James M. Webb

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 23 dated events in the chronology →

1. 1947 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: John A. Parker, James M. Webb Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: John ParkerSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 80
2. 1948 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 Place: Round Hill Road, Chapel Hill · Also named: Norman EliasonSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 81
3. 1948 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 in collaboration with Larry Enersen, citing Dail Dixon. Webb had come to UNC's planning school the year before. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Thomas M. Stanback, Margaret Lide Stanback, Lawrence EnersenSearch the index · NCModernist: Jim and John Webb
4. 1949 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: John B. Webb, Walter Spearman, James M. Webb Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · NCSU Libraries, North Carolina Architects and Builders: Webb, James M. (1908-2000)
5. 1949 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: John B. Webb, James M. Webb Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Rosemary and Henderson streetsSearch the index · National Register: Chapel Hill Historic District Boundary Increase and Additional Documentation (2015)
6. 1950 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. People: Kenneth M. Brinkhous, James M. Webb Place: 524 Dogwood Drive, Chapel Hill · Also named: Frances BrinkhousSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: West Chapel Hill Historic District (Boundary Increase), National Register nomination (OR2769, 2019), Section 7 p. 27 · Also: Chapel Hill News Leader, April 4, 1955, p. 4
7. 1950 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: John B. Webb, James M. Webb Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Earl WynnSearch the index · NCSU Libraries, North Carolina Architects and Builders: Webb, James M. (1908-2000)
8. early 1950s 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. People: William C. Friday, John B. Webb, James M. Webb Place: 412 Whitehead Circle, Chapel Hill · Also named: Ida Friday, John WebbSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 81
9. 1951 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: Joseph L. Morrison, James M. Webb Place: 407 Whitehead Circle, Chapel Hill · Also named: Pearl P. MorrisonSearch the index · NC Modernist Houses: James Webb, 'The Joseph and Pearl P. Morrison House' (1951) · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, October 2, 1953, p. 7; Chapel Hill Weekly, August 3, 1951, p. 9
10. 1952 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: Albert Coates, Gladys Hall Coates, John B. Webb, James M. Webb Place: Hooper Lane, Chapel Hill · Also named: John WebbSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., The Good Government Man: Albert Coates and the Early Years of the Institute of Government (2018), p. 220
11. 1952 to 1957 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. People: James M. Webb Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: John B. WebbSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 81
12. 1952 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 Place: Thurstone House, 400 Laurel Hill Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill · Also named: Louis Thurstone, Thelma ThurstoneSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District Boundary Increase and Additional Documentation, National Register nomination (OR1748), p. 23