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1. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

2. 1949
   Chapel Hill 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.

3. 1949
   Chapel Hill 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.

4. 1950
   Chapel Hill 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.

5. early 1950s
   Construction or physical change · 412 Whitehead Circle, Chapel Hill 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.

6. 1952
   Construction or physical change · Hooper Lane, Chapel Hill 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.

7. 1952 to 1957
   Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill 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.

8. 1953
   Construction or physical change · 4 Briar Bridge Lane, Westwood, Chapel Hill 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.

9. 1956
   Founding or opening · Highland Woods, Chapel Hill 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.

10. 1957
    Construction or physical change · 1022 Highland Woods, Chapel Hill 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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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.