Webb designed a group of similar Bay area style houses on Whitehead Circle for young faculty families. The one built for William and Ida Friday at 412 Whitehead Circle is a long, plain rectangle whose translucent back wall looks out into the woods.
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James Webb designs a house on Whitehead Circle for Joseph and Pearl Morrison
Architect James Webb designed a modern house at 407 Whitehead Circle for Joseph L. Morrison, a member of the university's journalism faculty, and his wife Pearl. The Morrisons lived there for more than fifty years; the house was sold in 2010.
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Albert and Gladys Coates move into their own house on Hooper Lane
In 1947 the couple bought a lot on Hooper Lane in what had been the back garden of Edward Kidder Graham's house. Coates rejected a contemporary design by architects Jim and John Webb, the house went up as a two-story Georgian, and they moved in about the time the Gardner Award money arrived.
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Architect John B. Webb joins his brother James in Chapel Hill
John B. Webb, also Berkeley-trained and shaped by William Wurster, practiced alongside his brother in Chapel Hill from 1952 to 1957. The two are credited with bringing the regional modernism of the San Francisco Bay area to the town.
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Jim Webb designs a Contemporary house on Laurel Hill Road for psychologists Louis and Thelma Thurstone
The low L-shaped house has vertical wood siding, a hipped roof with wide eaves and a carport joined by a screen porch; Ellington & Sparrow built it. Webb counted it among his firm's best work.
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The Webb brothers design a house on Whitehead Circle for Alex and Betty McMahon
James M. Webb and John B. Webb Associates designed the J. Alex and Betty W. McMahon House at 419 Whitehead Circle, a long house with flat roofs at different heights, a privacy wall and small windows toward the street, and large windows opening to the woods behind.
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The Webb brothers build a small two-level house for Ruth Price in Westwood
University instructor Ruth Price, on a tight budget, hired James and John Webb in 1953 to build her house at 4 Briar Bridge Lane, a steep corner lot in the older Westwood subdivision. The book ranks it among the smallest and best of the Webb houses; its main floor centers on a skylit living room with a built-in study nook.
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A Modernist split-level with a butterfly roof is built on Fern Lane for Thomas H. Darden
The post-and-beam house has clerestory windows, vertical wood siding and a flat-roofed carport. Oral tradition credits the design to Jim Webb.
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Don Stewart becomes James Webb's partner in City Planning and Architecture Associates
Don Stewart, an Ohio native, worked for James Webb while studying planning at UNC. Once licensed in 1956 he became Webb's partner, and the practice was renamed City Planning and Architecture Associates; Stewart brought Frank Lloyd Wright's organic ideas to its Chapel Hill houses.
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The Webb brothers design core-plan houses for the Highland Woods cooperative
Highland Woods, south of Memorial Hospital, was organized as a cooperative subdivision by a group of young faculty families, and in 1956 James and John Webb designed its houses around two cores, one for the living areas and kitchen and one for the bedrooms. The book likens it to Six Moon Hill, a Massachusetts cooperative laid out by Walter Gropius's Architects Collaborative in 1948.
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A Webb-designed house is built for Bob and Josie Stipe in Highland Woods
The Stipe House at 1022 Highland Woods, built in 1957, sets a post-and-beam frame living floor over a masonry lower level on a lot that slopes sideways to the street, with the kitchen at the front open to the living room. The book uses it as its model modernist house and says it cost about $10 a square foot, against $12 to $15 for a traditional house.
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Dr. John T. Sessions and his wife build a Webb and Stewart house on Morgan Creek Road
A split-level modern house designed by James Webb and Don Stewart was built for Dr. John T. Sessions and his wife in Morgan Creek Hills. It was on the School Art Guild tour of homes in the fall of 1958.
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Jim Webb designs a Contemporary Ranch on Pine Lane as a retirement home for Fred and Josephine Weedon
Ellington & Sparrow built the open-plan house on a slope with an exposed basement at the back. The Weedons' daughter Josie and her husband, preservationist Bob Stipe, later lived there for many years.
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Pediatrician Judson Van Wyk builds a house in the Highland Woods cooperative
Dr. Judson J. Van Wyk, a pediatrician and a member of the faculty cooperative that bought the Highland Woods tract, planned in December 1956 to start building on his lot there. By September 1957 the town had issued permits for nine Highland Woods houses designed by architect James M. Webb.
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Engineer Bob Anderson joins City Planning and Architecture Associates
Engineer Bob Anderson joined the Webb and Stewart firm in 1958 and later became Stewart's partner.
- 1960s
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Stewart and Anderson build a new office on Estes Drive as Webb stays in the old Methodist church
In the mid-1960s Don Stewart and Bob Anderson bought a lot on Estes Drive and built a new office for the firm, while James Webb returned to the old Methodist church on Rosemary Street, the firm's former office, where he worked until he retired.
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Jim Webb leaves City Planning and Architectural Associates and practices on his own
Webb withdrew from the partnership he had formed with Don Stewart and re-established his practice as James M. Webb, AIA and AICP. He kept his office in the old Methodist church on Rosemary Street for the rest of his career.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
- 2000s
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Jim Webb dies and his Briar Bridge Lane house passes to an estate supporting UNC's planning school
Webb had bought the Ruth Price House at 4 Briar Bridge Lane, which he designed in 1953, in 1979 and lived there until his death in 2000. The house was deeded to his estate, a philanthropy set up to support the UNC planning school.
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