Local figure
Roberta C. Andrews
Roberta C. Andrews (1900–1991), known as Robin, built a Modernist house designed by the Swiss architect Franc Sidler with her husband Troy on his family's farm near Chapel Hill, finished in 1967. She sold rural real estate, chaired the Orange County Bicentennial Steering Committee and raised money to restore the Burwell School in Hillsborough.
Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to Roberta C. Andrews. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about Roberta C. Andrews’ life and work. If you know a useful source, tell us.
Life and Orange County connections
Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 6 dated events in the chronology →
- Franc Sidler meets Troy and Robin Andrews on their farm and sketches a house for it In the summer of 1954 the Swiss architect Franc Sidler, a guest of anthropologists renting a small house on the Andrews farm, met Troy and Robin Andrews there and drew a floor plan for a house they might build later. The sketch grew into the house finished on the farm in 1967. People: Roberta C. AndrewsSearch the index · NC Historic Preservation Office: Heather Fearnbach, Troy M. and Roberta C. Andrews House, National Register nomination (draft, 2026)
- Troy and Robin Andrews return to the farm and enlarge the old Lloyd log house After Troy Andrews retired in 1961 and inherited the farm with his sister Nita, he and Robin moved back and renovated and enlarged the early nineteenth-century hewn log house built for the Lloyd family, living there while they planned their new house. People: Roberta C. AndrewsSearch the index · NC Historic Preservation Office: Heather Fearnbach, Troy M. and Roberta C. Andrews House, National Register nomination (draft, 2026)
- Robin Andrews asks the county commissioners to pave the road past Bolin Brook Farm Mrs. Troy Andrews brought the Orange County commissioners a petition from residents asking them to pave SR 1111, a two-mile road between Calvander and the Union Church road. The commissioners agreed to send the petition on to state highway officials.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, January 9, 1963, p. 5
- Black masons build Troy and Roberta Andrews's Sidler-designed house on the family farm Working from plans by Swiss architect Franc Sidler, a former Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice, builder Carl Ellington and the African American masons Willis, Alfred Sr. and Alfred Jr. Barbee raised the Andrews House from stone gathered on the farm, starting in 1965 and finishing in 1967. It is Sidler's only building in the United States and one of the few architect-designed Modernist houses in rural Orange County. People: Roberta C. AndrewsSearch the index · NC Historic Preservation Office: Heather Fearnbach, Troy M. and Roberta C. Andrews House, National Register nomination (draft, 2026)
- Robin Andrews chairs the Orange County Bicentennial Steering Committee Roberta Andrews chaired the Orange County Bicentennial Steering Committee and raised money for the restoration of the Burwell School in Hillsborough.Search the index · NC Historic Preservation Office: Heather Fearnbach, Troy M. and Roberta C. Andrews House, National Register nomination (draft, 2026), section 8, p. 23
- The Emily Dickinson Centennial Conference holds sessions at Bolin Brook Farm Sessions of the Emily Dickinson Centennial Conference met at Bolin Brook Farm, the Andrews home near Calvander, in April 1986. The Andrewses often opened the property to meetings and house tours. People: Roberta C. AndrewsSearch the index · NC Historic Preservation Office: Heather Fearnbach, Troy M. and Roberta C. Andrews House, National Register nomination (draft, 2026)
Places in this person’s story
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.
Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.
- Bolin Brook Farm (Troy and Roberta Andrews House) Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Calvander · 5 events here
- Burwell School Schools and academies · Hillsborough · 1 event here
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Books about Roberta C. Andrews
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- Chapel Hill Public Library (opens in a new tab) Public library in Chapel Hill
- Durham County Library (opens in a new tab) Public library next door in Durham
- UNC Libraries (opens in a new tab) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Duke Libraries (opens in a new tab) Duke University, Durham
- NC Cardinal (opens in a new tab) The State Library of North Carolina and public libraries across the state
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Research sources
Additional research sources
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- Search beyond the index: NC LIVE: prepared search for Roberta C. Andrews NC LIVE An advanced search of the state’s shared databases already scoped to Orange County’s places and this subject; edit it freely, and sign in through your North Carolina library to read
- Ask locally: Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection, Orange County Public Library Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection (OCPL) The county library’s local-history room at the Main Library in Hillsborough: books, journals, maps, and microfilm of county records from 1752
- Ask locally: Local History Help Hours and request form OCPL Local History Liaison The library’s Local History Liaison helps in person most Mondays, 12 to 3, at the Main Library, or by the online request form
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