315 East Rosemary Street
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ANDREW MICKEL HOUSE
c. 1855, c. 1945, 1970s
Set back from the street on a large lot at the northwest corner of East Rosemary and Hillsborough streets, the two-story, side-gabled house is three bays wide and double-pile. It has a painted brick exterior with weatherboards on the second-floor façade, which projects slightly, and partial cornice returns. The house has six-over-six wood-sash windows with eight-light casements at the second floor over the entrances, and exterior end brick chimneys. A double-leaf door on the façade has three-light-over-one-panel sidelights and a seven light transom. An original two-story front porch was removed about 1945 leaving the front door accessed by an uncovered brick stoop. There are vinyl windows on the first-floor right (east) elevation. Two two-story gabled ells extend from the rear (north) elevation, each with weatherboards and six-over-six wood-sash windows. There is a two-story, shed-roofed frame section between the ells and one-story, shed-roofed brick sections at the outside of the ells, flush with the side elevations of the main section. A one-story, gabled brick wing extends from the right elevation and a later, one-story gabled brick wing extends from the rear of the two-story, shed-roofed section with four-over-four window and an exterior end brick chimney. A stone wall extends along the front and right sides of the property, a stepped brick wall extends around a patio at the left rear (northwest), and a stone culvert extends across the left side of the property bordering 305-307 East Rosemary.
The house seems to have been built between 1853 and 1858, probably by Isaac Collier, who owned the land in 1853. In 1858 Andrew Mickle was granted the land, but he seems to have resided there the year before. An 1866 conveyance of the property definitely mentions a house here. From 1885 to 1890 it was owned by Dr. Adolphus Mangum, a professor at the university and Methodist Minister, and in 1944 it was purchased from his heirs by Betty Smith, a novelist best known for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Smith renovated the house, removing a sagging two-story front porch and installing the brick veneer. The rear of the house was enlarged after 1949, as only a one-story rear ell appears on the 1949 Sanborn map.
In the 2015 survey, this was deemed a Contributing Building.
SHED
c. 1930, 1970s
Front-gabled, frame shed with a side-gabled wing on the left (south) elevation and a projecting, gabled bay on the front (east) elevation. The building has board-and-batten sheathing, vinyl windows, and a six-panel door. A smaller shed first appears on the 1932 Sanborn map, but has been enlarged, likely in the 1970s. 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.
