321 West Cameron Avenue

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CHI PSI FRATERNITY HOUSE
1930
NR nomination: This large brick-veneered two-and-a-half-story structure is predominantly Jacobethan in feeling, but has French Norman Revival elements in an eclecticism that was common among buildings of this era, designed in the first decades of the twentieth century in what Walter Kidney calls "the architecture of choice" (Lefler and Wager 1953, p. 302-321). The building features 2 three-bay blocks bisected by a shallowly projecting two-bay element with a hipped roof set transverse to the gabled main segment, the roof of which is steep and slate-covered. The three-bay principle block is asymmetrical and features the Tudor-arched recessed entry flanked on the right by two ranks of casement windows with arched transoms and keystones, typical of the fenestration throughout on this story. The entry surround and sills are light-colored pre-cast concrete resembling stone. The second story windows are with keystoned casements, the third contains seven dormers with casements, each of which is surmounted by a hipped roof. To the rear, there is a large, two-story gabled ell projecting from the center of the building. In the junction of the ell and the west wing, a square tower rises the full two and one-half stories of the building. The building sits deeply on its lot, surrounded by a brick wall and mature plantings. The building was erected on the lot owned by David McCauley after whom McCauley Street was named, a wealthy landowner and merchant whose grandfather was among the original donors of university land. McCauley moved from west Franklin Street to a c. 1895 Gothic Revival house on this site purchased from original owner Dr. Johnston Blakeley Jones. The property was purchased in 1928 through the McCauley and Lindsay families by William Chambers Coker, founder and first chair of the UNC Botany Department, who was himself a wealthy landowner and developer (Vickers 1985, p. 131). When the Jones House was destroyed, Coker encouraged the erection of the present building for the Chi Psi Fraternity. This lot was only minimally subdivided and is the only example of what was the typical lot size along Cameron Avenue.

In the 1998 survey, this was deemed a Contributing Building.

2015 Survey Update: The building appears to have replacement windows throughout, including on the hip-roofed dormers, which are fully sheathed with slate and have slate roofs. First floor windows have arched surround and second floor windows have flat-arch lintels, both with cast stone keystones and sills. The front door is a batten door with a single light and has an arched five-light transom. A brick terrace extends across the right two-thirds of the building. There are exterior chimneys in the right and left gable ends as well as two interior brick chimneys. A one-story, shed-roofed entrance bay on the right (west) elevation of the rear wing has a flared metal roof and a replacement door. A brick wall extends along Cameron Street with a loose stone wall along Ransom Street at the west end of the property.

GAZEBO
1930
Hip-roofed gazebo with exposed rafter tails, tapered wood columns with diagonal braces, and a concrete floor. In the 1998 survey this structure was deemed Contributing.

FIRE PIT
1930
Modern stone fire pit near the northwest corner of the property. In the 1998 survey this structure was deemed Noncontributing.

CHIMNEY
1895
Stone chimney with a brick firebox, located at the south end of the property, is likely a remnant of the Jones House. In the 1998 survey this structure was deemed Noncontributing.

SOURCES: Kaye Graybeal, National Register of Historic Places Nomination: West Chapel Hill Historic District, Orange County OR1439 (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, 1998); Heather Slane and Cheri Szcodronski, 2015 Survey Update (NCSHPO HPOWEB 2.0, accessed 10 Jan. 2020); courtesy of the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office.