John B. Webb

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 9 dated events in the chronology →

1. 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: Walter Spearman, James M. WebbSearch the index · NCSU Libraries, North Carolina Architects and Builders: Webb, James M. (1908-2000)
2. 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: James M. WebbSearch the index · National Register: Chapel Hill Historic District Boundary Increase and Additional Documentation (2015)
3. 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: James M. WebbSearch the index · NCSU Libraries, North Carolina Architects and Builders: Webb, James M. (1908-2000)
4. 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. WebbSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 81
5. 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: Gladys Hall Coates, John B. Webb, James M. 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
6. about 1952 (by July 1956; NCModernist gives 1957) The Webb brothers design a house on Whitehead Circle for Alex and Betty McMahon James M. Webb and John B. Webb Associates designed the house at 419 Whitehead Circle for J. Alex and Betty W. McMahon. Like many of the brothers' houses, it is long and low under flat roofs set at different heights, with a privacy wall and small windows on the street side and big windows looking into the woods at the back. By July 1956 The News of Orange County listed Alex McMahon, of the Institute of Government, as living on Whitehead Circle. People: John B. WebbSearch the index · NCSU Libraries, North Carolina Architects and Builders: Webb, James M. (1908-2000) · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 5, 1956, p. 8
7. 1953 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. People: John B. WebbSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 81
8. 1956 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. WebbSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 82
9. 1957 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. WebbSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 82