Former Duke Student Houses Get a Makeover

A Hard Hat Home Tour in Trinity Park Sunday will showcase several of the dozen student rental houses that Duke University purchased in 2006 then resold to owner-occupants. New owners are now restoring the homes.

The Hard Hat Home Tour is 1-5 p.m. April 13. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance at Regular Bookshop or Stone Bros. & Byrd. Tickets will also be available on the day of the tour in front of George Watts Montessori Magnet School (Watts St. and Dacian Ave.).

Visitors will tour 10 houses, some of which were in such poor structural condition when purchased, they could have easily been razed were it not for the restrictive covenants placed on the structures.

"It isn't always an easy endeavor to preserve our architectural heritage," says Gary Kueber, writer of the Endangered Durham blog. "Neglect can destroy an old building just as surely as a bulldozer, albeit more insidiously and less dramatically."

Visitors can see what it takes to restore an old home, from the framing and foundation work to picking out a slab of granite for the kitchen. They'll also see how green building techniques can be integrated into an older home. Several of the renovating contractors and designers will be available to answer questions.

Visitors also will receive a source book that tells the story of each home's transformation, offers how-to advice from renovation experts and offers a list of subcontractors and resources used for each project. It's a useful guide for anyone planning an old-house renovation of their own.

Some homes are at the beginning of the process, while other homes are finished and lived in. One home on the tour is 704 N. Buchanan Blvd. is a three-story, 4,000-plus sq. ft. house being made over by Sam and Jo Wells. Sam Wells is dean of Duke Chapel, while Jo Wells teaches Old Testament and Anglican studies at Duke's Divinity School.

The new owners are working with general contractors Trinity Design/Build to use green principles in the house renovation. All the flooring is either original or reclaimed wood. The original windows are intact and will be made efficient either with custom-built wood storm windows or by adding another pane to the existing single-paned windows. The HVAC system has three zones, which offers efficiency in cooling and heating. Solar panels on the roof will heat water, and a cistern will capture rainwater for outdoor watering.

In addition, dual-flush toilets, plus a complex pipe-and-cistern system that captures gray water and recirculates it to all the toilets in the house, will conserve many gallons of water a day.

A second house on the tour, the Sweaney House at 1005 Watts Street, used to stand at 104 N. Buchanan Blvd., until late 2006, when it was split into several pieces, put on trailers and driven down the street to its current location. Built in 1906, the Colonial Revival style house was originally part of the Watts Hospital complex, and eventually sold to McPherson Hospital, an eye, ear, nose and throat hospital.

Today it has been completely restored, and is occupied by Travis Pipkin and Rick Kappelmann, who is, coincidentally, a physician at North Carolina Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat Hospital -- formerly McPherson Hospital.

Other houses on the tour include 702, 508, 402, 201 and Duke Campus Ministry's Wesley House at 106 N. Buchanan Blvd. Other houses are 805 and 203 Watts St. and 1103 Urban Ave.