Chapel Hill is the perfect college town: ivy-covered buildings and stone walls,
majestic oaks and hallowed halls. You'll be as enchanted as you are busy with
the bustle of myriad of things to do, from football Saturdays to Shakespeare
plays. Intellectualism blends with funk, and art and music are aftermaths of
cafe´ days.
Sprung from a textile town on the other side of the tracks,
Carrboro blends blue-collar folks with a Birkenstock crowd. They mingle in the
shops, eateries and the community-owned grocery at the refurbished and
transformed Carr Mill. At tables next to its lawn graced with sand sculptures,
they listen to live music at Sunday brunch while they munch, drink and talk
about topics from horses to hammers.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro – the name slips off the tongue as
one, and the towns' boundaries blur. But these are two towns with distinct yet
compatible personalities. Together, they give you a lifestyle unlike any place
in North Carolina.
Settled in the late 1700s, Chapel Hill is home to the
country's first state university. There's no question that The University of
North Carolina brands the town as an intellectual haven. Professors, scientists
and students crowd the streets and mull theory and practice at coffee shops
aromatically laced with scones and cappuccinos. Not to be left out, business and
corporate types, along with artists, writers, retirees and homemakers,
intermingle and create a cosmopolitan scene as likely to ring with French or
Spanish as English.
Downtown Franklin Street is touted to be the most vibrant downtown in the state. Night or day, you can join the throngs to enjoy hosts of shopping, dining and entertainment choices. Rooftop and streetside restaurants are varied enough to suit any culinary craving. Bars and coffee shops punctuate the scene. Shops range from the clothing and home furnishings lair of Alexander Julian – that nationally known, home-grown designer – to the Gap, for those whose taste is to dress-down with style.
If you want more choices, head east on Franklin Street and
turn right on Estes Drive to find University Mall and browse department stores.
Or head west to Carrboro. Trek through Carr Mill or along Carrboro's main
streets where you'll find rock shops and rug shops sprinkled amid stores
specializing in local crafts like pottery and woodworking.
If sports are your pleasure, you're in blue heaven. Tar
Heel basketball, football and soccer draw sell-out crowds. If you'd rather play
than watch, Chapel Hill and Carrboro have many youth and adult sports
activities, from league play and clinics to drop-in free play. Scattered about
the towns are parks, swimming pools, gymnasiums and lighted athletic fields in
addition to an extensive network of greenways, biking and nature trails.
The university itself is a recreation cornucopia. You can
stroll Coker Arboretum for a garden walk where fragrant flowers bloom even in
February. Then take in a star show at the adjacent Morehead Planetarium, where
early NASA astronauts studied celestial navigation. Nearby, the Ackland Art
Museum's collection spans Roman sculpture to contemporary paintings. Hill Hall,
located behind Ackland, hosts recitals, concerts and public lectures, as does
Memorial Hall on Cameron Avenue. If theater suits you, enjoy a play at the
PlayMakers Repertory, which has drawn renowned actors like Eva Marie Saint.
Farther afield, the North Carolina Botanical Gardens is the largest natural
garden of its kind in the Southeast. In Carrboro, The ArtsCenter is acclaimed
for its plays, family shows, dances, and jazz concerts.
Chapel Hill and Carrboro have numerous neighborhoods from
which to choose. The towns have exploded since the completion of I-40 made them
easy retreats from Triangle workplaces. While many Chapel Hill homes –
especially new ones – are among the most expensive in the state, others tucked
in older neighborhoods have prices more comparable to those in other Triangle
cities. Average home prices in Carrboro tend to be lower.
Find yourself a real estate agent who knows the area to
learn all your options. In the meantime, here's a taste of what the towns have
to offer: In Chapel Hill, historic neighborhoods with Victorian to contemporary
charm encircle the university. The Cameron-McCauley district is south of
Franklin Street and west of Columbia Street. The regal, 80-year-old Carolina
Inn, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is located on the
district's border. The Franklin-Rosemary section, similar to Cameron-McCauley
with its 1920s- and 1930s-era homes, is just north of Franklin Street. The
Chapel Hill Preservation Society is headquartered there in the Horace Williams
House, a 19th-century farmhouse.
On the east side of campus off Country Club Road, Gimghoul
Road's stately homes adorn a winding loop on a bluff adjacent to Battle Park, a
forested preserve with trails. In winter through Battle Park's bare trees, you
can catch glimpses of house lights in Glendale. Located between Franklin Street
and Battle Park's northern edge, Glendale's homes, many of which were built in
the 1940 and '50s, are tucked into bluffs overlooking the woods. The atmosphere
is more reminiscent of a mountain community than a town.
Scattered through these neighborhoods is the occasional new
home, designed to blend with the community's feel. Between the 1950s and 1980s,
neighborhoods developed off major roads leading away from campus. Their
personalities vary by style and year built. There's Morgan Creek, reached off
the 15-501 Bypass, with discretely spaced homes on wooded lots. Brick ranch
homes sprinkle among two-story colonials and contemporaries, many of which sit
above the creek named Morgan. Colony Woods, off Ephesus Church Road, is a
family-oriented neighborhood with split-level and Colonial motifs. Timberlyne,
north of town off Weaver Dairy Road, is a more recent incarnation of the
walkable neighborhood where kids play along sidewalks. Shopping centers with
grocery and sundry shops are close enough to bike or walk to.
Lakeshore Drive is a tonier version. Like many older Chapel
Hill neighborhoods, its homes are widely spaced and built amid trees. The
Lakeshore community has the added benefit of enjoying a private, community-owned
lake on whose banks many of its splendid homes sit. Other family-oriented
communities in the north part of town – such as Mt. Bolus, located off Airport
Road, and Ironwoods and North Haven, located off Seawell School Road – are as
convenient to I-40 as to UNC.
A number of new communities are in the northern part of
Chapel Hill. All you have to do to find them from downtown is drive north on
Airport Road toward I-40. They include Parkside and Windsor Place. You'll find
others – such as Chandler's Green and Silver Creek – by turning right at Weaver
Dairy Road. These communities have spacious, expensive homes featuring amenities
such as arched windows and two-storied great rooms, media rooms, elaborate baths
with whirlpools and master suites with fireplaces. Lot sizes tend to be small,
lending them a more urban feel.
Southern Village, one of several communities on Chapel
Hill's south side, and the newer Meadowmont, fronting U.S. 54 on Chapel Hill's
east side, are probably the most talked about. Each has its brand of urban aura.
Southern Village is designed to be reminiscent of grand old towns like
Charleston. It has its own public square, main street business district, church,
day care and school. The homes incorporate architectural themes that include
fronts or sides faced with upstairs and downstairs porches, and alleyway
entrances. Meadowmont cascades across more than 400 acres. Clusters of
single-family homes sit adjacent to apartment complexes, in a blend of
contemporary styles. A school and office buildings are also tucked within its
borders.
And then there's Carrboro. From Carrboro's Main Street, either go north on Greensboro Street (by Carr Mill Mall) or head west along Main toward U.S. 54 and sidestep onto streets of established neighborhoods whose home choices range from ranch, colonial, contemporary and transitional. Carrboro also has many new communities filled with beautiful contemporary homes. Sunset Creek is on the north side of town. Brookfield at Berryhill is south, off Smith Level Road. Bel Arbor sits off Hillsborough Road. Cedars at Bolin Forest, off Greensboro Street, is within walking distance of Carrboro's heart of town.