304 East Franklin Street

CHAPEL OF THE CROSS
1846, 1890, 1917, 1925. 1960s, 2014
The Chapel of the Cross was constructed in three distinct building periods, utilizing different styles and materials, and, as such, reads as three distinct, though connected buildings. The original Chapel of the Cross was completed in 1846 in the Gothic Revival style. The front-gabled church three bays wide and four bays deep and is of load-bearing red brick construction, covered with parging. There is a projecting watertable encircling the building and coped battlements conceal the gabled roof on the side elevations. Leaded-glass lancet windows, installed in 1917, have two trefoil-headed panels united by a quatrefoil in the point of the arch and are located on the façade and side elevations. Windows on the side elevations are separated by stepped buttresses with sloped caps. Windows on the façade flank a three-stage crenelated tower centered on the façade with brick coping outlining the crenellations and a double-brick string course beneath the crenellations. Double-leaf arched doors on the first-floor of the tower, each contain a long panel headed by a round trifoliated arch, and are recessed within a shallow paneled Tudor arch. Above the arch is a crocketted wood ogee hoodmold. Above the entrance is a large lancet window, matching the others, with a projecting hoodmold. At the top of the tower, each elevation has paired rectangular louvered vents with square brick hoodmold. Polygonal turrets at each corner of the tower are buttressed at the base and terminate in blunt octagonal projections. The rear elevation of the building was obscured by a gabled addition to the building, the projected beyond the right (west) elevation, that appears on the 1925 Sanborn maps and was likely built concurrent with the larger sanctuary to the east.

By 1915, likely in anticipation of the 1925 sanctuary, a two-story, front-gabled hyphen at the left rear (southeast) corner of the chapel was constructed and connected to a two-story, side-gabled addition that extended east and connected to the rear of the 1925 sanctuary. While the rear of the addition has been obscured by later additions, but the front is visible from the cloister. The hyphen and side-gabled wing are of red brick construction with a slate roof, metal-framed casement windows, and one-story buttresses with concrete caps. There is a brick chimney at the intersection of the hyphen and wing and a one-story, flat-roofed addition was constructed after 1960 and extends the full width of the wing along the north elevation facing the cloister. The one-story wing has metal windows with concrete sill and lintels and an arched, batten door centered on the north elevation is sheltered by a flared, copper hipped roof.

The cloister, bordered by the 1846 chapel on the west, the 1915 and 1960s addition on the south, the 1925 sanctuary on the east, and a 1925 covered walkway on the north has an open grassy space with brick walks, several wood benches, foundation plantings along its south and west sides, and a large tree in the southeast corner. The covered walkway that spans the north side of the cloister connects the 1846 chapel and the 1925 sanctuary. The side-gabled structure has a slate roof, five pointed-arch openings on the north and south elevations, and a slate floor that extends north to abut a circular drive at the front (north) of the chapel.

Begun in 1924 and completed in 1925, the large, front-gabled, Gothic Revival-style church stands east of the 1846 chapel. The front-gabled church is granite with cast-stone detailing and a Flemish gable with cast-stone coping and a cross at the peak. It has a projecting water table and beltcourse as well as stepped stone buttresses with cast-stone caps. A cornerstone at the front right (northwest) corner reads “The Chapel of the Cross 1924.” The entrance, centered on the façade, has double-leaf doors with decorative lights with a trefoil pattern, a blind stone panel above, and is slightly recessed in a pointed-arched stone surround. The entrance is flanked by narrow seven-light windows in stone surrounds. Cast-stone detailing around the entrance bay includes decorative stone tracery in the spandrels and a stone sill and surround for the two-story, pointed-arch, stained-glass window above the entrance. A four-story crenelated tower at the front right corner has beltcourses separating the levels, fixed windows at the first and third levels, and paired, pointed-arch louvered vents at the top with stone corbelling above and a stone beltcourse below. An entrance on the right (west) elevation has double-leaf, pointed-arch batten doors in a stone surround. The side elevations are each five bays deep with a projecting cross bay at the apse on the south end and buttresses separating the bays. They have paired metal-framed windows in stone surrounds at the floor level with large, pointed-arch, stained-glass windows in stone surrounds, matching that one the façade, above.

