203 Battle Lane

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SENLAC
1843, 1876, 1920s, 1950s
Senlac is impressively sited on a large lot on the east side of Battle Lane, set far back from the street, and facing UNC campus to the west. The two-story, side-gabled house is five bays wide and is flanked by one-story, hip-roofed wings with wide cornices that project beyond the façade of the house. The house has vinyl siding, boxed eaves on the façade and rear elevation, flush eaves on the gable ends, and three interior brick chimneys. It has six-over-six wood-sash windows and a six-panel door with four-light-over-one-panel sidelights and a multi-light, three-part transom centered on the façade. The full-width hip-roofed porch is supported by columns and has a brick floor and steps with a modern accessible ramp on its left (north) side. The one-story, hip-roofed wings each have original six-over-six wood-sash windows with drip molding on the façade, replacement four-over-four windows on the side elevations, interior brick chimneys, and full cornice returns on the gable end facing the main house. Entrances from the porch to each wing are six-panel doors with three-light transoms. Behind the left wing is an original one-story, hip-roofed enclosed porch; it has vinyl siding between narrow posts, a fifteen-light French door on the north elevation and a pair of four-over-four windows on the east elevation. A near-full-width, two-story gabled rear addition, constructed after 1949, features a combination of six-over-six and eight-over-eight windows. A one-story, hip-roofed wing wraps around the southeast corner of the house and rear ell. The south portion was originally an open porch matching that on the northeast corner of the house, but has been integrated into the flat-roofed addition. It has vinyl siding, nine-over-nine windows on the south elevation, and six-over-six windows and a modern loading dock on the east elevation.

Built in 1843 by William Horn Battle, founder of the University of North Carolina law school, the house was the childhood home of William Battle’s son Kemp, who was later to become president of the university. Kemp Battle returned to Chapel Hill to assume the office of president after living in Raleigh for several years where he had been a lawyer prominent in political affairs. He decided to purchase the house he had grown up in, to which he was “greatly attached,” rather than live in the university-owned residence that usually served as the president’s home. He named the house, which he had considerably enlarged and remodeled in 1876, Senlac after the hill where Harold surrendered to William the Conqueror. In the early 1920s the house was further remodeled by Dr. John Booker, husband of Kemp Battle’s granddaughter. The one- and two-story rear wings at the rear were added after 1949 [Sanborn 1925, 1932, 1949]. It is now used as the Baptist Campus Ministry.

In the 2015 survey, this was deemed a Contributing 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.