James M. Webb

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.

People: James M. Webb

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.

People: James M. Webb

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.

People: Walter Spearman · James M. Webb

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.

People: James M. Webb

Subject: Old Methodist Church (Rosemary Street)

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.

People: James M. Webb

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.

People: James M. Webb

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.

People: Gladys Hall Coates · John B. Webb · James M. Webb

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.

People: James M. Webb

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.

People: John B. Webb

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.

People: James M. Webb

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.

People: John B. Webb · James M. Webb

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.

People: John B. Webb · James M. Webb

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.

People: James M. Webb

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.

People: James M. Webb

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.

People: Don Stewart · James M. Webb

Subject: Old Methodist Church (Rosemary Street)

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.