The full story
On March 5, 1991 Chancellor Paul Hardin announced that the University would stop managing the Carolina Inn after September and offered its 71 full-time employees priority transfers to other UNC jobs, since they could not stay state employees under any new arrangement. The inn had lost more than $332,000 in a year, after a profit of almost $500,000 in 1984-85. In June the University hired Hospitality Valuation Service of Mineola, N.Y., to find an operator, and by the August 19 deadline seven companies had bid, among them the Camberley Hotel Company, Doubletree Inc. and East West Partners Management of Chapel Hill. Associate Vice Chancellor Carolyn Elfland said the state-owned inn would not be sold and that renovating and expanding it would cost about $9 million; 44 of its 72 permanent employees had moved to other University jobs. On September 25 officials cut the list to three: Camberley of Atlanta, Doubletree of Phoenix, and a joint bid from Winthrop Hotels and Resorts of Boston and Southeastern Historic Properties of Winston-Salem.
By April 21, 1993 UNC officials had approved a contract leasing the inn to the Doubletree Hotel Corporation, subject to the N.C. Council of State; Doubletree would take a management fee of 2.5 percent of revenue for five years, then split net income, and would renovate the 1924 inn after the Bicentennial. On July 1 Doubletree's new general manager became the inn's first permanent manager in about two years, and he said major renovations, paid by more than $9 million from the University, would wait at least a year. On March 25, 1994 the trustees approved $13.5 million in work, including a new 56-room wing, renovated dining rooms, a swimming pool and a changed main entrance, designed by Glave Newman Anderson of Richmond, and the removal of the 1939 Alumni House to make room for the wing. On August 30, after a noon ceremony with Hardin, a wrecking ball began tearing down the Alumni House, built as the Bryant Apartments and home of the General Alumni Association from 1969 to 1993. By September 7 the inn had reported a $443,000 profit in 1993-94, its first year under Doubletree; Elfland credited cost-cutting and freedom from the state personnel system, since occupancy rose only from 72.2 to 72.8 percent. The inn closed on November 19 for a nine-month renovation; its Garden Court cafeteria, part of the inn since 1924, was to become a ballroom, and Doubletree set the reopening for September 1995.
Reading on the places and people in this storyline
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are about the sites and people its dated events name, those named most often first, so they may discuss the storyline only in part. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
The University's Living Room: A History of the Carolina Inn
Zogry, Kenneth Joel · 1999
Kenneth Joel Zogry's history of the Carolina Inn, the hotel that has stood beside the University of North Carolina campus since 1924. Six chapters run from the alumnus who built it, through the New Deal and Navy years of the 1930s and 1940s, postwar redecoration and Cold War politics, the changes of the 1960s and 1970s, and the challenges of the 1980s and 1990s. Published 1999 by the university, 149 pages with photographs, color illustrations and plans.
The Carolina Inn : a grand reopening for the 'jewel' of the Carolinas.
2003 · The Herald-Sun
The Carolina Inn at Chapel Hill reopened after restoration in 1995, and the Herald-Sun of Durham marked it with an eight page illustrated supplement dated October 1 that year. Topics include the inn and the historic buildings of the town. It belongs with the other printed material generated by the 1995 reopening of the hotel.
Guide to the historic furnishings and photographic displays of the Carolina Inn
2001 · Carolina Inn
An 11-page guide to the historic furnishings and photographs displayed at the Carolina Inn, the university-owned hotel at the edge of the Chapel Hill campus, issued by the inn in 2001. It includes a floor plan for locating the pieces. It concerns the buildings of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Inn crowd : October 16, 1995.
1996
A half hour videocassette of the narrated slide show 'The Carolina Inn', presented when the inn reopened in October 1995 at an event hosted by the Chapel Hill Preservation Society. Bitty Holton, Linnie Green, Judy Kramer and Betty Cloutier narrate. Topics include John Sprunt Hill and the Hill family, whose name is attached to the inn's founding.
Wider background: UNC & Campus Life · the most widely held histories of the theme this story belongs to; they may not discuss it
Carolina Basketball: A Century of Excellence
Lucas, Adam · 2010 · University of North Carolina Press
Adam Lucas marks one hundred years of basketball at the University of North Carolina in this illustrated history, published by UNC Press in 2010 in association with the athletics department. Chapters follow the program from the game's arrival on campus and the 'White Phantoms' of the Southern Conference through the founding of the ACC, the 1957 season, Dean Smith's changes to the game and the title seasons of 1982, 1993, 2005 and 2009, closing with a century of statistics. 289 pages.
