604 East Franklin Street
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F. K. BALL HOUSE
1880, c. 1910, c. 1920
A rare example of the Shingle style in Chapel Hill, this one-and-a-half-story, side-gabled house has a steeply pitched roof that dominates the façade. The house is four bays wide and double-pile with a pedimented, front-gabled dormer centered on the façade and two interior, stuccoed chimneys. It has plain weatherboards on the first floor, shingles on the second floor and gables with the bottom of the gables and the bottom of the second floor each flaring slightly. Gables are uniquely adorned with diagonally applied shingles in place of a one-piece bargeboard and the wide eaves on the gable ends have exposed rafters. Windows are twelve-over-two wood-sash windows and there are eight-over-two windows in the front dormer. The one-light-over-four-panel door has leaded-glass-over-one-panel sidelights and is sheltered by a full-width, inset porch supported by weatherboard-covered columns on a weatherboard-covered knee wall. To the left (east) of the entrance is a projecting canted bay with leaded-glass windows on three sides. The bay wraps around the left elevation where it is covered with a hipped roof. The second floor on the left (east) elevation overhangs the first floor slightly with a half-round window in the gable. On the right elevation there is are eyebrows over the second floor and gable windows with a pyramid pent roof over a small second-floor leaded-glass window near the façade.
A two-story, pedimented, side-gabled wing projects from the left elevation and has stucco covering the west side of the first floor facade. The left bay of this wing is inset slightly, indicating that it may have been constructed as an inset porch that was later enclosed. There is a wide, two-story gabled ell at the left rear (southeast) and a two-story, shed-roofed screened porch wraps around the right rear (southwest) corner of the house and is supported by square posts on a weatherboard-covered knee wall. A one-story, telescoping, gable- and hip-roofed wing projects from the rear of the two-story ell. It has weatherboards, one-over-one wood-sash windows, and an exterior brick chimney on the east elevation. A hip-roofed, sunporch extends from the south end of the wing.
A plaque on the building reads “Lawson House c. 1900,” however, Little dates the building to 1880, noting that it was built in 1880 by F. K. Ball, given to the University in 1896, and leased back to him for fifty years. Ball left in 1907 and the house was leased on April 1, 1907 to Dr. R. B. Lawson, who purchased it in June of that year and remodeled it to its current form about 1910. The house appears in this form, including the telescoping rear wing, on the 1915 Sanborn map. A one-story porch on the southwest corner was added between 1915 and 1925 and the house was likely remodeled to its current Shingle-style appearance at that time. The second-floor porch at the southwest corner was added later.
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.