At the rear of the 1925 sanctuary, and constructed between 1960 and 1974, is a two-story-with-basement, hip-roofed, Tudor-Revival-style education wing with red brick exterior and slate roof. The six-bay-wide wing was enlarged to seven bays in 2014 to connect to a newly constructed section at the southwest, though finishes on the seventh bay match those on the original building. It has paired, ten-light, metal-framed casement windows with cast-stone sills and lintels, a stone watertable, and arched copper roof dormers with louvered vents.

A large, front-gabled addition southwest of the 1846 chapel was constructed in 2014 and connects to the 1925 wing at the rear of the chapel and fills the ell created by the 1846 chapel and 1960s education wing. The front-gabled, red brick building employs a combination of Tudor Revival- and Gothic Revival-style details including a projecting cast-stone bay on the façade, stepped chimneys, and pointed-arch windows. The two-story-with-basement building has a slate roof and is six bays deep with brick buttresses with cast-stone caps dividing the bays. The right (west) elevation has tall, pointed-arch windows, mimicking those on the 1925 santuary, with header-course pointed arches with cast stone keystones and springers. The rear two bays project under a hipped roof and have rectangular windows with stone sills. A skylight that extends along the middle three bays of the building as the first-floor level lights basement spaces below. There are five gabled wall dormers on the west elevation, each with paired, six-light casement windows and with a shed-roofed dormers extending between each gable dormer. At the front, a lower, offset, two-story, front-gabled wing is three bays wide with a stepped chimney at the northwest corner and a shed-roofed dormer on the west elevation. The center bay has windows in a stone surround with a projecting, canted stone bay at the second-floor level. There is a six-light-over-two-panel door on the west elevation accessed by concrete stairs with a brick knee wall that is tied into the brick façade. Three four-light casement windows to the south of the door have a stone sill. The rear elevation of the gabled wing that three entrance bays separated by pilasters. Each entrance has paired six-light-over-two-panel doors with a cast-stone lintel with decorative relief. Above the lintel, pointed-arch windows are located in header-course pointed arch surrounds with cast-stone keystones and springers. There is a group of three windows in the gable with a decorative brick band above.

The front-gabled 2014 addition is connected to the hip-roofed education wing by a two-story, side-gabled wing that abuts the rear of the 1915, side-gabled addition. This side-gabled section is three bays side with two entrances flanking an exterior, stepped brick chimney with stone details on the south elevation and a third entrance on the east end in a recessed bay. The entrances are each paired, six-light-over-two-panel doors. Groups of three six-light casement windows at the second-floor level have stone sills and there are two gabled dormers with copper sheathing on the south elevation, flanking the chimney. One dormer has a louvered vent and the other a fixed window. The front (north) elevation of this wing, features an inset entrance, nestled between the front-gabled wing and the 1846 chapel. It has painted doors with sidelights, all with trefoil details, sheltered by a copper shed roof and accessed by a brick stair and terrace. A brick terrace extends the width of the 2014 front- and side-gabled wings, bordered by the stone wall of Coker Arboretum to the south. A modern playground is located on the west elevation of the front-gabled wing.

On May 23, 1842, twenty-eight persons under the leadership of the Reverend William Mercer Green, rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Hillsborough and professor of belles-lettres at the university, organized a parish. It was known as the Church of the Atonement of the Protestant Episcopal of North America. The building of a sanctuary, designed by Philadelphia architect Thomas U. Walter, was begun a year later. Delayed by an economic depression, construction was not completed until 1846 [Little]. The church was consecrated in that year and named the Chapel of the Cross. A plaque on the building indicates that the chancel and northwest vestry were added in 1890 and the current windows installed in 1917. By 1921, the congregation had outgrown the building and hired Hobart B. Upjohn to design a new structure adjacent to the first. The building was completed in 1925. According to Sanborn maps, the building was enlarged again between 1960 and 1974 with a hip-roofed classroom wing at the southeast corner.

In the 2015 survey, this was deemed a Contributing Building..

SHED - GENERAL STORAGE
2014
Constructed concurrent with the 2014 addition to the rear of the chapel, this one-story, side-gabled shed has a Flemish-bond brick veneer, with brick lintels and diagonally laid brick at the roofline of the gable ends. It has a slate roof, paired metal doors on the south and east elevations, and paired, metal-framed windows with concrete sills on the north and east elevations. In the 2015 survey, this was deemed a Noncontributing Building..


SOURCE: Heather Wagner Slane, National Register of Historic Places Nomination: Chapel Hill Historic District Boundary Increase and Additional Documentation, Orange County, OR1750 (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, 2015), courtesy of the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office.

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304 E. Franklin Street