Chapel Hill Murder and Mayhem
Jackson, Rick · 2023
Rick Jackson's true crime history of Chapel Hill, published by The History Press in 2023, in 28 short chapters. Cases include the Efland bank robbery, the execution of John Henry Breeze, the unsolved murder of Suellen Evans, the killing at the Internationalist Bookstore and the death of Eve Carson.
The Blue Divide: Duke, North Carolina, and the Battle on Tobacco Road
Moore, Johnny; Chansky, Art · 2014 · Triumph Books
The Duke and North Carolina basketball rivalry written together by Johnny Moore and Art Chansky, the latter a sports reporter who has followed it since his student days at UNC. The book opens with the 2014 season and moves through recruiting battles old and new, 'Black and Blue Sunday', 'Blood and Roses', and chapters on the rivalry's heroes, leaders and teachers, with a foreword by Jay Bilas and a photo gallery. Published by Triumph Books in 2014, 289 pages.
Miss Mary's Money
Jones, H. G. · 2014 · McFarland & Co.
H. G. Jones follows the fortune of Mary Ruffin Smith (1814-1885), the unmarried heiress whose Orange and Chatham County lands passed at her death to the University of North Carolina and the Episcopal Church. Chapters profile her grandfather Francis Jones, then trace the bequest through a quarrel among Episcopalians over Price Creek, the Chapel of the Cross and the university's buildings. A December 1885 New York Times report called the gift money; Jones shows it was land. Published by McFarland in 2014, 231 pages.
The Chronicles of the Bicentennial Observance of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Tepper, Steven J. · 1998
Steven J. Tepper's chronicle of how the University of North Carolina marked its bicentennial in 1993 and 1994. An appendix reprints the University Day speeches of October 12, 1993, given by Paul Hardin, James B. Hunt Jr., C.D. Spangler, William C. Friday, Charles Kuralt and President Bill Clinton, plus bicentennial addresses by Li Lu, Francis S. Collins and Richard J. Richardson. Published by the university in Chapel Hill, 1998; 284 pages.
Game Changers
Chansky, Art · 2016
Art Chansky's 2016 account of Dean Smith, Charlie Scott and the years that changed Chapel Hill as a Southern college town. Scott was the first Black scholarship player in the Carolina basketball program. Topics include civil rights, racism in sports and the university's twentieth-century history.
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William Friday
Link, William A. · 1995
Biography of William C. Friday, president of the University of North Carolina system, by historian William A. Link, published by UNC Press in 1995 with the subtitle power, purpose, and American higher education. It covers Friday's career and the history of the university at Chapel Hill and statewide. Part of the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection.
Light on the Hill
Snider, William D. · 1992
William D. Snider's history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1992. It runs 370 pages with illustrations, a bibliography and an index.
Reviewed in History of Education Quarterly (1993), The Journal of Southern History (1993).
Chapel Hill in Plain Sight
Athas, Daphne · 2010 · Eno Publishers
Twelve essays by novelist Daphne Athas (1923-2020) on the Chapel Hill she knew across the twentieth century. Subjects include Carrboro as 'the Paris of the Piedmont', philosopher Horace Williams, Betty Smith writing in Chapel Hill, Junius Scales, Ab Abernethy and the Intimate Bookshop, Richard Wright's visit, and a set of Chapel Hill murders. Published 2010, 243 pages with illustrations.
What it means to be a Tar Heel: Roy Williams and North Carolina's greatest players
Fowler, Scott · 2010 · Triumph Books
Scott Fowler gathers recollections from Carolina basketball players, decade by decade from the 1950s to the 2000s, organized around Roy Williams and the question in the title. Contributors include Lennie Rosenbluth, Larry Brown, Billy Cunningham, Charlie Scott, Phil Ford, James Worthy, Brad Daugherty, Eric Montross, Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Raymond Felton and Sean May, each entry giving position and playing years. Published 2010 by Triumph Books of Chicago, 270 pages, here as an e-book.
The Campus of the First State University
Henderson, Archibald · 1949
Archibald Henderson's history of the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, its buildings and grounds from the founding in the 1790s onward. Henderson, a professor of mathematics and a prolific historian of the university, wrote it in the years around the university's sesquicentennial. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 412 pages with illustrations and bibliographical footnotes.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1949), South Atlantic Quarterly (1950).
The Woman Who Rang the Bell: The Story of Cornelia Spencer Phillips
Russell, Charles Phillips · 1949
Charles Phillips Russell's biography of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825-1908), the Chapel Hill writer remembered for ringing the bell of South Building when the university reopened in 1875 after its closure during Reconstruction. It doubles as a history of Chapel Hill and the university. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 293 pages with illustrations.
Reviewed in Journal of American History (1949).
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